DHL will pay $8.7 million to settle a long-running class race discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging the delivery company discriminated against Black workers in the Chicago area.
The suit goes all the way back to September 2010, when the federal agency accused the company’s international shipping unit DHL Express of assigning Black employees to “less desirable, more difficult and/or more dangerous dock and route assignments” compared to white employees.
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EEOC also alleged that DHL segregated employees by race by assigning Black drivers to routes in predominately Black neighborhoods and assigning white drivers to routes in predominantly white neighborhoods and by making dock assignments based on race.
Black employees often witnessed crime and sometimes were victims of crime on their assigned routes, the EEOC said. Additionally, Black employees reported being assigned to move large, heavy packages while their white counterparts were assigned tasks like sorting letters.
The agency said that these actions, which had been ongoing since 2005, were unlawful, and violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“If an employer honors the requests of white workers to avoid certain parts of a city that are perceived as dangerous, but orders Black workers to continue working in those areas despite their concerns, the employer is telling Black workers that their lives and their safety concerns are valued less than the lives and concerns of their white coworkers,” said Karla Gilbride, general counsel of the EEOC, in a statement. “That is plainly unlawful, and EEOC will oppose such conduct.”
Under the consent decree resolving the lawsuit, DHL will pay the $8.7 million in compensation to a group of 83 Black employees subjected to the alleged discriminatory conduct who chose to participate in the lawsuit. Twenty of these employees were represented by private counsel.
“In this case, the EEOC made no claim that Black workers were paid less than others or denied promotions,” said Gregory Gochanour, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Chicago district office, in a statement. “However, segregating employees and giving them unequal work assignments based on their race is just as unlawful. Such practices should not occur in any workplace. We are confident that the measures put in place by the consent decree will ensure that DHL’s employees are treated equally going forward.”
U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood signed off on the consent decree Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
A DHL spokesperson said the company takes claims of discrimination seriously, but denies wrongdoing in the lawsuit.
“At DHL, we are committed to creating an inclusive and respectful workplace where every employee is treated with dignity and fairness, irrespective of their race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or any other characteristic,” the DHL spokesperson said. “We are also committed to ongoing learning and education that fosters a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging throughout our organization. Our policies outline our collective responsibility to maintain an environment free from discrimination and harassment, aligning with both legal requirements and our core values.”
On top of the payouts, the logistics giant will be subject to the oversight of a court-appointed monitor. With the agreement of the parties, former EEOC commissioner Leslie Silverman was selected to monitor DHL’s compliance with the consent decree.
The decree requires that DHL train its workforce on federal laws prohibiting race discrimination and provide periodic reports to Silverman and the EEOC on work assignments and complaints of race discrimination.
DHL also agreed to have Silverman review and oversee the efficacy of its complaint procedures, as well as the quality of its investigations and the status of all required training under the decree.
Silverman will also monitor whether work assignments are based on race. She will monitor the delivery giant’s employment practices for four years.
The settlement is the largest announced by the EEOC since March 2022, when Activision Blizzard agreed to pay $18 million in a lawsuit accusing the video game maker of sex discrimination and tolerating sexual harassment.
In the wake of the settlement, the Teamsters said members of the Chicago-area Local 705 branch were among those paid out.
“DHL’s racist behavior is completely unacceptable,” said Juan Campos, secretary-treasurer of Local 705 and Teamsters international vice president at-large, in a statement. “I am proud of our rank-and-file Teamsters for fighting for what is right and holding this company accountable for its disgusting conduct.”
Nationwide, the Teamsters represent more than 6,000 workers at DHL. The union, which brought itself back into the national spotlight in winning a new labor contract for 340,000 UPS workers last year, was later able to secure a contract for hundreds of DHL employees at the company’s air hub in Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG).
