A judge has ruled that a trucking company’s use of a strength test disadvantages women, violates federal law, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The EEOC said Stan Koch & Sons Trucking violated federal law by using a strength test developed by Cost Reduction Technologies because it discriminates against women truck drivers. Koch, headquartered in Minneapolis, is a family-owned trucking company with over 1,000 trucks which operates both nationally and on regional and local routes.
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Koch’s use of the CRT test, a strength test developed by Davenport, Iowa-based Cost Reduction Technologies Inc., discriminated against women truck drivers because of their sex. Specifically, the EEOC alleged that the CRT test disproportionately screened out women who are qualified for truck driver positions at Koch.
Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination, including the use of employment practices that have a disparate impact on women because of their sex and that are not job-related and consistent with business necessity.
The federal judge ruled in EEOC’s favor that the test disproportionately screened out women who had been given conditional offers of hire by Koch to work as truck drivers or who were already employed by Koch and were required to take the test to return to work following an injury. In addition, the judge found that Koch did not present evidence to show that the test was job-related and consistent with business necessity.
The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process. The case is captioned EEOC v. Stan Koch & Sons Trucking, Inc., Civil Action No. 0:19-cv-02148.
The EEOC is now entitled to relief for a class of women applicants who were rejected because they failed the CRT test. The amount of monetary damages owed to the women by Koch will be determined in further proceedings. The EEOC will also seek an injunction preventing Koch from continuing to use the test.
Source: EEOC
Topics Legislation Trucking
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