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.