Daimler Trucks North America has settled a civil lawsuit with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and will pay $40,000 related to a complaint filed by a former company employee.
April Holt, a former truck assembler for DTNA in Mount Holly, North Carolina, said in the complaint that in December 2012 a male co-worker touched her inappropriately and that the next day she was fired.
A July 13 statement from EEOC said the agency argued that Holt was fired because she complained about what she reasonably believed was sexual harassment.
DTNA, based in Portland, Oregon, said through a spokesman that the company is “committed to diversity and inclusion and prohibits discrimination in the recruitment, selection, training, utilization, upgrading or termination of any individual, or in any other personnel-related activities, based on characteristics protected by law such as race, color, gender, religion, national origin, age, marital status, family relationship, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or veteran status.”
Furthermore, said DTNA’s David Giroux, the company prohibits and will not tolerate retaliation against any employee for exercising their rights or reporting an allegation under the law, or who has given testimony, assistance or participated in an investigation conducted by EEOC or any other governmental agency.
EEOC said the alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal to retaliate against an employee who complains about discrimination.
The EEOC suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, North Carolina, after first attempting to reach a voluntary pre-litigation settlement through the agency’s conciliation process.
EEOC also said Daimler will enter into a two-year consent decree requiring it to provide to all supervisors, managers and employees at the plant annual training regarding retaliation.
DTNA’s Mount Holly plant opened in 1979. Employees there make the full lineup of medium-duty M2 trucks for Freightliner, DTNA’s flagship brand.
