DHL Paying $8.7M to Settle Race Discrimination Lawsuit in Illinois

Delivery company DHL will pay $8.7 million and be subject to the oversight of a court-appointed monitor to settle a class race discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The EEOC suit charges that DHL assigned Black employees to routes in neighborhoods with higher crime rates compared to those assigned to its white drivers, gave Black employees much heavier dock work, and segregated its Black and white employees.

Black employees often witnessed crime and sometimes were victims of crime on their assigned routes, and they reported being assigned to move heavy packages while their white counterparts were assigned the far less strenuous task of sorting letters, according to the EEOC.

The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.

DHL is required to pay $8.7 million in compensation to a group of 83 Black employees subjected to the alleged discriminatory conduct who chose to participate in the lawsuit. Twenty of the employees were represented by private counsel.