DHL pays $8.7 mln to settle EEOC claims that Black workers had harder jobs
By Daniel Wiessner
April 25 (Reuters) -DHL Express will pay $8.7 million to settle a long-running lawsuit by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing the logistics giant's U.S. arm of assigning undesirable delivery routes and more heavy lifting to Black employees.
The settlement, which was approved by a federal judge in Chicago earlier this week and announced by the EEOC on Thursday, ends a race discrimination lawsuit filed by the commission in 2010. It also requires DHL to review and overhaul its policies for assigning work and handling internal worker complaints.
The EEOC claimed in the lawsuit that when white drivers objected to routes in neighborhoods with higher crime rates, they were handed off to Black employees who often witnessed crimes and sometimes became victims.
Black workers were also made to move large, heavy packages while their white counterparts sorted letters, the commission alleged.
Commission officials in a statement said that segregating workers and giving them unequal assignments because of their race is just as illegal as paying them less or denying them promotions.
"The employer is telling Black workers that their lives and their safety concerns are valued less than the lives and concerns of their white coworkers," said Karla Gilbride, the commission's general counsel.
DHL did not respond to a request for comment. The company denied wrongdoing in the settlement and has maintained throughout the case that it does not tolerate discrimination.
The settlement is the largest announced by the EEOC since March 2022, when Activision Blizzard agreed to pay $18 million in a lawsuit accusing the video game maker of sex discrimination and tolerating sexual harassment.
The payout in the DHL case will go to 83 Black workers who participated in the lawsuit, the EEOC said. Twenty of those workers intervened in the case and were represented by private counsel.
DHL also agreed to have a former EEOC commissioner, Leslie Silverman, review the company's internal complaint procedures and other policies and monitor the company's compliance with the settlement for four years.
The case is EEOC v. DHL Express (USA) Inc, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, No. 1:10-cv-06139.
For the EEOC: Jeanne Szromba
For the intervenor plaintiffs: Lee Winston of Winston Cooks
For DHL: Richard Lapp and Camille Olson of Seyfarth Shaw
Read more:
Activision, EEOC win judge's approval of sex bias settlement
Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; edited by Nate Raymond
Related Assets
Latest News
Disclaimer: The XM Group entities provide execution-only service and access to our Online Trading Facility, permitting a person to view and/or use the content available on or via the website, is not intended to change or expand on this, nor does it change or expand on this. Such access and use are always subject to: (i) Terms and Conditions; (ii) Risk Warnings; and (iii) Full Disclaimer. Such content is therefore provided as no more than general information. Particularly, please be aware that the contents of our Online Trading Facility are neither a solicitation, nor an offer to enter any transactions on the financial markets. Trading on any financial market involves a significant level of risk to your capital.
All material published on our Online Trading Facility is intended for educational/informational purposes only, and does not contain – nor should it be considered as containing – financial, investment tax or trading advice and recommendations; or a record of our trading prices; or an offer of, or solicitation for, a transaction in any financial instruments; or unsolicited financial promotions to you.
Any third-party content, as well as content prepared by XM, such as: opinions, news, research, analyses, prices and other information or links to third-party sites contained on this website are provided on an “as-is” basis, as general market commentary, and do not constitute investment advice. To the extent that any content is construed as investment research, you must note and accept that the content was not intended to and has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and as such, it would be considered as marketing communication under the relevant laws and regulations. Please ensure that you have read and understood our Notification on Non-Independent Investment. Research and Risk Warning concerning the foregoing information, which can be accessed here.
