Every day across the south workers are killed on the job, stolen from, discriminated against, or sexually harassed. Sometimes the employers are caught. Here are some of last week’s stories.
North Carolina Discriminators
PepsiCo Beverage Sales, LLC, a Delaware company operating a facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, agreed to pay $270,000 and work with an accessibility consultant to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
According to the EEOC’s suit, PepsiCo hired a blind employee as a customer care advocate for its Winston-Salem call center in April 2022. The employee requested a reasonable accommodation for his disability to allow him to access information in company computers needed to perform his job. When the company concluded it could not provide an accommodation, it fired him. The suit also alleged that PepsiCo rejected an offer by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Resources to assist PepsiCo with identifying accessibility solutions for the employee.
Under the two-year consent decree resolving the lawsuit, PepsiCo is enjoined from failing to provide a reasonable accommodation as required by the ADA; must work with an expert to ensure that certain software applications at the Winston-Salem facility will be accessible to individuals with visual disabilities; make periodic progress reports to the EEOC; maintain and distribute an anti-discrimination policy addressing reasonable accommodations; provide relevant training at its Winston-Salem facility; and post a notice of rights and obligations under the ADA.
As alleged, the conduct would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects employees and job seekers from disability discrimination. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.
Missouri Discriminators
Allied Services, LLC, doing business as Allied Waste Services of the Ozarks / Republic Services of the Ozarks, which provides waste management services nationwide, will pay $200,000 to settle a sex discrimination in hiring lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, in May 2020, Jamie Mendoza applied to work for Republic Services as a garbage truck driver based out of Springfield, Missouri. Company managers told Mendoza during her interview that female drivers had not worked out in the past, and she should carefully consider whether she wanted the position because Republic Services would have to build a locker room with a shower for female drivers if she were hired. The EEOC alleged that when Mendoza followed up and indicated she wanted the job, the company rejected her application and hired a less-qualified male for the position.
The company did not have any female drivers at the time. The suit also alleged that since at least March 2020, Republic Services routinely failed to hire qualified female applicants for driver positions because of their sex.
This alleged conduct violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination in employment. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.
Mississippi Thieves
The U.S. Department of Labor recovered $122,476 in back wages for 140 workers following an investigation that found a Mendenhall-based cooling, heating, and electrical employer failed to pay workers their full wages, in violation of federal law.
The department’s Wage and Hour Division determined that AirSouth LLC – operating as AirSouth Cooling and Heating – did not include non-discretionary bonuses when calculating overtime wages for workers and failed to issue final paychecks to two employees in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.