As private-sector workplace discrimination charges nationwide reached a record of nearly 100,000 filings during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010, Connecticut employers entered 2011 with questions on how vigorously the Malloy administration will enforce state labor laws.
In fiscal 2010, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said it secured a record $404 million from employers in the form of monetary benefits for workers, and that entering October more than 465 systemic investigations were under way involving some 2,000 separate charges. In the first year of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, EEOC received about 200 GINA complaints.
“Discrimination continues to be a substantial problem for too many job seekers and workers, and we must continue to build our capacity to enforce the laws that ensure that workplaces are free of unlawful bias,” said EEOC chairperson Jacqueline Berrien, in a prepared statement.
For its own part, the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities settled employment and housing discrimination cases totaling $1.7 million in the second half of 2010. In a January newsletter, the commission”™s Executive Director Robert Brothers Jr. cited improving the commission”™s image as one of his priorities for this year.
The Chicago-based law firm of Seyfarth Shaw L.L.P., which has an office in New York City, calls it a “make or break” year for workplace-related lawsuits, given expectations of major Supreme Court decisions ahead and stepped-up enforcement litigation by the Obama administration.
Seyfarth Shaw says the value of employment discrimination class-action settlements increased four-fold in 2010 over 2009, including a $175 million settlement by Novartis to settle a class-action lawsuit. The increase occurred even as securities, shareholder and commercial class actions remained stable ”“ and could inspire “copycat” actions given recent successes by plaintiffs.
The law firm publishes an annual report on workplace-related class-action lawsuits ”“ this year”™s edition numbers 664 pages.
Increased budgets and renewed hiring at the U.S. Department of Labor and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) suggest that employers should prepare themselves for more investigations and lawsuits in the coming year, adding that some state labor departments are following suit.
According to Seyfarth Shaw, the latest EEOC annual report states the goal of shifting emphasis from smaller suits on behalf of individuals to systemic “pattern or practice” lawsuits encompassing much larger groups of workers.
“Wage and hour cases in particular have yet to slow down, even as the economy is starting to improve,” said Gerald Maatman Jr., co-chairperson of Seyfarth”™s class-action defense group, in a written statement. “For most companies that is their number one exposure ”“ and we expect to see even more and bigger cases brought in 2011 ”¦ Clearly, the dominant lesson of 2010 is that shoring up potential weaknesses in compliance and identifying class-action vulnerabilities should remain a priority for corporate counsel.”
In Connecticut, employers watched warily as Gov. Dannel P. Malloy appointed union manager Glenn Marshall as commissioner of the state Department of Labor.
“With budget issues looming, it is quite possible that (the Connecticut Department of Labor) will be asked to do more with less,” stated Daniel Schwartz, an attorney in the Hartford office of Pullman & Comley L.L.C., in an employment law blog he publishes. “At this stage, I would encourage everyone to reserve judgment.”
