Human Resource Blog

Retaliation in Minnesota

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One employee has made several discrimination complaints with the EEOC and Human Resources. Can I fire her for being a troublemaker, in Minnesota?

No. It is clearly illegal.

Whether the complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) were valid or not, retaliation can be discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You as an employer are forbidden from finding an excuse to fire a worker simply because she has made discrimination complaints. That applies whether those complaints were made to the EEOC or to your Human Resources department.

There are all kinds of ways employers may retaliate. They include changing working conditions, changing pay, or demoting a worker. They may include changing job duties. The employer may encourage other workers not to talk to the complainant, or to shun her in other ways. Retaliation may be done through failure to promote or failure to give a raise, if that promotion or raise is merited. If it is retaliation, however, it is illegal.

Retaliation can become expensive to a company. Take, for example, a discrimination case brought against a Fort Collins, Colorado-based company for practices in its factories in Rockford and Rockton, Illinois. The EEOC found that company, Woodward Governor, was discriminating against Hispanic, Asian, and African American workers, as well as women employees.

The suit based on race was filed in 2003 after a 2002 complaint, and the suit arguing discrimination based on gender followed in 2006.

The company paid out $5 million. During the case, the employees who had made the complaints were retained in their jobs. If the company had retaliated against them, the case could have cost Woodward Governor much more money.

Title VII covers all kinds of discrimination, whether based on race, skin color, national origin, sex, or religion. Many companies discriminate. If those companies could fire or otherwise retaliate against workers who bring discrimination complaints, then the discrimination would never end.

Fortunately for employees, the costs can be great to companies for retaliating against what those companies deem to be trouble-making complainants.