Where a settlement resulted in a monetary payment to an employee, the average value was $4,802. Image: Mehaniq/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffBoth the number of preliminary EEO complaints and the number of those that went on to the formal complaint stage declined slightly in the latest accounting by the EEOC, which added that “reprisal, age, physical disability, race-Black/African American, and sex-female continued to lead all other bases in discrimination.”
“Despite significant progress in promoting equal employment opportunity (EEO), Federal workforce data suggests that inequities persist,” the agency said in a report covering fiscal 2021. In that year, 33,506 employees were counseled, the first step after a preliminary complaint is filed, of whom 12,226 went on to file a formal complaint; down from 36,356 and 14,003 the prior year. (The numbers since 2014 peaked in 2018 at 37,042 and 15,578.)
Of the rest, more resulted in the complaint being withdrawn than in a settlement being reached; where a settlement resulted in a monetary payment to an employee, the average value was $4,802.
Agencies in turn conducted 10,505 investigations after the filing of a formal complaint, down from 11,786, with the average time down from 204 days to 185, just above the law’s requirement for 180 days.
Among formal complaints, more than half involved a claim of retaliation, defined as agency actions against an individual for “participating in administrative or judicial proceedings involving employment discrimination, or otherwise acting in reasonable opposition to unlawful discrimination.” The other four most common bases were named in between about a third and a quarter; some complaints involve more than one.
The most common agency actions complained of involved non-sexual harassment, disciplinary action, non-selection for promotion, assignment of duties and failure to make reasonable accommodation for disability.
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