Prime To Pay $3 Million To Settle Discrimination Suit Brought By EEOC

Prime to pay $3 million to settle discrimination suit brought by EEOC

"The EEOC charges that a Prime policy stating that female drivers only be trained by female trainers effectively denied women driving jobs at the company based on their gender."

Looks like Prime, and anyone else with a ladies train ladies only policy (or men train men for that matter), will have to mix the sexes whether they want to or not. True equality would be first come first served. I wonder how many additional sexual harassment lawsuits will happen because of this. Harassment lawsuits are why Prime started this policy in the first place.

Here's more details:

https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/5-31-16a.cfm

Huh, that's funny, because several years ago the same EEOC went after CRST for just the opposite:

Supreme Court rules in favor of CRST

"The case stems from a lawsuit brought against CRST in 2007 by the EEOC. The commission charged that the carrier violated Title VIII provisions by allowing male instructors to train new female drivers while sharing a truck, saying the practice created a hostile work environment. Several women reported being sexually harassed by their male trainers."

That is why I dislike the whole concept of protected classes. Whether Prime implemented this rule with all the good intentions of protecting the ladies from the predators, or some beancounter (pale, faceless bureaucrat who makes zero tolerance rules with no concept of reality) simply thought this will protect us from anymore of those nasty lawsuits. Either way their juevos are still stuck in a vice. And, more lawsuits are coming...

$3 million? That's probably cheaper than fighting it.

I can't find the data now, but I remember seeing a statistic that Prime was well ahead of the industry avg in % of women drivers recently (probably when they were sending out info on their "highway diamonds" program, which celebrates the women in trucking).

I severely doubt there was any intentional discrimination here, just a myopic policy that was later reversed in response to a previous lawsuit by the EEOC regarding sexual harassment.

It's tricky regarding OTR training in this business. You aren't asking someone to train for 8 hours a day, you are asking them to let someone live in practically a closet with them for a month or more at a time. Certainly companies can't tolerate harassment of any kind, but this is an industry well behind typical progressive attitudes found in many others (I have encountered much more racism and sexism here in two years than my previous ten in the corporate world).

Prime spent a great deal of time covering sexual harassment in our instructor training classes. Too many of these lawsuits and they will stop training altogether.

True equality would be first come first served.

Except that it's not true equality when women have to wait weeks or months for training because of their gender. When I started driving, I was told that if I wanted a female mentor I'd have an estimated wait of 6-8 weeks, based on the waiting list at the time. It's the primary reason I told them I was fine with a male trainer. I could not afford to wait two months to begin making money, and I'd guess most other new drivers can't either. If Swift had had a policy like Prime's, I no doubt would have gone to a different company. If women choose to wait because they are more comfortable with a woman, that's one thing. But not being given the option is an unnecessary hardship. I don't understand the EEOC's conflicting lawsuits, and apparently neither does the supreme court, as they decided in favor of CRST in the sexual harassment lawsuit.