Dive Brief:
- Staffing firm WorkSmart, headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina, faces a lawsuit for alleged sex-based discrimination in its staffing practice in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (EEOC v. WorkSmart Staffing, LLC), according to court documents filed Sept. 29.
- The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleges that one of WorkSmart’s clients, recycling center TCI of Alabama, requested that only male laborers work at the facility — and the firm allegedly complied with the client’s request, EEOC said.
- “Unfortunately, some companies engage in sex-based hiring practices that have no place in today’s workforce,” Marsha Rucker, regional attorney for the EEOC said in a statement. “The EEOC remains vigilant to prevent sex-based hiring practices across all sectors of employment.”
Dive Insight:
This is not the first time that the EEOC has sought to crack down on a staffing agency allegedly engaging in sex-based discrimination. Previously, Washington-based firm SmartTalent agreed to pay $875,000 last year following allegations similar to that of WorkSmart.
In that case, the EEOC lawsuit charged that SmartTalent had been engaging in discriminatory practices since 2015.
“The customer is not always right and, as EEOC’s guidance for employment agencies makes clear, staffing agencies violate the law when they comply with a client’s sex-based preference, or a preference based on any other prohibited characteristic,” Nancy Sienko, director of the EEOC’s San Francisco District (which includes Washington) said at the time, emphasizing the value of hiring based on merit, “not stereotypes.”
Later, allegedly male-only hiring led to Security Engineers agreeing to pay $1.6 million to settle a sex discrimination lawsuit in March. Per the EEOC filings, the Security Engineers HR database had notes designating certain roles as not suitable for scheduling women or as “male only.”
WorkSmart told HR Dive that it has never faced a claim like this in its more than 35-year history, and that it takes the claim very seriously.
“Over the years, we have placed thousands of diverse candidates in varying roles across numerous industries, always with a commitment to fairness and opportunity, and without incident,” Vanessa Barnes, CEO of WorkSmart, told HR Dive via email.
Barnes added that WorkSmart has made “repeated good-faith efforts” to resolve the issue and that the EEOC had allegedly “rejected [WorkSmart’s] efforts to meet and has failed to provide clarity on its concerns.” EEOC said it filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Middle Division, after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement via its conciliation process.
Particularly as the leader of a woman-owned company, Barnes said, “We reject discrimination in any form and remain committed to fairness, integrity, and equal opportunity for all.”
The resolution to this EEOC case will likely be delayed due to the government shutdown. Already, the court ordered for the case to be stayed until EEOC’s funding is restored.