Arlington, va. (AP) – President Donald Trump released two of the three democratic commissioners of the Federal Authority, who force the Civil Rights Act at the workplace, an unprecedented step in order to implement his approach against certain politics of diversity and gender rights.
The two commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels confirmed on Tuesday in statements that they were released tardy Monday evening. Both said they were examining options to question their layoffs and described their distance before the end of their five -year term as an unprecedented decision that undermined the independence of the agency.
In a similar step, the board member of the National Labor Relations, Gynne A. Wilcox and General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, also released tardy at night, confirmed the agency. According to the NLRB website, Wilcox was the first black woman who has served on the board since 1935.
The EEOC was created by title VII of the Civil Rights Act from 1964 as a non -partisan five -person body in order to protect workers from discrimination based on breed, gender, disability and other protected characteristics from discrimination. The US President appoints Commissioners and the Senate confirms them, but their conditions are staggered and should overlap the presidential conditions to ensure the independence of the agency.
The two shots leave the agency with a republican commissioner Andrea Lucas, the Trump last week, a democratic commissioner, Kalpana Kotagal, and three vacancies that Trump can occupy, an EEOC chairman, a democratic commissioner, who has done. Another Republican Commissioner, Keith Sondery, resigned after Trump had appointed him deputy minister of labor.
The EEOC committee examines and imposes punishments for employers who have violated laws, protecting employees from races, gender, disability and other forms of discrimination. The agency also writes influential rules and guidelines on how anti -discrimination laws should be implemented and conducts public relations and training at the workplace.
In recent years, the agency’s democratic and republican commissioners have been heavily divided into many questions. Last year, both Republican commissioners voted against recent guidelines that indicate that the survey of transgender employees or the rejection of access to a bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity would violate anti-discrimination laws. The Republican Commissioners also voted against regulations that show that employers have to give employees leisure and other abortions according to the recent law on pregnant workers.
The dismissal of caves and Samuel seems to be able to position the EEOC to position the employer with diversity, justice and inclusion -or dei policies, of which the Trump government believes that in their attempts to support racial minorities, women and other groups in discrimination.
Lucas, the recent drama EEOC chairman, gave a statement last week in which she said she would set priorities as if she were to compensate for “illegal dei-motivated breed and discrimination against gender; Protection of American workers from anti -American national discrimination; Defense of the biological and binary reality of gender and the associated rights, including the rights of women to individual family spaces at work. “
In contrast, the three democratic commissioners have sentenced a number of executive regulations last week last week to end the DEI practices in federal and private companies as well as protection for transgender workers. Her statements also emphasized that the US antidis criminating laws remained intact despite Trump’s instructions and that the EEOC must continue to enforce them.
Burrows, who has been an EEOC commissioner since 2015, said in her declaration on Tuesday that the dismissal of two democratic commissioners before their ending “The efforts of this independent agency were undermined and expanded the public awareness and understanding of the Federal employment laws. ”
Samuels, who was appointed by Trump in 2020, said her distance “against the law and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the EEOC as an independent agency- one that is not controlled by a single cabinet secretary, but is energetic as a multiple multi-multis-agency Member body, the different views of which are integrated into the design of the Commission. ”
The shots condemned a quick conviction of civil rights groups and organizations that promote the further development of women in the workforce.
“Today’s outrageous shots send a cruel message that not all workers can count on the EEOC. According to the EEOC intended by Trump, the government no longer has its back when they are a transgender or a gay worker who is looking for fair treatment. And if you are a person with color or woman, your success at work is proof of illegal dei, ”said Gaylynn Burroughs, Vice President of Education and Justice at the National Women’s Law Center.
Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat in Washington, condemned the dismissal of the EEOC commissioners and NLRB members. “These are still lawless actions of a president who think he is above the law and could clearly no less take care of the rights of the workers,” she said in an explanation.
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