Irony: Labor Department Faces Wrongful Termination Lawsuit

Ironically, the government agency that was created to foster the overall welfare of workers is now facing wrongful termination lawsuit raised by a former employee.

According to news reports, the Tennessee Department of Labor is now being sued by its former employee for wrongfully terminating white employees.

In his lawsuit that has already reached the Federal Court, Donald Ingram claims that the labor department’s commissioner, Karla Davis, is subjecting white employees to racial discrimination and pushing them out the door.

The lawsuit claimed the almost every one of the employees who were fired were Caucasians and almost all of their replacements were African-Americans.

Moreover, Ingram also noted that in many cases, the replacements did not meet the qualifications required by the department, which include knowledge and experience that are similar with that of the person they replaced. Furthermore, the replacements were paid at a higher level.

Additionally, an investigation conducted by a media firm confirmed the complainant’s accusation regarding the large turnover. Accordingly, within a year and a half, more than 300 employees left the agency.

The investigation likewise revealed that the state’s labor department has not been meeting federal standards in processing unemployment claims.

Under the labor laws, the state is supposed to process the claims within 21 days but so far, there are some 10,000 people who have been waiting longer than the given time frame. In fact, a lot of them have to wait for two months for a decision on their benefits.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the agency claimed that they are currently working to meet the federal standards. Also, the spokesperson added that the agency is now hiring more employees to deal with the backlogs.

Consequently, a Los Angeles employment discrimination lawyer here is a wondering why the agency has to fire hundreds of employees considering that its work force is obviously inadequate to deal with the continuously growing number of backlogs. In addition, they are now in search of additional employees again. Incidentally, instead of cost-cutting, the agency is just increasing its expenditures and wasting precious time as well through firing old employees and hiring new ones.