A lawsuit was recently filed against Cummins Inc. for “allegedly violating a gender discrimination law stemming from the pay of a woman who worked at a company call center in Tennessee.” The lawsuit itself was filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on behalf of Krista Clements. According to the lawsuit, Clements was “unfairly paid less than a male counterpart, Scott Olivio, even though they performed equal work at the call center in Nashville.”
Gender discrimination is never acceptable, especially in the workplace. Unfortunately, it occurs far too often in businesses of all types and sizes. For example, a lawsuit was recently filed against Cummins Inc. for “allegedly violating a gender discrimination law stemming from the pay of a woman who worked at a company call center in Tennessee.” The lawsuit itself was filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on behalf of Krista Clements. According to the lawsuit, Clements was “unfairly paid less than a male counterpart, Scott Olivio, even though they performed equal work at the call center in Nashville.”
Were there other factors at play that can explain why Clements was allegedly paid less? What’s the whole story? For starters, back in 2015, Clements enjoyed a promotion to “human resources benefits enrollment position, called a Life Events Power User.” That position’s salary was $38,000. However, thanks to merit-based pay increases throughout 2015 and 2016, her salary jumped up to $40,900. Shortly after, Cummins decided to “hire a second Life Events Power User at the call center in Nashville,” which is when Clements noticed something odd. The company ended up offering the position to a woman at $41,000, but when she turned it down, Cummins offered the job to a man, Scott Olivio, at $47,000.
Once Olivio was hired, Clements was responsible for training him and, upon discovering the pay difference, requested “a salary review and internal-equity audit because she thought Olivio earning a higher salary felt illegal.” Once the review and audit were complete, Cummins was informed back in August 2016 that Clements was “not being compensated at market rate and she was being paid less than Olivio.” However, no changes to her salary were made, according to the lawsuit. Eventually, Clements resigned earlier this year in June, and when she did so she was “still making less than Olivio.”
As a result of the pay discrepancy, the EEOC flew to Clements’ defense, and rightly so. After an investigation, the commission concluded that the company’s “conduct violates the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, both of which prohibit discrimination in the form of compensation based on one’s gender.” As a result, the EEOC originally reached out to Cummins in an effort to “reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.” When that failed, the commission filed the lawsuit, and now seeks “injunctive relief prohibiting Cummins from disparately compensating employees based on gender, and back pay and damages,” according to the lawsuit.
In a statement, Katharine W. Kores, the district director of the EEOC’s Memphis office said:
“It is well past time for employers to recognize they cannot undervalue the contributions of women workers. Enforcing the laws that require equal pay for men and women performing the same jobs remains a priority for the EEOC. In 2016, the EEOC received more than 1,000 charges alleging EPA violations, which shows we have our work cut out for us.”
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