Under an image of the Statue of Liberty, set against a waving American flag, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) website describes the agency\u2019s commitment to \u201cnondiscrimination in the workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n
CBP\u2019s self-praise includes its dedication \u201cto preserving individual liberty, fairness and equality under the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
But those notions of nondiscrimination and fairness took a big hit last week with a tentative Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) legal settlement that would award $45 million to CBP employees who were discriminated against because of their pregnancies. Rather than affirming federal law, the case points to the agency\u2019s violation of the law, specifically the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.<\/p>\n
Although the agency, billed as \u201cthe nation\u2019s largest law enforcement organization,\u201d with more than 65,000 employees, did not admit any wrongdoing, Troy A. Miller, the acting head of CBP, didn\u2019t agree to that amount out of charity. Miller signed the agreement to pay CBP officers and agricultural specialists who were assigned to temporary light duty because they were pregnant, regardless of their ability to perform their regular duties. Light duty can negatively affect employees\u2019 income and opportunities for advancement.<\/p>\n
A CBP official, who spoke on thee condition that they not be identified or quoted directly during a phone call, said there never was a policy mandating light duty for pregnant people, while acknowledging managers sometime operate outside of agency guidelines. Light duty always was an employee option, the official said. Almost 30 percent of the agency\u2019s Office of Field Operations, where officers and agricultural specialists work, are women, including its top leader. The agency considers its gender diversity a model among federal law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the agency said it is \u201ccommitted to taking care of our people and continually taking steps to improve. We are committed to training our employees on proper and consistent procedures, enforcing them, and periodically reviewing agency policies and procedures to ensure employees have all available opportunities for advancement.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there was anything malicious about this,\u201d Joseph Sellers, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, said of the discrimination during a telephone interview. His firm and Gilbert Employment Law represented a group of more than 1,000 women who work at CBP, who will receive between about $7,000 and $100,000 each, depending on individual circumstances. Included in the $45 million for CBP employees is $9 million in attorneys\u2019 fees.<\/p>\n
If maliciousness didn\u2019t play a role, there was \u201cprobably a paternalistic view about pregnancy,\u201d he added, among supervisors who doubted the ability of pregnant employees to do the job or the safety of the fetuses when those employees were on their regular assignments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would never do anything to put my child in harm, whether he\u2019s in my belly or outside in the world,\u201d Roberta M. Gabaldon, an agricultural specialist in El Paso and the lead complainant, said during a sometimes tearful video call. \u201cWe can make a decision,\u201d she added, \u201cwith our doctor as to what we can and can\u2019t handle as pregnant women.\u201d<\/p>\n
She playfully announced her pregnancy to colleagues by taking pink and blue doughnuts to work with a note that read, \u201cpink and blue, pink and blue, somebody\u2019s pregnant, guess who.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her joy was smashed when her boss went to her cubicle and told her, in front of co-workers, to go home. She already was on light duty, training other employees. When she returned two days later, she was placed on even lighter duty as an agency cashier, despite her degree in agricultural biology.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I wasn\u2019t utilizing my degree any longer,\u201d she said. \u201cI was basically doing a job similar to the jobs I did to put myself through college. So, it just felt like a big downgrade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Certainly, there are situations that could be especially hazardous for pregnant officers, such as chasing suspects. But when agency witnesses were asked what percentage of the time those situations occur, Sellers said, \u201cthey described it as a very, very small.\u201d Furthermore, the officers work in teams, so during the few times a CBP operation could be hazardous for a pregnant officer, a colleague could take the needed action.<\/p>\n
CBP argued against certifying the case as a class-action covering a large group of workers. A CBP document submitted to EEOC says the complaint was \u201cbased on a handful of isolated, disconnected incidents culled from \u2026 the entirety of the Agency\u2019s international operations over a period of seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if true,\u201d CBP told EEOC, the allegations of bias against pregnant women \u201care at most unfortunate examples of individual supervisors on their own initiative disregarding or misapprehending well established Agency policies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the settlement is tentative, it was preliminarily approved by an administrative judge. Final approval is expected in late September. This victory for CBP women goes well beyond the money. The case could move the agency\u2019s culture away from one in which women felt they were not heard to a work environment where their issues must be recognized. A key change calls for \u201ca minimum of 60 minutes of live, interactive, and comprehensive training for all managers and supervisors regarding the rights of pregnant law enforcement Officers and Agriculture Specialists,\u201d according to the settlement agreement. CBP also will develop policies that assume pregnant employees can continue in their positions unless medical evidence indicates otherwise.<\/p>\n
Changes in CBP\u2019s work culture also should extend to the fear of reprisals among employees who dare to challenge unfair agency practices, unfortunately a familiar feeling in federal workplaces. That concern was strong enough that Nancy E. Graham, the EEOC administrative judge in this case, issued an order saying, \u201cThe Agency is on NOTICE that retaliation and\/or intimidation of witnesses and\/or class members for the claimants will not be tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gabaldon knows that fear, but \u201cthis wouldn\u2019t have happened without Roberta,\u201d said Gary Gilbert, another of her lawyers. A common theme \u201cechoed over and over again\u201d by CBP women, he recalled, \u201cwas this feeling that they were not as valuable because they were pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the changes flowing from the settlement, \u201cfuture women who come into this agency won\u2019t have to be afraid anymore, hopefully, of getting pregnant or retaliation,\u201d Gabaldon said. The emotional toll on her was clear. Her emotions, she explained, reflect \u201chow much of a struggle it was to get here.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a long struggle. The son she was pregnant with when all this started will be 9 in December.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Under an image of the Statue of Liberty, set against a waving American flag, the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) website describes the agency\u2019s commitment to \u201cnondiscrimination in the workforce.\u201d CBP\u2019s self-praise includes its dedication \u201cto preserving individual liberty, fairness and equality under the law.\u201d But those notions of nondiscrimination and fairness took a big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}