The Status of Class Action Employment Discrimination Lawsuits
With all the attention being given to the Dukes v. Walmart suit, I found an interesting article, making some comments on a variety of issues regarding class action employment discrimination lawsuits.
One interesting question: How many employment class action lawsuits were filed in 1976? Answer: 1,174.
Guess how many were filed in 2003?
Answer:
Only 82.
The article goes on the state that class action suits may also be easier to prove for plaintiffs, as it is harder to show that the plaintiff is overly sensitive or misunderstands what the cause of his or her adverse employment action was. When there are a group of people, it is more difficult for the company to make the argument that the plaintiffs were overly sensitive or misunderstood.
Read here for more information on these issues and more details on the Costco class action suit.
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You see, “talent management” fans, there are simply no pesky “compliance” issues whatsoever involved in recruiting, hiring, and promoting the best. (See Michael’s post on “The Ten Commandments of Talent Management.”)
So definitely keep HR and the lawyers out of it — then pay millions to settle a nasty class action. All that matters is getting the best talent, right? (”If you have better talent than the competition you win,” says Electronic Recruiting News. Simple as that.)
It doesn’t matter how many millions go down the litigation drain — or how tainted the company’s reputation is by discrimination allegations — does it?
“Talent management” fans, read this and weep: “There is no clearer example of a glass ceiling than how Costco promotes workers into assistant manager and general manager positions,” said Brad Seligman, executive director of The Impact Fund and the lead attorney on the case. “There is no promotion system at Costco. Women must rely on the subjective and arbitrary decisions of Costco’s all-male senior management.”
No system = discrimination, get it? Now do you want some help from HR and legal experts designing a “best practices” system or just lots of “autonomy, room and responsibility” to make subjective decisions? Your call. Pay us now or pay us later. . . .
[Yup . . . I'm back from vacation all rested up and fiestier and more sarcastic than ever.]