Utah employers do not discriminate, asserts the Utah Anti-Discrimination Division. The state agency that investigates employment discrimination complaints finds that 95 percent of the employees filing complaints have no cause to believe their employer maltreated them.
The Utah Constitution entitles everyone the right to take a dispute into court, except those alleging employment discrimination. These allegations must first be filed with the Utah Anti-Discrimination Division. The UADD investigates the complaint and determines whether or not there is cause to believe discrimination occurred. Theoretically, this procedure quickly and cheaply resolves disputes where someone's livelihood is at issue and speedily absolves employers unjustly accused.
In 1997, after three years of studying employment discrimination complaints in Utah, holding hearings at which federal, state and local officials testified, and gathering information at public forums, the Utah Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission found that employment discrimination laws of Utah were not enforced. The report concluded that Utah's anti-discrimination agency protected employers and suppressed complaints of discrimination through shoddy investigations and lack of adequate staff and funding.
Historically, the UADD dismisses 97 percent of all discrimination complaints as invalid. Many cases are never investigated because, the UADD says, the complainants did not cooperate in the investigation of their own claim. With an average investigation taking more than 400 days, who wouldn't get disillusioned with the "speedy" process?
I recently reviewed the UADD statistics to see if anything had changed as a result of the 1997 disclosures. Today, as usual, most complaints come from females, white males over 40 (age discrimination) and people with disabilities. Contrary to perception, minority employees file few complaints.
Last year 568 people alleged discrimination, but according to the UADD, only 25 had cause to believe they were victims of discrimination. Why are so many complaints dismissed as invalid? The state has a financial incentive to find that employers don't discriminate.
Annually the UADD estimates how many complaints it will "resolve" and collects $500 from the federal government for each case. For 2000, it was estimated almost 600 complaints would be resolved. The state earned $300,000 for the case resolutions. The UADD knows the easiest way to resolve a complaint is to find the employee has no valid complaint. The employee usually can't afford to challenge the finding and goes away, bitter, but goes away "resolved." In the few obvious cases where discrimination is found, the employer's attorney fights the determination, which means the case wasn't "resolved" and the state loses $500.
Not all is bad, though. The UADD's "impartial" investigative finding of no discrimination is now completed in only 300 days. Use of a toll-free number allows more people to file complaints. This means industrious state employees now take in more complaints, dismiss them quicker and collect $500 sooner. I smell incentive bonuses.
I know a single mother who works in a male-dominated industry. A co-worker physically assaulted her because she is seen as "weak" by male standards, although she has performed her job well for 15 years.
The employer refused to discipline the male and moved the woman to a less desirable job. When she complained to the UADD, she was terminated for disloyalty. Three years later the UADD is still investigating. The single mother had to hire an attorney to get her job back. She is in jeopardy of losing her pension and career. The male co-worker was promoted. Unusual case? No, it is a common UADD complaint scenario.
State officials and legislators are aware of the payment system and see no conflict in the UADD gorging its budget by dismissing taxpayer complaints without any semblance of fairness. Of course, most of them aren't subjected to disparate treatment due to the color of their skin, gender, age or religion.
Utah should just drop the pretense, admit the UADD is a money machine and go for real bucks by mandating 100 percent of the complaints be resolved in favor of the employer, (which is only 3 percent more than currently resolved in the employer's favor). Then the state could require all employees to file a discrimination complaint with their tax returns. Think of the bucks this would bring in, hmm, (1,000,000 x $500 = $$$$).
There is no justification for disregarding pleas for fairness and equity from a single mother trying to feed her family, or from a disabled person gaining dignity through employment, or from an aging worker, simply to enrich government. Someday we will be, collectively and individually, judged, and the measure of our existence will turn on how we treated our vulnerable, our aged and those seeking justice and not on how much we made off their distress.
Utah native Mike Martinez, an attorney in private practice, is active in Hispanic affairs. He has previously worked in the Utah Attorney General's Office, the Salt Lake County Attorney's Office and for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington, D.C. E-MAIL: mmartinez@inquo.net