CU Agrees to Pay $450,000 to Settle Discrimination Charges by Former Executives
Tucoemas Federal Credit Union will take steps to prevent workplace discrimination and retaliation issues.
A California credit union will pay $450,000 to settle a sex, age and retaliatory discrimination lawsuit brought by three former women executives after they applied for the CEO position for which a younger man was hired with no prior credit union experience, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Friday.
The EEOC in Fresno said earlier this year it conducted an inquiry and found reasonable cause that the $239 million Tucoemas Federal Credit Union in Visalia violated federal sex and age discrimination laws and then retaliated against two of the three former credit union professionals.
The federal agency was unable to secure an acceptable conciliation agreement with the credit union. That led EEOC to file a civil rights, employment discrimination lawsuit in Fresno federal court in July on behalf of Sherry Belcher, former CFO, Cynthia Seymour, former vice president of lending and Cindy Summers, former vice president of human resources.
In August 2015 when former Tucoemas President/CEO Linda Reese announced her retirement, she encouraged the three women to apply for the job. When they were interviewed, Belcher was 50, Seymour was 60 and Summers was 55. They all met the minimum qualifications required by the credit union, according to the EEOC complaint.
After the first round of interviews, however, a younger male applicant, Brice Yocum, was selected for the CEO’s position. The EEOC lawsuit alleged that Yocum did not meet the minimum qualifications listed on the credit union’s job posting.
“No reason other than sex and/or age discrimination explains the selection of a younger male applicant as CEO over the charging parties,” the EEOC lawsuit stated.
In answering the lawsuit, the credit union denied the sex, age and retaliatory discrimination allegations and also denied that Belcher, Seymour and Summers met the qualifications for the CEO’s job.
Even though Tucoemas admitted in its court documents that Yocum also did not meet all of the qualifications outlined in the job posting, he possessed other qualifications the three women candidates did not, making him more qualified for the CEO’s position. However, the credit union did not specify what qualifications Yocum held that the three women did not.
The settlement also requires Tucoemas FCU to take steps to prevent workplace discrimination and retaliation in the future.
The credit union has agreed to hire an external and qualified equal employment opportunity consultant to monitor compliance the agreement, review and if necessary revise policies and procedures against all discrimination and retaliation prohibited by federal laws, provide training to all employees, including management, on sex and age discrimination and retaliation; and establish a centralized tracking system for recruitment, hiring, promotions, terminations, and sex and age discrimination complaints, along with the monitoring of such complaints to prevent retaliation.
“Retaliation can chill a workforce from coming forward and reporting illegal behavior,” Melissa Barrios, director of the EEOC’s Fresno, said. “We are encouraged that Tucoemas has taken the allegations seriously and has agreed to measures that will benefit the workplace.”