The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is touting fiscal year 2011 as a record year for obtaining monetary settlements and taking in discrimination charges. Also, the agency said it finished the fiscal year on September 30 with a 10 percent decrease in its pending charge inventory, the first such reduction since 2002.
The agency released its Performance and Accountability Report on November 15. Here are some of the highlights:
- The EEOC took in 99,947 charges of discrimination in fiscal year 2011, the highest number of charges in its 46-year history.
- More than $364.6 million in monetary benefits were obtained for workers filing discrimination claims.
- The fiscal year ended with 78,136 pending charges, a decrease of 8,202 charges.
- EEOC field legal units filed 261 lawsuits, 23 of which involved systemic allegations affecting large numbers of people, 61 had multiple victims (fewer than 20), and 177 were individual lawsuits.
- At the end of the year, there were 580 systemic investigations involving more than 2,000 charges under way.
- The agency’s private-sector national mediation program obtained more than $170 million in monetary benefits for complainants. It also secured 9,831 resolutions, the highest number in the history of the program.
The EEOC’s 2011 budget was $367 million. It obtained awards and settlements of $364.5 million. And these amounts don’t include the costs to the employer of internal, state and EEOC “investigations.” It would have been far easier and cheaper to just give the employees the money. BTW, the EEOC is requesting a budget of $385 million. If there was ever a time to eliminate a federal agency, this is it.