Human Resource Blog

Retaliation in Pennsylvania

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We have one employee whose performance is good, but he is a troublemaker. In particular, I’m pretty sure that he has lodged at least one complaint against the company with the EEOC. Can I fire him?

No. Definitely not. The law prohibits it. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects him. That law prohibits discrimination based on race, color, sex, creed, or national origin. It also forbids retaliation against workers who make good-faith complaints. So you must not come up with an excuse to fire such an employee who has brought several complaints to your Human Resources department or to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Employers find many ways to retaliate, unfortunately. Besides firing, they include demotion, cuts in pay, changes in work conditions, and failure to give deserved pay hikes or promotions. Some employers even mastermind plans in which other workers will refuse to talk to the worker who files complaints, or to otherwise shun him.

These or any other forms of retaliation are illegal. Imagine what would happen if they were not. The purpose of Title VII is to eliminate racial and other forms of discrimination. If employers could retaliate with impunity, workers would be afraid to file Title VII complaints through the EEOC, and there would be no end to workplace discrimination.

Retaliation can be discrimination under the law. That means even in cases where the complaints were not legitimate.

It can be expensive.

A company known as Woodward Governor, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, recently paid $5 million as a result of complaints under Title VII. And that was its cost even though it had not retaliated against the workers who had charged discrimination. The workers were retained in their jobs. If Woodward Governor had retaliated against those workers, its costs could have been far greater than $5 million.

The milestone case grew out of two separate suits brought by the EEOC. In the first, EEOC found that the company discriminated against African-American, Hispanic and Asian workers at its Rockford and Rockton, Illinois factories. The complaint was filed in 2002 and EEOC pursued the suit in 2003. The second suit, in 2006, was filed on behalf of women workers in the same plants. The cases were settled recently.