The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) hired the Gallup organization
to find out workers' perception of discrimination. Released December 8 the findings show that
while much progress has been made in fulfilling the promise of equal opportunity, more remains
to be done.
The new poll addresses perceptions of discrimination among American workers four decades after the agency was founded through the enactment of Title VII of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Gallup Organization -- with input from the EEOC and financial support from Kaiser Permanente, The Society for Human Resources Management and United Parcel Service -- sampled American workers of varying racial and ethnic backgrounds, ages, genders, and states of disability. The survey asked employees about their perceptions of discrimination at work and the effect those perceptions had on performance and retention.
The Gallup data indicate that 15% of all workers perceived that they had been subjected to some sort of discriminatory or unfair treatment. When broken down into sub-groups, 31% of Asians surveyed reported incidents of discrimination, the largest percentage of any ethnic group, with African Americans constituting the second largest group at 26%.
EEOC's preliminary charge data for Fiscal Year 2005 show that employment discrimination continues to be a significant problem in the 21st century workplace. According to the EEOC's preliminary statistics for the last fiscal year, which cover October 2004 through September 2005 the charges for discrimination are broken down among other things:
For EEOC press release, go http://www.eeoc.gov/press/12-8-05.html