AFGE along with two federal employees filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last week challenging the agency’s refusal to process federal-sector class complaints pending before its administrative judges.
Despite regulations requiring the EEOC to handle these matters promptly, EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas issued a directive in December that unlawfully directed the agency’s administrative judges to halt all proceedings in class-action discrimination and harassment complaints affecting federal employees.
“The Trump administration’s unprecedented suspension of class action discrimination cases is a direct attack on the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This action inhibits our ability to address widespread, reoccurring discrimination in the workplace and prevents employees who are part of ongoing class actions from having their cases processed and adjudicated,” AFGE National Vice President for Women and Fair Practices Kendrick Roberson said.
“This is an attack on federal employees, D.C. government employees, and all employees who face discrimination in the workplace. It is imperative for stakeholders to know that this is not just an attack on federal employees – this is an attack that impacts all workers everywhere.”
This order directly affects an ongoing class-action case brought by two correctional officers at Federal Correctional Complex Pollock in Louisiana who sued the Federal Bureau of Prisons in 2024, alleging severe and ongoing sexual harassment against female employees at the prison. Following the EEOC’s unpublished directive, the administrative judge assigned to the case issued an order putting an immediate halt to all proceedings.
In the seven months since case processing was suspended, the two plaintiffs and other female officers at the prison have faced or risk facing ongoing and escalating sexual harassment, according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
“It is well established that, whether in a federal prison or elsewhere, women do not need to endure sexual harassment in the workplace. Rather than take common sense steps to prevent the inmates’ vulgar and egregious sexual harassment of female staff, however, FCC Pollock has turned a blind eye to it,” said Heidi Burakiewicz, founding partner at Burakiewicz & DePriest. “By refusing to process class claims, the EEOC has abandoned the women and prevented them from obtaining implementation of steps to stop the ongoing sexual harassment.”
AFGE joined the two BOP officers as a plaintiff in the case because the EEOC’s suspension directive impairs our union’s ability to counsel and represent those members in EEOC proceedings.
“Justice delayed is justice denied, and the EEOC’s refusal to act on these class-action complaints is causing direct harm and personal injury to our members,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said. “The EEOC has a legal responsibility and obligation to keep our federal workplaces free from discrimination and retaliation, and the agency’s refusal to process these cases is a clear abandonment of its mission.”
Plaintiffs are being represented by Democracy Defenders Fund; Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll LLP; Burkiewicz & DePriest, PLLC; and AFGE.
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