The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit Wednesday against United Pride Dairy, a dairy farm in Phillips, Wisconsin, alleging discrimination against three employees of Mexican origin and sexual harassment of a female employee, according to a press release (EEOC v. United Pride Dairy LLC).
\nThe dairy farm allegedly told three Mexican nationals that they would hold professional or management positions upon hiring but instead assigned them laborer positions. A manager \u201cjustified the disparate work assignment based on a negative stereotype of American workers, saying \u2018Americans are lazy,\u2019\u201d according to EEOC\u2019s description of the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.
\nUnited Pride Dairy also allegedly permitted a Mexican employee\u2019s direct supervisor to sexually harass her by frequently sending her demeaning pornographic images and repeatedly making sexually offensive comments to her, EEOC said. Nicole Marklein, a partner at Cross Jenks Mercer & Maffei LLP, the firm representing the defendant, said her \u201cclient denies that it discriminated against or otherwise mistreated any of its employees \u2014 regardless of their race, gender, nationality, or any other protected basis,\u201d in an emailed statement to HR Dive.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleged national origin discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorkplace actions based on unlawful stereotypes about any group of workers \u2014 including assumptions that foreign workers are somehow \u2018better\u2019 than Americans \u2014 are a serious violation of federal law,\u201d EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said in a statement. \u201cThe law is clear: employers cannot abuse the visa process to import foreign labor under false pretenses.\u201d<\/p>\n
National origin discrimination has been a focus of EEOC this year, particularly when it comes to anti-American national origin discrimination. After President Donald Trump named Lucas acting chair of the agency, she expressed a plan to reduce anti-American national origin discrimination, \u201cconsistent with the president\u2019s executive orders and priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
In February, Lucas decried the prevalence of unlawful bias against American workers, which she characterized as \u201ca large-scale problem in multiple industries nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMany employers have policies and practices preferring illegal aliens, migrant workers, and visa holders or other legal immigrants over American workers \u2014 in direct violation of federal employment law prohibiting national origin discrimination,\u201d Lucas said in the February statement. \u201cCracking down on this type of unlawful discrimination will shift employer incentives, decreasing demand for illegal alien workers and decreasing abuse of the United States\u2019 legal immigration system.\u201d<\/p>\n
EEOC continued to beat on this drum by publishing a technical assistance document in November showing how anti-American bias can violate Title VII. For example, disparate treatment can appear in hiring and compensation, workplace training, fringe benefits and promotion or demotion, EEOC said.<\/p>\n
In the United Pride Dairy case, Lucas said the \u201cillegal workplace misconduct\u201d harmed both American and foreign workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cFederal law provides even-handed protection for all workers, and the EEOC will vigorously enforce national origin protections,\u201d Lucas said in the statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are disappointed and concerned to learn that the EEOC has filed this lawsuit despite my client\u2019s full cooperation with an investigation that has revealed no evidence of unlawful discrimination or harassment,\u201d the defendant\u2019s attorney said in the statement. \u201cWhile my client and I wish the EEOC would use its resources to investigate and remediate true instances of employment discrimination, we have no choice but to vigorously defend this baseless lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit Wednesday against United Pride Dairy, a dairy farm in Phillips, Wisconsin, alleging discrimination against three employees of Mexican origin and sexual harassment of a female employee, according to a press release (EEOC v. United Pride Dairy LLC). The dairy farm allegedly told three Mexican nationals that […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talentcentralhr.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talentcentralhr.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talentcentralhr.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talentcentralhr.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talentcentralhr.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.talentcentralhr.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2878,"href":"https:\/\/www.talentcentralhr.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876\/revisions\/2878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talentcentralhr.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.talentcentralhr.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talentcentralhr.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.talentcentralhr.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}