Company takes back job offer because woman has one hand, feds say. Now it’ll pay
A woman was offered a job after passing a test with a perfect score. Then a staffing company took back its offer because the woman has one hand and they assumed she couldn’t do the work, federal officials say.
As a result, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit, accusing the company’s branch in Orem, Utah of disability discrimination, according to the agency.
Now Elwood Staffing Services is paying $77,500 to settle the lawsuit after the EEOC says it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by rescinding the job offer, the agency announced in an Oct. 17 news release.
“Employers, including staffing agencies, must engage in the interactive process with prospective employees instead of making assumptions about an applicant’s abilities,” EEOC regional attorney Mary Jo O’Neill, of the agency’s Phoenix office, said in a statement.
McClatchy News contacted lawyers for Elwood Staffing Services on Oct. 17 and was awaiting a response.
The case
In 2017, a Utah woman, who does not have a left hand and wears a prosthetic one, applied for employment with Elwood Staffing Services, according to the EEOC. The staffing company hires individuals to work at its client companies, including its client Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc.
Shortly after applying, Elwood Staffing Services told the woman Nu Skin was hiring, and had her meet with an staffing manager for a screening process about a product assembler job on July 13, 2017, the complaint states. This position requires workers to put labels on product bottles and assemble the products into kits.
During the meeting with the staffing manager, the woman had to apply for the specific position by updating her information on a computer, according to the complaint.
The EEOC says the staffing manager watched as she typed on the keyboard using her prosthetic hand before administering her a product labeling test.
Then, the woman completed the labeling test with ease, receiving a perfect score, the complaint says. The staffing manager also commented how she “had done a lot better than he thought she would.”
Afterward, he offered the woman a job with Nu Skin and assigned her first day of work that same month, the complaint states.
However, the woman also needed to complete a dexterity test to work for Nu Skin, but the staffing manager didn’t tell her this after offering the job, according to the complaint. This test requires applicants to insert tiny pins into a peg board.
As the woman believed that she was days away from beginning a new job, the staffing manager called another regional manager and told him he didn’t believe she could “complete the dexterity test because she does not have a left hand,” the complaint states.
This regional manager said that all Nu Skin applicants must complete the test, according to the EEOC.
As a result, the staffing manager called the woman hours after offering the job and rescinded the offer, telling her “two hands were needed,” the complaint states.
Meanwhile, the EEOC says the woman was “able to perform” the job “with or without reasonable accommodation.”
The agency accused Elwood Staffing of failing to provide the woman reasonable accommodation and not hiring her due to her disability or her potential need for a reasonable accommodation.
As part of the lawsuit settlement, Elwood Staffing’s locations in Utah must “revise their anti-discrimination policies, promptly and thoroughly investigate complaints of disability discrimination, train all employees including temporary associates on antidiscrimination, and provide reports on training, complaints of discrimination, and any revisions to policies and procedures to the EEOC,” according to the release.
Orem is 40 miles south of Salt Lake City.
This story was originally published October 17, 2022 at 1:29 PM with the headline "Company takes back job offer because woman has one hand, feds say. Now it’ll pay."
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