Dive Brief:
- A.G. Equipment Co., a compressor packaging manufacturer located in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, will pay $4,250,000 to settle U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges that it violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it fired all individuals who did not provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination in October 2021 (EEOC v. AG Equipment Co.).
- The company allegedly told employees that no exemptions would be provided for any reason. Some workers still submitted religious and disability accommodation requests, but the company refused to discuss them, EEOC said.
- In addition to providing the monetary payment to 43 fired workers, the three-year consent decree requires the company to train managers in compliance with Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act, report to the EEOC about future accommodation requests, and inform employees of their right to reasonable accommodation under both laws.
Dive Insight:
While most of lawsuits related to the COVID-19 vaccine involve events from 2021-2022, the effects still reverberate today as EEOC continues to litigate and settle cases with employers.
In March, in a very similar case, an unnamed “leading global technology company” agreed to pay $15 million to resolve the agency’s charges that it discriminated against a class of employees on the basis of religion and disability when it denied their COVID-19 vaccine exemption requests and fired them in 2021.
Also in March, EEOC sued an Illinois hospital for allegedly denying a Christian surgical technologist’s religious vaccine accommodation request in August 2021 and firing her a few months later.
The recent enforcement appears to go hand in hand with the administration’s broader prioritization of Christian issues. In April, EEOC critiqued the Biden administration’s response on COVID-19 vaccine charges as “anemic” in a statement released alongside a multiagency “anti-Christian bias” report.
“The agency estimates it received over 10,000 charges of discrimination related to COVID-19 since January 2021, and almost all of those (9,800) alleged a violation of Title VII for failure to accommodate religion,” EEOC noted in April. “Out of these thousands of Title VII charges, the Biden EEOC only found cause in approximately 400 (less than 4%) and from that set, the Biden EEOC only brought four, small lawsuits against private employers.”
In a statement to HR Dive, AG Equipment Co. confirmed the settlement and pointed to a number of improvements it said it made in recent years.
“We have taken meaningful steps to strengthen our workplace, policies, and culture. Those steps include adding an employee hotline, implementing a behavior-based safety program, establishing more structured pay practices, and building a leadership team grounded in accountability, communication, and respect,” the company said. “We are committed to a workplace where employees are heard, treated fairly, and supported in doing their best work.”
