EEOC subpoenas area firm over hiring practices

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has asked a federal judge to enforce a subpoena issued to Mauser Packaging Solutions, an international packaging company based in Oak Brook, Illinois.

In a federal complaint filed in February 2024, the EEOC accuses Mauser of engaging in illegal hiring practices at several of its facilities, particularly in the Chicagoland area. The agency alleges that Mauser limited, segregated, or classified applicants based on race, national origin, or sex—practices that may violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Mauser is a global manufacturer of rigid packaging with 180 locations worldwide, including multiple facilities in Illinois and 25 other U.S. states and territories, according to the EEOC.

The complaint alleges that the company denied employment opportunities to applicants based on different demographic factors depending on the facility in question. Groups allegedly impacted include white, Black, and Hispanic applicants, as well as women.

According to a press release, the EEOC claims Mauser may have asked staffing, placement, or recruiting companies to send candidates with demographic characteristics that matched the makeup of current employees at certain facilities. The result, the EEOC contends, was the effective segregation of worksites by race, national origin, or sex.

“For example,” the EEOC explained, “preferring Hispanic workers for a facility with a predominantly Hispanic workforce, preferring Black workers for a different facility with a predominantly Black workforce, etc.” Such staffing requests may be illegal under federal law.

To investigate these allegations, the EEOC issued a subpoena requesting that Mauser identify job applicants at specific locations in Illinois and Pennsylvania. The subpoena also seeks information about whether the applicants were referred to the company, who referred them, the position for which they were considered, and whether they were ultimately hired. The agency is also requesting demographic and contact information for each candidate.

The Chicago Crusader contacted Mauser for comment via email, but the company had not responded by press time for the newspaper’s print edition.

“The EEOC is seeking to determine whether Mauser engaged in any unlawful hiring practices, including asking staffing firms to send them workers or candidates based on demographic characteristics such as sex, race, or national origin in order to steer candidates between facilities to lead to more homogenous workplaces, including ones which reflected the immediately surrounding neighborhood population’s demographics,” said EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas.

“Making staffing requests based on demographic characteristics is almost always illegal, and there is no exception to this bar for racially motivated decisions driven by business concerns, such as concerns about the effects on employee relations,” Lucas continued. “The EEOC also is concerned that employers can use this as a way to exclude American workers in favor of foreign-born workers who may be perceived as being easier to exploit or take advantage of. The EEOC is committed to ensuring American workers are given a fair shot at employment, as well as to combatting neo-segregationism, including effective segregation resulting from purportedly ‘benign’ motives.”

The EEOC filed the subpoena enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, after first attempting to obtain the requested data through investigative channels.

The EEOC’s Chicago District Office has jurisdiction over Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota.

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