In Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) news, the agency issued a report on the lack of diversity in the high-tech and filed—and settled—its first Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) cases.
In September, the EEOC issued a report, titled “High Tech, Low Inclusion: Diversity in the High-Tech Workforce and Sector 2014-2022,” where the agency said it found the underrepresentation of Black, Hispanic, female and older workers in the high-tech industry was due to “discriminatory barriers.”
For example, while women are almost half of the total U.S. workforce, the report found they made up only 22.6 percent of the high-tech workforce in all industries. Hispanic workers were only 9.9 percent of the high-tech workforce, while making up nearly one-fifth (or 18.7 percent) of the total U.S. workforce, and Black workers were just 7.4 percent of the high-tech workforce despite making up 11.6 percent of the total U.S. workforce.
The report analyzed demographic disparities for workers in the high-tech workforce, which the agency defined as 56 science, technology, engineering and mathematics occupations and the industries employing them, and discussed the four most common discrimination charges filed by high-tech industry workers with the EEOC: retaliation, disability discrimination, race discrimination and sex discrimination.
To address the agency’s concerns about representation, the EEOC suggested that high-tech companies proactively examine barriers limiting employment for women, older workers, Black workers and Hispanic workers.
In other news, the agency filed its first lawsuits under the PWFA, which took effect on June 27, 2023.
The PWFA, which applies to employers with 15 or more employees, requires that employers provide reasonable accommodations to qualified employees for a known limitation related to pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, unless the accommodation will cause the employer an undue hardship.
In the first case, the EEOC alleged in Kentucky federal court that Wabash National Corporation ran afoul of the law by failing to make pregnancy-related accommodations for an assembly line worker and that the employee was only offered unpaid leave as an accommodation for her pregnancy while other temporarily disabled, non-pregnant employees were offered “light duty.”
The agency also filed suit against Polaris Industries in Alabama federal court, accusing the company of refusing to excuse an employee’s pregnancy-related absences and assessing attendance points against the employee, requiring her to work overtime against her doctor’s orders and threatening to terminate her if she incurred another attendance point.
In a third case against Urologic Specialists of Oklahoma, the EEOC claimed that an employee in the final trimester of her high-risk pregnancy was advised by her doctor to take breaks, sit down or work part-time as needed. Instead, Urologic required the employee to take unpaid leave and declined to guarantee that the employee would be allowed breaks to pump breastmilk when she returned to work after giving birth.
Finally, the EEOC announced a settlement of PWFA charges against ABC Pest Control. According to the agency, the employer terminated a pregnant employee after she requested a reasonable accommodation to attend monthly medical appointments related to her pregnancy.
The conciliation agreement requires the employer to pay $47,480 to the former employee, appoint an EEO coordinator, revise its employment policies to include reasonable accommodations under the PWFA, provide relevant training to management and non-management employees, and send quarterly reports on requests for accommodation and complaints of discrimination to the EEOC.
To read the EEOC’s report on the high-tech industry, click here.
To read about the first PWFA lawsuit filed, click here.
To read about the EEOC’s first PWFA settlement, click here.
Why it matters:
Employers are likely to see an uptick in enforcement in the high-tech sector and additional PWFA cases from the EEOC. “America’s high-tech sector, which leads the world in crafting technologies of the future, should not have a workforce that looks like the past,” EEOC Chair Charlotte A. Burrows said in a statement about the report. “These data raise serious questions that deserve serious answers.” In a statement about the first PWFA lawsuit, Burrows noted that “protecting pregnant workers is a strategic enforcement priority for the EEOC.” The agency has backed up her comments with several additional PWFA actions in October.