An hour with EEOC Commissioner Charlotte A. Burrows, Part 1 of 2 – Priorities Overview

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EEOC Commissioner Charlotte A. Burrows. (Photo courtesy of EEOC.gov)

EEOC Commissioner Charlotte A. Burrows. (Photo courtesy of EEOC.gov)

Last week I was invited to attend a “Meet and Greet” with one of the USA’s five EEOC (Employment Equal Opportunity Commission) Commissioners, Charlotte A. Burrows, in the EEOC’s downtown Raleigh office. I received the invite since I am an officer of the Raleigh Business and Professional Network, Raleigh’s National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce’s affiliate chapter.

The reception started with each of the 25 attendees greeting and introducing ourselves to Ms. Burrows in a reception line, then introducing ourselves briefly to the group, this followed by a 20 minute overview of the EEOC’s current top priorities and a Q and A session. I was extremely impressed with Ms. Burrows (link to online profile), who has her Bachelors Degree from Princeton and Law Degree from Yale. And I came away from the meeting proud of my country for having a body like the EEOC which is diligently and effectively assuring full rights for all workers in our country.

Ms. Burrows then quickly discussed several of the major areas the EEOC was working on:

1. Focusing on retaliation charges since they are the largest percentage of cases brought to the EEOC at 43% of the total. She also stated that retaliation is most often the easiest charge for people (juries) to understand.

2. Equal Pay for Equal Work. When equal pay for women was introduced by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, the pay differential between women and men was 41 cents on the dollar. That has now been cut in half to 21 cents, but that is still too large. Even normalizing for time in the position and other factors it is still 7 to 8 cents. The EEOC is studying lots of data to identify the hot spots or largest environments for gaps in pay so they can be addressed.

3. Providing stronger guidance on pregnant employees since there is still too high an instance of employees being fired for being pregnant.

4. LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) concerns. The EEOC believes that sexual orientation and gender identity are indeed covered under Title VII, and they are vigorously addressing this kind of workplace discrimination. UPDATED April 28 – Link to part 2 in which I expand on the LGBT area.

5. Protection of vulnerable workers within the “underground” economy, a large number of them being undocumented immigrants working in the farming industry. She mentioned some horrific cases such as one employer routinely raping female employees with impunity since the women were powerless to report this abuse.

6. Diversity of police forces. The EEOC is teaming with the Justice Department and collecting best practices from police departments that are successfully diversifying their forces to be more representative of the communities they serve,

I am very encouraged by the work of the EEOC to ensure that every worker in our country receives fair treatment and equality under the law, which is truly the “American Way.”

Link to part 2 in which I expand on the LGBT employment discussion.

Issues in Kenya – So what do Kenyans Think?

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It is a privilege to work with Rev. Michael Kimindu of Kenya who is tirelessly fighting corruption in Kenya. Here he is in front of the Southeastern University College Mtito-Andei Campus, where he is making valuable community connections.

It is a privilege to work with Rev. Michael Kimindu of Kenya who is tirelessly fighting corruption in Kenya. Here he is in front of the Southeastern University College Mtito-Andei Campus, where he is making valuable community connections.

Because of my community non-profit work in Mtito Andei, Kenya (link to latest updates), I had promised to write a blog about Kenya every two or three months. In September, I started with “The Problem with Kenya … and My Hope” in which I provide a pretty harsh critique of what is holding this country back, with it’s excellent natural and human resources, from becoming a leading economy of the world. And in November, I published “A Blog from Kenya – Who Will Same Kenya?” written by a Kenyan pastor (pictured above) who is not afraid to buck the status quo and truly question the role the religious establishment should have in fighting the rampant corruption and injustice in Kenya.

I do realize that any critique I may provide is done so as “outsider” and some may question if I even have the right to offer my observations, assessment and recommendations. I do so out of a true caring for this country and its people.

When I was in Kenya in November, I picked up the newspaper “The Daily Nation” during a 12 hour (gasp) layover in the Nairobi airport. And my assessments were confirmed in that the general population of Kenya agree with my strong recommendation that the problem of rampant corruption needs to be acknowledged and addressed. Corruption is one of the major wrongs that can hold any country or organization back because it inefficiently siphons off needed resources for the good of the whole into the personal pockets of the wasteful few.

Here are some of the points raised in the article “Poll: We’re headed in wrong direction” on page 3 of the November 16, 2015 issue of “Daily Nation.”

• According to the poll, only 29% of Kenyans feel the country is headed in the right direction, down 5 points from the previous year. 62% of Kenyans feel the country is moving in the wrong direction.

• The three issues identified on “top of mind” of Kenyans leading to these results are: corruption, high cost of living, and lack of jobs. The high level of corruption in government was rated the #1 issue by 40.9% of the citizens.

• The national ministry of Education, Science and Technology was the poorest rated ministry by the citizens. This is a dangerous assessment given the importance of education on helping build highly skilled citizens to help compete in the global economy.

• And in terms of national commissions, the “Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission” was the lowest rated.

International corruption measuring bodies do confirm the high corruption in Kenya; for example Transparency International ranks Kenya 139th out of 168 measured countries , which is a horrendous performance. NOTE: and we think the USA is corrupt – we rank 16th out of 168!

My sincere hope is that the people of Kenya can unite to fight corruption and elect women and men of high integrity with hearts and minds to help Kenya progress, and that bold new leaders will arise to lead with honesty and transparency.