Human Resource Blog

EEOC and Retaliation in Montana

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An employee has made several discrimination complaints with the EEOC and Human Resources. Should I fire her for being a troublemaker, in

Montana?

A resounding NO is the answer to that question. It is unquestionably illegal. It goes against the laws established under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You as an employer must not come up with an excuse to fire or otherwise retaliate against a worker simply because she has made complaints to your Human Resources office or to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

In fact, even if the discrimination complaints weren’t valid, retaliation alone is grounds for a complaint with the EEOC and a lawsuit. 

Those methods of retaliation include not only firing but also demotion. They also include changing a complainant’s job conditions or duties. They may involve failing to give a pay hike or a promotion that is deserved. Some employers have been known to recruit other workers in a campaign of silence against the complaining employee, or to encourage fellow-workers to shun the complainant in other ways. 

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.

It can be expensive. Here’s one example: 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. JH