EEOC sues AutoZone for employment discrimination
By Steve Tarnoff
Managing Editor, HRHub.com
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit against automobile parts giant AutoZone Inc. alleging that the company intentionally discriminated against black and female employees in its hiring and promotion activities during the past decade.
The four-count complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Memphis, Tenn., alleges AutoZone failed to hire and promote black and female applicants for official/manager, technician and service worker positions in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The lawsuit also alleges Memphis-based AutoZone failed to keep adequate company records as required by Title VII.
The suit seeks an injunction to prevent AutoZone from discriminating on the basis of race and sex and to order the company to redress prior discriminatory acts. It also seeks to recover for affected employees back pay with interest, compensation for past and future monetary losses, and compensation for non-monetary losses such as emotional pain and suffering. The suit also seeks punitive damages.
A spokesman for AutoZone declined comment on the lawsuit, except to say that the company adheres to federal and state employment laws. "We follow federal and state laws regarding fair and equal hiring practices," the spokesman said.
According to the suit, an example of AutoZone's discriminatory practices took place at its headquarters in Memphis between June 1993 and May 1995 when AutoZone filled 59 official /manager positions. Eighty percent of those hired for the positions were from the Memphis metropolitan area of which blacks composed 18.6% of the labor pool. However, none of the 59 positions filled were by blacks, even though qualified black applicants, some with superior qualifications than white applicants, applied for the jobs, the suit says.
In addition, the suit alleges blacks seeking official/manager positions were subject to discriminatory recruitment practices and procedures. This included word-of-mouth recruitment that informed the company's primarily white male workforce of available positions, but which restricted or limited blacks from learning of vacancies and resulted in a disproportionately high white male applicant pool.
"The effect of the practices has been to deprive black applicants of equal employment opportunities and otherwise adversely affect their status as applicants for employment," the suit says.
The EEOC makes similar allegations of discrimination concerning AutoZone's failure to hire female applicants for official/manager, technician and service worker positions. The suit alleges that qualified females, some with superior qualifications to male applicants, applied for these positions but weren't hired.
In addition to failing to hire blacks and women, the EEOC suit adds that AutoZone's procedures for promoting employees discriminated against blacks and females. Those promotion decisions were made primarily by white males based on subjective criteria that were applied without selection guidelines and without notices of vacancies posted, the suit says.
AutoZone has more than 2,900 company-owned stores in 43 states and Mexico. It employs more than 40,000 employees and had sales of more than $4.5 billion in fiscal year 2000.