Scheduling
Time & Attendance
Forecasting
Employee App
Payroll Integrations
Communications
Workplace Culture
By Jon Hyman
Jun. 18, 2015
Does Title VII permit an employer to staff its stores based on the racial composition of its customers? That’s the question at the heart of EEOC v. AutoZone, currently pending in federal court in Chicago.
In the lawsuit, the EEOC alleges that the auto-parts retailer transferred African-American employees to certain stores in the Chicago area based on its conception that its Hispanic customers preferred to interact with Hispanic employees.
According to Employment Law 360 [sub. req.], AutoZone claims that the EEOC cannot prove its claim because the transferees would have suffered no loss in pay, benefits, position, or responsibilities, and therefore suffered no adverse employment action under Title VII.
Meanwhile, the EEOC claims that this brand of segregation is the exact type of discrimination Title VII is supposed to prohibit: “Structuring a workforce or work assignments by race is at the core of what Title VII was enacted to combat. Autozone’s argument boils down to the proposition that an employer is free to segregate its workforce so long as it is careful to do so through lateral transfers. Title VII is not that narrow.”
It seems to me that even if the pay, benefits, etc. were exactly the same in both stores, we abolished “separate-but-equal” 61 years ago, and Title VII should not permit an employers to Plessy v. Ferguson its workforce for any reason.
For more on customer preference as discrimination, check out the following two posts from the archives:
Come see what we’re building in the world of predictive employee scheduling, superior labor insights and next-gen employee apps. We’re on a mission to automate workforce management for hourly employees and bring productivity, optimization and engagement to the frontline.
Workplace Culture
Workplace productivity statistics and trends you need to knowSummary There was a 2.4% decrease in productivity in Q2 2022 – the largest decline since the U.S. Burea...
productivity, statistics, trends, workplace
Workplace Culture
5 lunch break statistics that shed light on American work cultureSummary Research shows how taking lunch breaks enhances employee engagement and productivity. Despite t...
lunch breaks, scheduling, statistics
Workplace Culture
6 Things Leadership can do to Prevent Nurse BurnoutSummary Nurse burnout is a serious issue in the healthcare business and has several negative consequenc...
burnout, Healthcare, hospitals, nurses