Close this Advertisement
EmbedEmbed

Federal Daily News

Retaliation is most common discrimination complaint in fed workplace, EEOC says

Retaliation was the top form of discrimination complaint filed in 2010 by federal employees and federal job applicants, according to a new report on the federal workforce released by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Overall, feds and applicants filed 17,583 employment discrimination complaints during fiscal 2010 — up 3.75 percent over the previous year, according to EEOC.

Charges of retaliation, the most common discrimination allegation, were up 2.7 percent from fiscal 2009. Age and race discrimination were the next most frequent complaints, EEOC said. Those complaints rose 5.1 percent each over the prior year.

The numbers were included in EEOC’s "Annual Report on the Federal Work Force Part I: EEO Complaints Processing for Fiscal Year 2010."

“We are concerned that retaliation is the most common basis of discrimination alleged,” said Dexter Brooks, director of EEOC’s federal sector programs. “We caution all federal agencies to make sure that reprisals do not become the usual response to complaints of discrimination.”

The full text of the report is available here.


 

Reader comments

Mon, Jul 18, 2011 LJP Michigan

This is just another in a long line of such data. And these studies are verified by my experience in human resources. Worse, it is the long-term policy of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) and of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) to support retaliation in almost every case. This leaves only one federal agency, the EEOC, to act against retaliation. Unfortunately, EEOC's anti-retaliation actions are weak, with definitely no sufficient penalties to act as a genuine deterrent against retaliation.

Mon, Jul 11, 2011 Cliff69 Washington, DC

We read nothing about accountability for the employees who were responsible for the retaliations, even limited to those instances where retaliation has been found/adjudicated. At this late date in 2011, "courses" are not really necessary; if federal supervisor who is conscious and breathing knows anything, he or she ought to know that you don't retaliate against a person who has alleged discrimination. Retaliation won't stop unless serious consequences are visited upon the employee who retaliated.

Fri, Jul 8, 2011

The "covert" behavior of Supervisors are very hard to prove when they only do it to you and only when there is no one else present. How do you prove it? Manipulative, controlling people are very "savvy" at what they do....and they have done it so long they think it is "normal"!

Fri, Jul 8, 2011

NO,Duh! The system is corrupt from the top down. Whistle blower protection is a nice fairy tale, but that is all it is! I speak from first hand experience.

Fri, Jul 8, 2011 TS DC

Until supervisors and managers are held accountable by law, it will never stop. Congress needs to pass a law that that mandates if a settlement is made or a adverse ruling is made against the agency, the supervisors or managers will be held accountable and pay part of the cost and demoted. Lets get started pushing this to our congress members.

Show All Comments

Please post your comments here. Comments are moderated, so they may not appear immediately after submitting. We will not post comments that we consider abusive or off-topic.

Your Name:(optional)
Your Email:(optional)
Your Location:(optional)
Comment:
Please type the letters/numbers you see above