Number claiming job discrimination spikes

Job discrimination claims across the country rose 9 percent last year, to nearly 83,000 - the largest increase in 14 years - the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported.

The increases were even sharper locally - 19 percent for the regional EEOC office and 32 percent for Virginia.

"I have found plenty of race and gender discrimination to go around," said Lisa Bertini, a Norfolk attorney who estimated 90 percent of her time is devoted to employment discrimination cases. "It's amazing what goes on in 2008."

Bertini said she encounters "women who are verbally abused in a sexually demeaning way" and "blacks who are paid less, with less opportunity for advancement, than similarly qualified whites."

Dean Buckius, a lawyer with Vandeventer Black LLP in Norfolk, sometimes faces Bertini in bias cases. He speculated the economic downturn helped to trigger the rise in complaints. While unemployment has remained relatively low in the area, the jobless rate for Hampton Roads jumped to 4.1 percent in January, compared with 3.4 percent for the same time in 2007.

"When there are more layoffs and more potential for layoffs, you see more claims," Buckius said. "If you know your job is at risk, your antennae are up. You're more sensitive to things than you otherwise would be."

The numbers from the EEOC reflect the agency's fiscal years, which run from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.

Herbert Brown, the director of the EEOC's Norfolk office, said the local spike might be because of an increase in regional "outreach activities to businesses" and the expansion of the office's territory to include northeastern North Carolina in January 2006. The local office also covers southeastern Virginia.

The statistics add up the number of complaints filed with the EEOC against private employers or state and local governmental agencies, said David Grinberg, an EEOC spokesman in Washington.

Grinberg noted the numbers fluctuate from year to year.

The total number of claims was higher as recently as 2002, EEOC data show.

Nevertheless, Grinberg said, "The bottom line is that discrimination remains a persistent problem in the 21st-century workplace, despite what some people may think."

The 2007 statistics also show:

- Among the categories of discrimination complaints, race continues to draw the largest number: 45 percent of the total for the local office and 37 percent nationally.

- Gender discrimination ranked second in number of claims locally; "retaliation" for complaints was second nationally.

- Pregnancy complaints, a subsection of gender claims, rose 14 percent, to a record 5,587 in the United States. No figures were released for the region.

Bertini said the increases also might have been inspired, in part, by "very significant verdicts in employment discrimination in the past year." She cited, for example, the case of New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas, who in the fall was found to have sexually harassed a female executive with the basketball team. A jury awarded the victim $11 million.

The EEOC investigates the complaints filed with the agency. In most instances, it does not find evidence of discrimination.

When it finds merit, the agency sometimes sues the employer. Regardless of its finding, the person who made the complaint may later file suit.

"Many times, when jobs are at risk, people see facts that they think support a claim when, in fact, they don't support a claim," Buckius said.

Bertini, though, attributed the low percentage of positive findings to the agency's lack of resources. "What I have found," she said, "is that it's very, very difficult for them to do the thorough investigation within the 180 days that, by statute, they're supposed to do. I don't think it relates to frivolousness" of the complaints.

Brown said a minority of cases are resolved before the agency issues a finding.

Since Oct. 1, he said, 38 percent of complaints were concluded through mediation or settlement.

The overall statistics, Brown said, "send a message that employers need to take greater steps to educate the work force with regards to discrimination and to ensure that they have the necessary policies in place to deal with it."

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com