It pays to stay off the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s enforcement radar.
Employers paid more than $100 million in fiscal 2011 to resolve disability discrimination claims enforced by the civil rights agency, it’s annual annual statistical summary.
Payouts to workers alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act produced the highest increase in monetary relief — nearly 36 percent — of all the discrimination laws enforced by the civil rights agency.
The total number of charges received by the EEOC last year —99,947 — represents a slight increase from the previous year. For the second year in a row, charges alleging retaliation under all the statutes the EEOC enforces were the most numerous at 37,334 charges received, or 37.4 percent of all charges, closely followed by charges involving claims of race discrimination at 35,395 charges or 35.4 percent. While the numbers of charges with race and sex discrimination allegations declined from the previous year, charges with the two other most frequently-cited allegations, disability and age discrimination, increased.
For the first full fiscal year of enforcement, the EEOC received 245 charges under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of genetic information, including family medical history. So far, none of these charges has proceeded to litigation. The EEOC is responsible for enforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.