Human Resource Blog

Federal Retaliation

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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, under federal law?

No. Definitely not. The law prohibits it. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects her. 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).

Firing a worker under a trumped-up excuse for the purposes of retaliation, if that worker has made complaints to the Human Resources department or to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), is clearly against the federal law. A number of states also have laws against this type of discrimination. 

Think of it this way. Many companies discriminate. If those companies could fire or otherwise retaliate against workers who bring discrimination complaints, then the discrimination would never end.

On another level, retaliation against workers who managers consider to be troublemakers can become expensive as well. Consider an important case in Illinois.

There, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, determined that a company called Woodward Governor, with headquarters in Fort Collins, Colorado, was discriminating against employees at plants in Rockton and

Rockford, Illinois.

The discrimination was against women, African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics.

The first lawsuit in 2003 applied to racial discrimination, and was based on a 2002 complaint. The second, for sex discrimination, was added in 2006.

The cases were settled recently, and cost the company $5 million. The employees who complained remained on their jobs. As costly as this suit was, it could have been much worse. If Woodward Governor had retaliated and fired the employees the costs to the company could have been far greater, which means that retaliation can come at a high price to the company or management which engages in it. JH