Delaware Employment Law Blog

From the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), comes a new published Guidance relating to the use of E-Verify.  The recent, though short-lived excitement over the use of E-Verify for employment verification has now quieted down. Private-sector employees are back to the voluntary use of the system as a method for confirming that newly hired employees are authorized to work in the country.  

One of the concerns that was raised with the E-Verify program was its potential effect on discrimination in the workplace.  If, as a result of using E-Verify, an employer receives a no-match letter or a “tentative” no-match letter, he cannot terminate the employee without first trying to resolve the mismatch.  Failure to work with the employee to determine the cause of the mismatch could result in a claim for national-origin discrimination.

Anticipating the likelihood that employers would not want to engage in the additional steps of “working with the employee,” the DOJ issued guidelines outlining the step that an employer must take upon receiving information about a potential mismatch.  (See Antidiscrimination Guidance Concerning the DHS No-Match Rule).

See also:  E-Verify Employer Dos & Don'ts

Pregnancy Discrimination is back in the news, courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court's grant of certiorari in the case of AT&T v. Hulteen, No. 07-543.  Employees who took maternity leave, pursuant to the company's decades-old policy, were not given the same credit towards their pension as employees who took other kinds of disability leave.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) was not enacted until 1979 and, since then, AT&T’s maternity leave has been credited toward retirement, in compliance with the law. At issue is whether AT&T must now give female retirees credit for maternity leave taken from 1968-1976, preceding enactment of the PDA.

The Ninth Circuit held that the benefits system violated the PDA.  AT&T appealed and the Solicitor General recommended that cert be granted.  The SCOTUS Blog covers AT&T v. Hulteen and provides more details as well as links to the previous filings.

A ruling against AT&T would seem to be contrary to the Court’s recent ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear, related to the timeliness of discrimination claims whose effects may not be apparent for many years later. Further, it is generally held that statutes are not retroactive absent statutory language otherwise. In light of these precedents, a ruling in favor of the employees in this case may signal a real interest in this type of discrimination. Stay tuned!

Good documentation practices during the hiring process can help employers avoid a failure-to-hire claim.  And that's a good thing, considering that failure-to-hire claims are costly. Just ask Perdue.  The poultry company has agreed to a pay out of more than $800k to settle a claim of disparate impact arising from what the DOL concluded to be systematic discrimination against non-Hispanic job applicants. 

Disparate Impact Claim

A Labor Department news release states an evaluation in 2005 and 2006 by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) found the Salisbury-based company failed to comply with federal employment laws at its poultry processing plants in Rockingham, N.C., Dillon, S.C., and Monterey, Tenn. (The OFCCP has jurisdiction because Perdue supplies poultry under a federal contract to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.)

The settlement agreement will require Perdue to pay $800,000 in back wages and interest to 750 women and minorities who were not hired during the relevant time period.  The company also will make employment offers to some of those who were not hired but who are still interested in employment with Perdue.  In those cases, the employees will receive retroactive company service dates for purposes of benefits and promotion rights. 

Documentation Regrets

Perdue officials denied the allegations on the basis that many applicants were unqualified for employment or withdrew from consideration for employment.  They stated that the company agreed to a settlement only to avoid protracted litigation, according to the company. The VP of HR said in a company statement:

Perdue is committed to treating all job applicants fairly. We regret we did not more carefully document our hiring process for production associates, which led to these concerns by the OFCCP and, ultimately, to this settlement.

Perdue has implemented new procedures to ensure it retains all relevant documentation of its selection processes and is also conducting training of its human resources staff to assure appropriate implementation of Perdue's hiring and employment practices, according to the company statement.

Interviewing Best Practices

Interviewing is one of the most neglected areas in employment law.  When I teach seminars on lawful interviewing, I will inevitably see faces filled with shock and despair as they realize just how many of the best practices have not been implemented in their organization. 

Documentation is key in hiring.  If you keep notes and records only on the people you hired, you will have nothing to refer to in a failure-to-hire claim.  And let's be honest, the ones you didn't hire are likely the ones who were the least memorable.  Can you remember candidates you interviewed and rejected in 2005 and 2006? 

Without an established and consistent documentation and record-retention policy for the hiring policy, a failure-to-hire claim can be nearly impossible to defend.  Just ask Perdue.

Source:  Delaware News Journal, Gwenn Garland