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Dive brief:
- A staffing firm that allegedly failed to hire women for construction jobs, black workers in certain areas or people over 40 has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to a January 16 press release.
- A recruiter for TKO Construction Services in Coon Rapids, Minn., left the company after its president confirmed the policies to her and said that they were on site to attend to customer requests. Under the terms of the settlement, TKO will pay the employee who quit as well as the people who were discriminated against.
- In addition, the company will implement hiring practices to provide women, black workers and people over 40 with equal employment opportunities and will identify and report customers who make discriminatory requests for employees, according to the EEOC.
Diving knowledge:
Employment laws prohibit employers from discriminating against applicants based on protected characteristics such as sex, race, and age.
“Employers cannot refuse to hire or assign people to work based on sex, race or age because their clients tell them they are engaging in discrimination,” said District Attorney Gregory Gochanour of Chicago of the EEOC, in the statement.
The continued underrepresentation of women and workers of color in construction is an area of particular concern to the EEOC, according to the statement. The EEOC has singled out the industry, which has a long-standing white-guy-only reputation, as one of particular concern because of the atrocious nature of many complaints.
However, the agency’s focus on the industry may change during President Donald Trump’s second term. On Tuesday, the EEOC announced that Trump had appointed Republican EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas as acting chair. In a statement, Lucas said his priorities would include eliminating “DEI-motivated racial and sex discrimination” and protecting American workers from “anti-American national origin discrimination.”
“I look forward to restoring the fair enforcement of labor civil rights laws for all Americans,” Lucas said.
TKO Construction Services, which provides temporary services employees for commercial, residential, catering, heavy industrial and energy construction companies, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
