This scathing opinion piece in the New York Times really rips into the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission after a report by an arbitrator finding the agency to be in violations of the laws it is supposed to be enforcing. Here is the short editorial:
It sounds like a grim sweatshop joke, but the federal agency that’s
supposed to enforce justice in the American workplace has been found in
willful violation of its own workers’ rights. The Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission has been blithely violating the Fair Labor
Standards Act, according to an arbitrator who found that the agency has
been forcing its employees to work overtime and not paying them for it.
Instead, according to the arbitrator, the agency concocted a “fiction”
that its workers “requested” only compensatory time instead.
The ruling is one more reminder of how the Bush administration
gutted every regulatory agency it could get its hands on. The
administration apparently saw no political advantage in doing something
about helping workers who dared to complain about bias. On an immediate
level, the arbitrator is presenting the Obama administration with
another high-agenda item for its long list of government repairs.
The E.E.O.C. — once a credible investigator of workplace grievances
— lost about a quarter of its staff across the Bush years. The
commission shed investigators, lawyers and labor specialists — even as
it was increasingly swamped with complaints from workers in the private
sector. In 2008, there were 95,400 allegations of job bias, a rise of
26 percent in just two years. Given the current economic agonies, the
toll continues to rise.
Now that he is in the White House, he needs to repair, replenish and
demand a major attitude change forthwith. And Congress needs to provide
full support to restore the E.E.O.C. to something more than a
laughingstock.
This is an excerpt from an EEOC AJ that put his law license on inactive status in California in 1982 and according to documents that I have his license has not been re-activated in either of the 50 states or it’s territories.
“In this case, Request for Leave Donation e-mail dated ************ specifically describes the complainant’s diagnosed medical conditions as “****************”. It would also appear that this e-mail gained wide distribution, as the clear purpose of the e-mail was to widely circulate the request for leave to provide the largest possible leave donation. Under the foregoing authority, while this was obviously a clearly benevolent attempt to provide the complainant with a work place benefit, a violation can occur absent discriminatory malice or animus. Thus, I find that the disclosure of the Complainant’s diagnosed condition by her second level supervisor constituted a per se violation of the Rehabilitation Act.”
But he issued a decision fully in favor of the agency.
Sending an email across the country to every government employee on email is not simply a “technical violation”. The Judge is alleging that he knows how Sup felt when he did this, but nothing in the record or their testimony in the hearing that proves that this supervisor made so-called “benevolent attempt” to provide a work place benefit
Failure to maintain the confidentiality of your medical records was a PER SE violation of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 C.F.R. 1614.203(c)(4), and 1630.14(c)(1), and no loss or deprivation need be shown.
Impermissible Dissemination of Medical Information. The Commission found that the agency violated the Rehabilitation Act when complainant’s supervisor disseminated information regarding his medical condition. The Commission found the dissemination of this information constituted a violation of the Rehabilitation Act since the medical condition or history of any employee must be treated as a confidential medical record. The agency was ordered to provide training for the supervisor in question, and investigate complainant’s claim for compensatory damages. Danny L. Price v. USPS, EEOC Appeal No. 0120070997 (May 22, 2008).
But he issued a decision fully in favor of the agency. This is not the worst of it either.