EEOC to hold press conference for high-school newspapers

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will hold its first national Youth@Work Press Conference on Dec. 14 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. to discuss the various forms of discrimination that teenagers face in the workplace. While student journalists from other states will be joining via telecom, conference organizers are encouraging Blair students to attend the conference in EEOC's Washington, D.C, headquarters for live proceedings.

The conference will allow high-school journalists as well as other attendees to interview the EEOC Chair Cari Dominguez and the Vice Chair, among other government officials, as well as a teen harassment victim and her attorney, according to the Youth@Work Initiative's web site.

The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. While around seven million people between the ages of 16 and 19 are currently employed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and three million between 15 and 17 work during the school year, according to The Washington Post, most of them are not fully aware of the laws that protect their rights as workers, said Mark Wong, assistant to EEOC's Director of Communications and Legislative Affairs and an organizer of this conference. "The goal of this meeting is to bring a greater awareness of the issue of discrimination in the work place to teenagers,” Wong said. "When teens enter the workplace for the first time, they are not aware of the rights they have or of the recourses they should take when their rights are violated. [The new Youth@Work Initiative's] mission is to change that.”

The Youth@Work Initiative program started last year and includes public outreach programs for high-school students. About two months ago, EEOC representatives visited three Blair classrooms to discuss with students their concerns about labor discrimination. Wong believes that Blair is a particularly important school for the Initiative to reach since "it has great diversity both ethnically and economically.”

In addition to Blair, the EEOC visited Albert Einstein High School on Dec. 6 and Rockville High School on Dec. 9, as well as other schools in the region and across the nation, to increase awareness of young workers' rights and responsibilities and to prepare students for entering the workplace.

Wong stated that an increased awareness of what youth should and should not tolerate in the workplace is crucial. "There are many violations of younger workers' rights that go on unreported because kids do not know that they don't have to just grin and bear it,” Wong explained.

The EEOC is filing an increasing amount of teenage discrimination lawsuits, which shows a possible increase in teens' awareness of their own rights, Wong speculated. "It doesn't seem like a good thing that we are seeing more lawsuits, but this fact is really a double-edged sword since it shows that more teens are sticking up for themselves,” Wong said.

Many of these lawsuits deal with workplace harassment. EEOC handled 25 such cases this year alone, according Post reporter Amy Joyce; in one case, five teenage girls sued for and won $300,000 from Jack in the Box, Inc.

However, a higher number of harassments, sex discriminations and other illegal activities are not reported. Susan Fineran, a professor at the University of Southern Maine, conducted a survey in which 35 percent of 712 high-school students interviewed said they had experienced sexual harassment while working part-time.

Fast-food restaurant chain Burger King recently paid $400,000 in a sexual harassment case involving teens, according to the EEOC web site. The web site also reports that more than 20 EEOC cases have involved restaurants in the last two years. However, Wong hopes that the agreement that the EEOC signed with the National Restaurant Association will reduce the amount of sexual harassment occurrences and other violations of teenagers' labor rights.

Though the EEOC will be training employers in the restaurant industry, Wong still believes that the best way for youth to defend themselves against discrimination and harassment is by becoming more aware of their rights and legal protections. "We hope that through this conference, we can get the word out to more young people that even though discrimination exists, there are ways they can combat it.”

For more information about the press conference, contact Mark Wong, or click here. To read the conference's press packet, click here. To file a formal job discrimination complaint, click here.