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Dive Summary:
- An expedited transfer policy that requires, as a condition of employment, that applicants have state-issued driver’s license for at least 12 monthsallegedly discriminates on the basis of national origin and violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a rejected job applicant alleged in an April 25 lawsuit.
- The applicant, a US resident born in Afghanistan, is authorized to work in the US, according to the complaint in Hamdard v. Swift Transportation Co. of Arizona, LLC. At the time he applied to Swift Transportation, he had a 10-month Oregon driver’s license, an international driver’s license, three years of experience driving in Afghanistan and a U.S. commercial driver’s license, the complaint said.
- After applying, she spoke with a Swift employee and a company recruiter. Both allegedly told him that Swift’s policy prohibited him from being hired because he did not meet the driver’s license requirement, according to the complaint. He later filed a class-action lawsuit, alleging that the driver’s license requirement has a disparate impact on non-U.S.-born applicants
Dive Insight:
Knight Swift Transportation Holdings, Swift’s parent company, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Recruitment practices related to non-U.S. citizens are generally governed by three federal laws: Title VII; the Immigration and Nationality Act; (government work visas) and the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (verification of eligibility for employment).
Title VII and IRCA prohibit employers from discriminating against a job applicant based on national origin and often involve overlapping aspects of the hiring process.
For example, last year, manufacturing staffing firm ResourceMFG agreed to pay $75,000 to settle allegations by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that it violated Title VII by refusing to hire a naturalized US citizen because she was born in Germany.
According to the EEOC, the applicant completed the paperwork for a job with a government contractor that required employees to be U.S. citizens but not that they were born in the US Even so, ResourceMFG’s recruiter allegedly asked the applicant to provide a US birth certificate, halting the process when the applicant said she did not have one but could provide documents showing she was a US citizen.
Properly verifying eligibility for U.S. work also raises compliance issues under IRCA, which prohibits employers from refusing to accept permitted documents or requiring more documents than necessary to demonstrate employment eligibility, the EEOC previously reminded employers .
Relevant here, Title VII it also makes it illegal for employers to use face-neutral selection criteria (standards that apply to everyone regardless of their national origin) if those criteria have a negative impact on people of a particular national origin and are not job-related or necessary for the business activities, the EEOC guidance states.
In that case, the applicant claimed Swift’s recruiter told him that in addition to not meeting the driver’s license requirement, he was “exactly what they need,” according to the complaint. But that requirement allegedly gives the company the ability to refuse to hire foreign-born drivers with other qualifications and is inconsistent with business necessity, the complaint alleges.
Even if the requirement were consistent with business necessity, “there are less discriminatory alternatives that would equally serve any legitimate purpose,” the suit claims. “For example, if the concern was whether the applicant has sufficient driving experience, Swift could count the duration of the driver’s international driver’s license toward the 12-month requirement,” the lawsuit said.