The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently announced a settlement in a long-standing racial discrimination lawsuit against delivery company DHL. The settlement requires DHL to pay $8.7 million to 83 Black employees in Chicago who were affected by the alleged discrimination. Additionally, former EEOC Commissioner Leslie Silverman will serve as the racial discrimination monitor for the class for a period of four years.
This isn’t the first time DHL has faced allegations of racial bias. Last year, its supply chain division settled a $2.7 million suit related to its criminal history screening policy, which was accused of disproportionately affecting Black and Hispanic job candidates.
The alleged discrimination at DHL was multifaceted, with Black employees reporting segregated work environments and unequal job assignments. According to the EEOC, Black workers were assigned heavier dock work while their White colleagues handled lighter tasks like sorting letters. Furthermore, Black workers were allegedly assigned delivery routes in higher-crime neighborhoods, leading to safety concerns and incidents of crime.
Gregory Gochanour, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Chicago district office, emphasized that segregating employees and giving them unequal work assignments based on race is unlawful, even if it doesn’t involve pay discrepancies or promotion denials. Karla Gilbride, EEOC’s general counsel, condemned the practice of prioritizing the safety concerns of White workers over those of Black workers as plainly unlawful.
As part of the settlement, DHL must conduct workforce training on federal laws prohibiting racial discrimination, provide periodic reports on work assignments and discrimination complaints, and allow monitoring of its complaint procedures and training effectiveness by Silverman and the EEOC.
EEOC Chair Charlotte A. Burrows underscored the significance of the case in the context of historical workplace segregation, emphasizing the agency’s commitment to vigorously enforcing the Civil Rights Act to eradicate such practices. She noted that despite the Act outlawing racially segregated workplaces 60 years ago, some employers still need to heed the message.