ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 8, 1996 TAG: 9612100063
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: LABOR
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON
The caller was a woman who said she felt wronged by a sexist boss. She told of receiving less pay than a man who did the same job. Both worked in Roanoke.
"When you step in the [business], it's kind of like stepping into the 1950s. Women are lower class," she said. "It wasn't said directly, but you understood."
She didn't want her name or the identity of the company printed.
When she called last summer, she said she had complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The agency rejected her case, and she didn't pursue it on her own in court, she said, because of pressing family obligations and a night job.
The EEOC said last week it has heard from others in different workplaces who share this woman's feeling of job discrimination.
From the Roanoke region, the agency received 147 complaints between Oct. 1, 1994, and Oct. 1, 1996. The data is for the counties of Bedford, Botetourt, Franklin, Montgomery and Roanoke and the cities and towns within.
In addition, the federal civil rights enforcement agency confirmed it is giving more attention to this region, sending an investigator to Roanoke each month to advise people such as the woman with a pay dispute
The EEOC is concerned with everyone having an equal shot at getting a job, paycheck and promotion. It was created by Congress and enforces laws that forbid work-related discrimination based on race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age or disability.
The agency will open an investigation for basically anyone who writes and signs a statement alleging a type of job discrimination that also says how they were harmed.
The EEOC does not move quickly. The waiting period last summer was about 11 months for an official response, the result of a massive backlog of cases that agency officials have admitted is unacceptable.
After investigating, the agency's general policy is to take up only the cases of people it believes can prove discrimination. In that role, it tries privately to negotiate a settlement that might involve a raise, back wages or job reinstatement. If it can't come to terms with the employer, the EEOC will sue in court. The people whose cases aren't taken up by the agency may sue on their own.
Last summer, some members of an audience of about 35 people attracted to an EEOC informational meeting in Roanoke lit into federal officials. They cried that racism was a problem in some workplaces locally and that the EEOC was doing too little to stop it.
In October, the agency quietly began sending one of its 10 Richmond-based investigators to advise people on their options.
"This is our way of responding," said Gloria Underwood, an EEOC official in Richmond who monitors complaints from the western third of the state. The agency's nearest offices are in Richmond and Norfolk.
Underwood said as a result of meetings in October and November, the agency has received information that could lead to new investigations. Privacy laws prevented her from disclosing details, she said.
Investigators who came to Roanoke heard "about blatant racism" in the workplace, said Perneller Chubb-Wilson, president of the area chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. They heard from workers who complained of being denied weekends off that others in the same companies received, having more work and being passed over for promotions. she said.
Chubb-Wilson said the federal officials are providing a needed outlet for stored up anger about job discrimination, a role she has played herself.
"You'd be surprised. When I'm at home, people will call. They want to talk. They want to cry."
Without any outlet, "you could have people going back to work and shooting up the place," she said.
The hope is that investigators' visits are a step toward curbing the overall discrimination problem. "We expect to cut down on so many people, black people in particular, being fired from their jobs," said the Rev. Charles Green, president of the Roanoke branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The EEOC believes it benefits, too.
"It makes a difference for us to go out and visit people," said Barbara Veldhuizen, a deputy director in Baltimore who helps oversee Virginia EEOC matters. "People have the advantage of actually seeing a government official seated across the table."
In addition, "we think we are getting better information."
The investigator will return Dec. 18 to 20 to the Staunton Avenue Church of God. Appointments are necessary and can be made by calling Green at 342-6167 or 344-2424.
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