Human Resource Blog

Retaliation in Iowa

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One employee has made several discrimination complaints with the EEOC and Human Resources. Can I fire her for being a trouble-maker, in

Iowa?

The answer is an emphatic “no.” You CAN NOT find an excuse to fire an employee just because she’s made several discrimination complaints to the EEOC or your Human Resources department.

Even if the original complaint was not valid, retaliation alone can constitute discrimination under the law.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or country of origin. That same law prohibits retaliation against employees who file complaints in good faith.

Think of it this way: sadly, many companies do discriminate against employees. If it was legal for employers to fire every employee to complain, no one would ever complain. And, the discrimination would continue.

Types of retaliation can include demotion, a change in job duties, a change in working conditions or a change in pay. An orchestrated effort to get other employees not to speak to the employee in question, or to exclude her in other ways, can also be construed as retaliation. Failing to promote the employee, or to give a wage increase that she is otherwise entitled to, is also retaliation under the law. All of these are illegal.

A recent landmark case in Illinois illustrates this principle. The EEOC found that Woodward Governor was discriminating against African American, Asian and Hispanic employees, and women, in its factories in Rockford and

Rockton, Illinois. Woodward Governor is based in

Fort Collins, Colorado. The first suit in this case, for race discrimination, was filed in 2003, based on a complaint filed in 2002. The EEOC added a second suit for sex discrimination in 2006. Both suits were just recently settled.

During all of that time, many of the complaining employees continued to work at the two plants. This discrimination case ended up costing the company $5 million. If the company had retaliated against them, the penalties would have been even more severe.

So you see, you really don’t want to retaliate against an employee you consider a trouble-maker.