Home Depot, the nation's largest home improvement store chain, has agreed
to pay $5.5 million to settle a discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed
by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of employees in the
company's Colorado stores.
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Download NowThe EEOC alleged in the lawsuit several of the stores created hostile work
environments, in which employees were discriminated against on the basis of
sex, race and national origin—and retaliated against if they voiced complaints.
The Denver Post reports that the settlement requires Home Depot to pay $3 million
to resolve the discrimination accusations filed by 38 current and former employees.
The payments to those employees will range from $5,000 to $270,000. As for the
remaining $2.5 million, that will go into a class-settlement fund for employees
who have yet to come forward with discrimination complaints.
In settling the lawsuit, Atlanta-based Home Dept issued a statement saying
it agreed to the payout only "to avoid protracted and costly litigation."
The settlement was not acknowledgement of wrongdoing, the company said, adding
that it is "an equal opportunity employer and has a zero-tolerance policy
regarding discrimination."
Joseph H. Mitchell, the regional attorney for the EEOC's Denver District Office,
estimated for the Post that several hundred people could still join the action.
Among them may be Debra Rhodus, who told the newspaper that Home Depot fired
her in January for complaining that the store in Park Meadows, Colorado, wasn't
well heated.
"I didn't know that there were all these people who'd had similar experiences.
I thought I was the only one," Rhodus said.
Rhodus said she plans to make a claim. "I'll be happy if I get a dollar,"
the Post quoted her as saying. "It's not about the money—it's about
the satisfaction of people knowing that they're not all they make out to be."
In addition to the monetary relief, the settlement calls for Home Depot to
do the following:
- Provide training on the requirements of anti-discrimination laws, with appropriate
levels of information presented to non-supervisory employees, managers, and
human resource employees.
- Appoint an equal employment opportunity coordinator to ensure compliance
with the settlement and oversee the company's investigation of employee complaints
of discrimination.
- Submit quarterly reports to the EEOC, and remain under continued monitoring
by the EEOC for a period of 30 months.
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