Saying that “sex-based pay discrimination is an unlawful employment practice that will not be tolerated by the EEOC,” an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (”EEOC”) attorney announced filing of a wage discrimination lawsuit in which the federal agency alleges that a weight loss center violated federal law by paying two female employees less than a male employee who performed the same duties.  See, http://www.eeoc.gov/press/7-30-09b.html .  According to the EEOC Press Release, the two female employees worked in the position of director of franchise development and a male employee was hired and paid a significantly higher salary in his position as director of franchise development.  As stated in the Press Release, the EEOC’s investigation revealed that there was no significant difference between the duties performed by the male employee and the female employees.  Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, and the Equal Pay Act, which protects people against wage discrimination because of sex.  In this regard, the EEOC is a federal agency which enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination and the EEOC filed suit after first attempting to reach a voluntary out of court settlement.  Further information about the EEOC is available in the agency’s website at www.eeoc.gov . 

Whether workplace pay discrimination occurs in Houston or elsewhere, victims of employment related wage bias may contact the EEOC and an attorney to determine if a wage discrimination lawsuit is ultimately appropriate under the particular circumstances and facts of the potential pay discrimination claim.

Officials in the east Texas town of Paris said Thursday they are preparing for an influx of black separatists and white supremacists at a planned protest next week over the death of a black man who was run over by a truck and dragged. The Lamar County Commissioner’s Court has created designated zones for protesters to help police maintain order Tuesday, the day a rally organized by the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party is scheduled outside the county courthouse.

The protest is the third related to the death of 24-year-old Brandon McClelland, whose mangled body was found Sept. 16 on a country road outside Paris, about 90 miles northeast of Dallas. Authorities estimated McClelland’s body had been dragged more than 70 feet beneath a vehicle.

Two white men, Shannon Finley and Charles Crostley, were charged with murdering McClelland by running him down in Finley’s pickup after the three friends made a late-night beer run from their dry town across state lines to Oklahoma. But a special prosecutor dismissed the charges last month, citing a lack of evidence, and the men were released after more than eight months in jail.

The previous protests by the Panthers and the Nation of Islam were mostly peaceful and resulted in no arrests. But authorities said there were hints of white supremacist groups showing up this time.

“We have some very specific intel that there would be some counter-protestors — white supremacists, KKK, skinheads — who wish to attend,” said Bill Harris, the first assistant county and district attorney for Lamar County.

At the November and June protests, there were a handful of white supremacists led by Rock Banks, a self-professed grand titan of the East Texas Ku Klux Klan. Words flew in June when Banks waded into the crowd holding aloft a patch depicting a Nazi-era Iron Cross. The KKK, the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party are considered hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The racial implications of the McClelland case have reminded some of the murder of James Byrd, a black man who was chained by the ankles to a pickup by three white men and dragged to death in 1998 in the east Texas town of Jasper.

Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville said the protest zones are designed to separate members of the Nation of Islam and the Panthers from white supremacists. Law enforcement officials requested the zones as a proactive step to avoid conflict.

Main Street, which runs along the east side of the courthouse, will serve as a dividing line, Superville said. He said he is trying to balance free speech rights with public safety concerns and the desire to keep open the courthouse. “We are going to preserve the peace,” the judge said. “This place is more like Mayberry than Jasper.” Brenda Cherry, a community activist in Paris who leads the Concerned Citizens for Racial Equality group, called the commissioners’ decision “racist and ignorant.”

“They are trying to stifle us and violate our constitutional rights,” she said.

Associated Press

Minority car dealers are expected to be hit hard as General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC trim their retail networks, undoing years of work by the auto makers to bring more African-Americans, Hispanics and others into the car business. Chrysler on Thursday said it would drop 789 of its 3,200 dealers as part of its bankruptcy restructuring. GM plans to eliminate 2,600 of its more than 6,000 dealers as it reorganizes.

The National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers estimates that 140 of Chrysler’s 170 to 175 minority-owned franchises could be closed, and at least 174 of GM’s 300 minority-owned dealers could shut their doors.

Michal Czerwonka for The Wall Street Journal

Sil Gonzales worried Chrysler would close his dealership in South Gate, Calif. The yellow markings list cars sold recently. The organization said Chrysler’s minority-owned dealerships are at risk because many are small stores that offer only one of the company’s three brands, Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep. Fewer than half have converted to the company’s “Genesis” format that puts all three makes under one roof, NAMAD said. That compares to the approximately 60% of all Chrysler dealerships that have the three-brand format.

Genesis stores are usually more profitable because they sell and service more vehicles than single-brand dealerships. Chrysler plans to emphasize Genesis dealerships under its reorganization. About 58% of the GM stores run by minority owners sell Pontiacs, Saturns, Saabs or Hummers, NAMAD said — all brands the company plans to phase out or sell.

“We’re more vulnerable,” said NAMAD President Damon Lester. “We were the last ones to come to the table.” Chrysler declined to comment. Dawin Wright, GM’s executive director of dealer development, said GM is trying to put in safety nets to help minority dealers survive. “We share their concern,” he said.

After years of losing market share, GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. have been left with more dealers than they need, especially in metropolitan areas. As a result, their franchises often end up competing with each other for customers and many lose money.

Many minority dealers operate in cramped downtown locations that are less desirable than the spacious suburban auto malls that are now popular, said Mr. Lester and other dealers. Urban franchises typically draw fewer shoppers and carry less inventory for customers to choose among. Both factors tend to limit sales.

Minority dealers often don’t own the land beneath their showrooms, so the monthly rent adds to their costs, Mr. Lester said. And since many borrowed money to get into the business, they sometimes have more debt than family-run dealerships that have been in business for decades. Sil Gonzales, 57 years old, feared his Casa de Gonzales Chrysler-Jeep store in South Gate, Calif., a largely Latino suburb of Los Angeles, would be one of those Chrysler terminates.

When Houston Texas attorney spoke with former African American dealer, Mike Farr, Mr. Farr stated the fianancing for auto purchases makes it tough for the business.

As Chrysler’s troubles have mounted in the past year, his sales have plunged. He’s hoping to sell the six acres of land beneath his store to raise cash to pay off $14 million in debt. But on Thursday he learned from Chrysler that his dealership had been spared. “We were very fortunate,” Mr. Gonzales said.  “Now I’m just concerned for my fellow minority dealers.”

 On Wednesday, a delegation of about 100 dealers, including some minorities, gathered in Washington to lobby Congress to save dealerships from closure. Dealers from Houston traveled as well to Washington.  On Thursday, representatives of the National Auto Dealers Association, along with NAMAD, were scheduled to meet with the White House’s automotive task force, according to an NADA spokesman.

The Big Three car makers first set up programs to help minority and women entrepreneurs get into the dealer business back in the 1970s and ’80s. The idea was both to increase diversity among their retail networks and do a better job appealing to the growing ranks of minority consumers.

Greg Baranco, an African-American, owns a Buick-Pontiac-GMC store in Atlanta and a Mercedes-Benz dealership nearby. He’s been in the business 30 years, but said he has watched how his Pontiac sales plunged after GM announced earlier this year the brand would be eliminated. After selling 20 Pontiacs a month on average, he sold just four in April. Mr. Baranco worries how he will do carrying just GMC and Buick. “Dealers are finding it difficult to maintain those operations with just two brands,” he said.

By ALEX P. KELLOGG (Wallstreet Journal)—Kate Linebaugh contributed to this article.

Attorneys with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (”EEOC”) announced in a June 17, 2009 EEOC Press Release that an international military contractor will pay $110,000.00 and furnish other relief to settle an employment discrimination lawsuit filed by the EEOC in Arizona.  According to the EEOC Press Release, agency attorneys charged in the lawsuit that the company discriminated against three female temporary employees by paying them less than male employees who performed the same job duties and by not making them permanent employees.  See, http://www.eeoc.gov/press/6-17-09a.html . 

Whether employment related unequal pay occurs in New Braunfels, San Marcos, San Antonio or elsewhere, victims of pay discrimination may contact the EEOC and an attorney or lawyer to determine if an equal pay lawsuit may ultimately be appropriate under the particular circumstances and facts of the potential pay discrimination claim.

The United States Department of Labor (”DOL”) enforces federal laws such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (”FLSA”) and, as stated by the DOL, the FLSA requires covered, nonexempt employees to, for example, be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour for all hours worked, and time and one-half their regular rates of pay for hours worked beyond 40 in a week.  For more information about the FLSA, one can call the DOL’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE and visit a DOL website at www.wagehour.dol.gov .

In this regard, a January 29, 2009 DOL Wage and Hour Division Press Release announed that the DOL recovered $24,360 in back wages for seven (7) restaurant employees in Omaha, following an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division.  See, www.dol.gov .  According to the DOL Press Release, the investigation found that the restaurant company violated the overtime provisions of the FLSA by not paying the employees time and one-half their regular rates for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek.  The DOL reported in the Press Release that the investigation was conducted as part of an ongoing regional effort to increase FLSA compliance in the restaurant industry.

In a separate February 18, 2009 Press Release, the DOL announced that it obtained an Order holding an Andover, Kansas restaurant business and its president in Contempt of a Consent Injunction issued on August 14, 2003.  See, www.dol.gov .  According to the DOL Press Release, a U.S. District Court, in September 2008, found the restaurant company in contempt of court for failing to pay $302,421 in back wages to nineteen (19) restaurant employees and ordered immediate payment, as well as an equal amount as compensation for delay in the payment of wages.  As stated in the DOL Press Release, employers of tipped employees must pay a cash wage of at least $2.13 per hour if they claim a tip credit against their minimum wage obligation.  Further, if an employee’s tips combined with the employer’s cash wage of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference, but certain other conditions must also be met.  More information about the FLSA is available on the internet at www.wagehour.dol.gov and www.dol.gov/compliance . 

Whether employment related unlawful or unfair pay occurs in Corpus Christi, Houston, San Antonio or elsewhere, victims of unfair pay may contact the DOL and an attorney or lawyer to determine if an unfair pay lawsuit may ultimately be appropriate under the facts and circumstances of the potential unfair wage claim.

According to a March 24, 2009 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Press Release, EEOC attorneys announced the settlement of a pay discrimination lawsuit filed the EEOC, alleging that Adelphi University paid a group of women professors less than male professors performing the same work.  See, http://www.eeoc.gov .  As stated in the Press Release, the EEOC lawsuit alleged, in essence, that a class of full-time female professors was paid less than male professors of the same or lesser rank teaching within the same school and that this violation had been ongoing since at least April of 2004.  In addition, the Press Release stated that pay discrimination by gender violates the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Whether pay discrimination in employment occurs in Houston, Texas or elsewhere, victims of unequal pay may contact the EEOC to file a charge of discrimination and contact an attorney to determine if a pay discrimination lawsuit may ultimately be appropriate under the facts and circumstances the particular potential case.