Megaretailer Wal-Mart, called the country’s largest private employer, has agreed to pay $11.7 million to settle a class-action sex discrimination lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). In addition to the money, the settlement announced on March 1 requires Wal-Mart to provide jobs to class members as they become available.

The EEOC’s suit claimed that Wal-Mart’s London, Kentucky, distribution center denied jobs to female applicants from 1998 through February 2005. During that time, the EEOC claims the employer regularly hired male entry-level applicants for warehouse positions but excluded female applicants who were equally or better qualified. The EEOC alleged that Wal-Mart regularly used gender stereotypes in filling entry-level order filler jobs. Hiring officials told applicants that order-filling positions weren’t suitable for women and that they hired mainly 18- to 25-year-old males.

read more…

By Hector Chichoni

On Tuesday, March 2, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it had sent 180 notices of inspections (NOIs) to employers in Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

At least 30 NOIs have been sent to employers in Tennessee and another 30 or so to employers located in southern and central Alabama. ICE has not yet disclosed the targeted employers’ names.

read more…

It’s not all fun and games on the set of game show The Price is Right. A former model on the show, Brandi Cochran, filed a suit in Superior Court in Los Angeles on March 1 claiming she was harassed and discriminated against for being pregnant, according to a report in The Wrap, an entertainment news website.

Cochran was a model on the show from July 2002 through late February 2010 when she was fired. She is suing CBS and the show’s producer Freemantle Media claiming discrimination based on pregnancy, retaliation for complaining about discrimination and harassment, wrongful termination, breach of contract, privacy violations, and fraud.

read more…

Late Tuesday night, President Barack Obama signed the Temporary Extension Act of 2010 (H.R. 4691) into law. The bill, which passed the U.S. Senate by a 78-19 vote Tuesday night and passed the U.S. House of Representatives last week, extends the original federal COBRA subsidy created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) by one month.

The new legislation extends the subsidy to individuals who are involuntarily terminated between March 1, 2010, and March 31, 2010. Since the last COBRA subsidy extension period ended February 28, 2010, this extension applies retroactively (i.e., to March 1 and 2). The legislation also includes a provision that allows certain individuals who initially lost group health coverage because of a reduction in hours and were then terminated after the legislation was enacted to receive the subsidy.

read more…