Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed a lawsuit accusing Wayne Farms of discrimination against employees with disabilities.
- Wayne Farms' inflexible attendance policy doesn't leave allowance for absences due to medical disabilities, which discriminates against these employees and violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), EEOC said.
- Wayne Farms will "actively dispute" the lawsuit, which started with a previous investigation in 2011 involving employee absenteeism and the firing of employees due to repeated unexcused absences, the company said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
Discrimination lawsuits are not unheard of in the food and beverage industry, but disability discrimination cases are rarer.
The EEOC filed a disability discrimination lawsuit against Tyson Foods in 2010 after Tyson rescinded a job offer to an employee due to epilepsy uncovered during a medical evaluation. At the time of his application, the employee had not had a seizure in more than 15 years, and he had already worked in various capacities at Tyson. Two years later, Tyson ended up paying a $35,000 settlement and introduced a new assessment for similar hiring cases.
Other more recent discrimination cases in the food and beverage industry include a religious discrimination lawsuit against JBS USA, a gender discrimination lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch InBev, an age discrimination lawsuit against General Mills and an age and race discrimination lawsuit and EEOC complaint against Mondelez for its decision to cut hundreds of jobs at its Chicago bakery and make upgrades at a plant in Mexico.
The outcomes of these cases vary. Several of these companies are still battling the lawsuits in court. The judge sided with AB InBev in its gender discrimination case, while Cargill agreed to a $2.2 million settlement in a Department of Labor lawsuit due to gender and race discrimination in hiring policies.
In Wayne Farms' case, the company and EEOC did not come to a pre-litigation settlement, which led to the EEOC's lawsuit. The company appears confident it can dispute the charges, but Tyson's disability discrimination case ended in a settlement, so the potential outcome is less clear.