The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has released a revised U visa protocol that provides new internal agency procedures for certification of U visa petitions. The protocol streamlines U visa certification within the EEOC, and clarifies the process for U visa certification in cases involving multiple victims of crime in the same workplace.

• The new protocol streamlines certification by designating the EEOC General Counsel as a certifying official with authority to issue U visa certifications, instead of requiring additional approval by the EEOC Chair’s office.
• The new protocol provides a procedure for certification requests where more than one individual affected by the same employment practices may be considered together, although sufficient information must be provided to enable the agency to prepare each individual’s certification form.
• The new protocol continues to require that an EEOC attorney conduct an interview with the U visa applicant as part of a factual inquiry and credibility determination required for certification. However, EEOC attorneys may consider alternatives other than an in-person interview.

NELP will coordinate a conference call with EEOC staff to discuss the new protocol in the near future. Please contact Eunice Cho at echo@nelp.org if you are interested in participating.

FILED UNDER: EEOC | U visas

from the EEOC:

Hispanic  Workers Were Singled Out for Harassment, Agency Charged

DALLAS - Air Express International, USA, Inc. and Danzas  Corporation, doing business as DHL Global Forwarding, will pay $201,000  to nine employees and provide other significant relief to settle a national  origin hostile environment lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment  Opportunity Commission (EEOC).  The  settlement, announced today, resolves the EEOC's and Plaintiff-Intervenor  Carlos Villanueva's claims against DHL Global.   The EEOC charged DHL Global with subjecting a class of Hispanic employees to national origin  discrimination.  The EEOC's suit also  resolved a retaliation claim by one non-Hispanic employee who was allegedly  fired for a brief time after he reported the treatment of Hispanic employees.

FILED UNDER: EEOC

Congratulations to APALC and the EEOC!

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Delano Regional Medical Center (DRMC), an acute care hospital in California's San Joaquin Valley, will pay $975,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) on behalf of a class of approximately 70 Filipino-American hospital workers. The settlement, announced today, resolves the EEOC's and APALC's charges that the workers endured ongoing harassment and discrimination due to their national origin, stemming from the top levels of hospital management. 

Since at least 2006, the Filipino-American hospital workers, mostly nursing staff, alleged that they were the targets of harassing comments, undue scrutiny and discipline particularly when speaking with a Filipino accent or in Filipino languages like Tagalog or Ilocano. Supervisors, staff, and even volunteers were allegedly encouraged to act as vigilantes, constantly berating and reprimanding Filipino-American employees for nearly six years. According to the EEOC, staff constantly made fun of their accents, ordering them to speak English even when they were already speaking in English. Some Filipino-American workers endured humiliating threats of arrest if they did not speak English and were told to go back to the Philippines. In a particularly offensive incident, an employee sprayed air freshener on a claimant's lunch due to the offender's self-professed hatred of Filipino food.  

FILED UNDER: Discrimination | EEOC | Immigrant Workers | News

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has released for public comment a draft of its Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP).  The draft of its Strategic Plan includes language to “protect immigrant, migrant, and other vulnerable workers.” Included in its priorities is language to “target disparate pay, job segregation, harassment, trafficking and discriminatory language policies affecting these vulnerable workers who may be unaware of their rights under the equal employment laws, or reluctant or unable to exercise them."

Comments on the EEOC’s Strategic Enforcement Plan are encouraged. Comments must be submitted by 5:00 pm ET on September 18, 2012 at strategic.plan@eeoc.gov or received by mail at Executive Officer, Office of the Executive Secretariat, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 131 M Street, NE, Washington, D.C. 20507.  The Commission plans to vote on the draft plan at the end of this fiscal year. Visit the EEOC site for more information.

FILED UNDER: EEOC

The EEOC has recently prevailed in cases involving harassment and retaliation against immigrant workers of interest to advocates. Most recently, the EEOC announced that a Fremont, California car dealership agreed to pay $400,000 and implement training after a manager singled out four Afghan American salesmen during a staff meeting, calling them “terrorists” and threatening them with violence. After the men reported the harassment, they faced retaliation by their employer. In another case, the EEOC prevailed where the district court granted a protective order regarding defendant's request for immigration status, holding that the employer’s request was irrelevant.

FILED UNDER: EEOC | Immigrant Workers