Beverly L. Watts Kentucky Commission on Human Rights

Bowen:    Beverly Watts is Executive Director for the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, a position she has held since 1992. Her career spans more than 25 years and includes leadership positions with prominent private and public organizations, including the U. S. Department of Agriculture. A native of Nashville, Tennessee, she holds both bachelors and masters degrees and speaks extensively on leadership and civil rights issues. Welcome.

Watts:   Thank you.

Bowen:    It's a pleasure to have you here. Beverly, how are human rights being violated in the American workplace today?

Watts:     Well, it's growing and there are a number of issues. We're seeing violations as relates to race, age, religion, sex, and within the sex discrimination category, sexual harassment.

We're finding that there is a lot of discrimination against persons with disabilities in the workplace. They're not making accommodations for specific disabilities that a person may have or they're believing that a person is disabled when they're not, which is also a violation of the ADA.

In the workplace, we're finding that individuals are not getting promotions. They're being paid different salaries. They are being harassed and harassment is the number one form of harassment in the workplace.

We're also seeing racial harassment. And then we're seeing, other forms of harassment, some that border on or could be conceived to be discrimination by individuals. They're not getting opportunities to be trained. They're being subjected to ridicule in many instances. You name it, it's there. It's generally around that job and whether or not, a) they're being paid, promoted or sometimes even being terminated.

Bowen:    So these are conditions that are actually increasing in the workplace today?

Watts:      Actually increasing, in Kentucky, and I don't think we're atypical. Since I've been around as Executive Director, we've gone from about 6,000 calls to close to 10,000 calls in that time period and that's a lot of calls. Not all of those are filed as charges but because people are calling, it says to me that they have a lot of concerns about workplace and workplace related issues. A lot of people that call just want advice. So we spend a lot of time doing counseling.

But it's true at the EEOC, which handles Title 7, and it's seeing an increased workload. It's happening in the states that border Kentucky--Indiana, Ohio, all of those. And then when I talk to counterparts across the country, we're pretty much seeing the same trends.

Bowen:    Beverly, from a procedural aspect, when does the Commission get involved?

Watts:      We'll get involved as soon as we have a notarized complaint from a complainant saying that they feel they've been discriminated against or the employer needs to have at least eight employees and the incident needs to have occurred no more than 180 days from the date it originally occurred, unless it's an ongoing issue, i.e., I wasn't promoted in March, I wasn't promoted in July, and I wasn't promoted in October and I think it's because of-race, gender, age, disability.

Bowen:    With all of the available education and with companies sending people to learn about the proper way to manage a workforce, why is it still going on? Why is there the breakdown?

Watts:     Well, I think there's a lot of polarization in the country. A lot of people think it's unfair that they're having to do this. It goes back to the whole notion of, I'm being treated unfairly and you're giving special preference to certain groups and this is just another thing that we have to do 'cause they told us to. And we hear this from managers.

And so a lot of people are sent to training and they're not happy to be there. And since I do a lot of training, I usually ask people, how many of you really want to be here? And of the ones who put up their hand, about half, especially if their bosses aren't there, if their bosses are there, they put up, everyone puts up their hands, but what that says to me is that, if the boss is not in the room, that's when you see them not put up their hands. And I said, look we're not going to tell, how many of you don't want to be here?

And what is it that you expect to learn? And that's the other place we learn that, most people say, well, I already know this stuff, I don't know why I'm here or I'm here to learn whatever you have to say 'cause the boss told me I had to come or we're doing this training in the company so we all have to do this, so this is my turn.

Bowen:    What prompts people to come to the Commission as opposed to hiring an attorney and pursuing an issue on their own?

Watts:     Well, they come to us generally because attorneys do cost money. Attorneys don't take every case that comes to them. And I've talked to Civil Rights attorneys across the country and, most of the times, they only take about 10% of the cases that actually come through the door.

We're a public agency. We're obligated by law to look at the allegations. And a lot of the people we see are at the low end of the spectrum, even though we see people throughout. The majority of our client base are going to be individuals who work for fast food companies or companies at less than managerial levels and so we see them.

And like I said, they're unhappy, they work at department stores. A lot of them work, some of them work in management positions at fast food companies and the like. But we see quite a few people, clerical, teachers sometimes come to us. We don't see a lot of senior managers who file charges with us. Most of them usually will get an attorney.

And, you know, the other thing is most people want to try to resolve it in the company but when they come to us they'll say, they wouldn't listen. So that we're kind of an organization of last resort for many of them.


Bowen:    In terms of the cases that you see, what percent are minority personnel?

Watts:     Of the cases we get, about 30% are from minorities, about another 30% are from women. And the minority cases are generally alleging race discrimination and the cases with women are generally alleging sex discrimination but some of them may be multiples. It might be an African-American female alleging sex discrimination and race discrimination. Then the third category, interestingly enough, is age discrimination. And it sort of is a back and forth between age- and disability-related cases.

All of the others are pretty small. We see religious discrimination cases. They tend to be pretty high profile when they come just because of the nature of religious discrimination but they're small in number.

And in sexual harassment, in the sex discrimination cases, almost half of those are sexual harassment claims, meaning that someone feels that sexual harassment has occurred in the workplace. So under sex discrimination, pay, terminations, etc. would be half of the 30% and then the other half is one issue in and of itself-

Bowen:    Beverly, what are the emotional ramifications with respect to people who come to  you?

Watts:      Well, when we see them, and I always tell staff that, the people we deal with, most of the times, are not very happy. If they're complainants, they've suffered some loss or some insult, they think. They didn't get a promotion. And we hear stories that says, I've been working at this job and I've trained everyone and I still haven't gotten a promotion or they passed over me or they fired me, even though they allowed others to do the same kinds of things in the workplace, I've been fired. So we have people who are angry, who are upset, who think that they have been wronged and they're looking for us to help right their position, if you will.

They come to us and we had a hearing about two years ago in Kentucky and since it's a hearing we can talk about it, it was a religious discrimination case and it involved a minister and it involved Western Kentucky State University. At the hearing, he talked about how he felt. He said he felt lethargic, he felt sick, he felt as though, he just didn't have the energy to move because people had told him that he had to work on the Sabbath and that was against his religion. He had told them that when he was hired, so he thought he had an understanding but the supervisors did not agree with that. And he just didn't feel good. His wife said, you know, he would just sit around and look out the window all day-just really lethargic.

Then we have people who go the opposite direction. Those are people who are angry, who yell and scream at the kids, yell and scream at the wives, you know, and sometimes yell and scream at others outside of the family. And those border on some of the violent kind of actions and activities. Generally, if they come to us, we usually counsel them about restraint. Talk to them about how they need to act when they encounter the respondent company at a hearing and we do a lot of that

So it's a lot of problems that they feel internally. Some of them even get sick. There have been a number of studies that have said high blood pressure, heart attacks, those kind of things are not uncommon in individuals who have been discriminated against and, in fact, there have been studies that suggest that it makes people sick.

Bowen:    So here we are in the end of the 20th century, moving into the 21st century, when does it stop?

Watts:     That's a good question. And we try to talk to respondents and to companies to really talk to them about what they can do to prevent these issues. We do a lot training. We do training with the Human Resource people and others. We'd like to do training with managers and talk about ways that they can ensure that they have a workplace free of discrimination.

And what we tell them is that if you have rules, they need to be enforced uniformly. If you have issues regarding a person's performance, then you need to tell the person that either: a) they are not performing and what they need to do to perform better. We tell employers, we don't want you to keep employees that you've done everything for and you cannot then, you know, correct any problems you may have but that we do want you to follow rules.

If you have females in the workplace and males and you have a rule about attendance, then it should be evenly handed down to males and females. If blacks and whites are in the workplace and you have a rule, then the same rule should apply to all. If people are performing their jobs and there's certain criteria to get promotions, then it should be clear what that criteria is and it should be given to them on an ongoing basis, problems identified as quickly as possible.

When we do investigations, we find out that most of the times people like to become ostriches in the workplace. They stick their heads in the sand and hope that it will go away. And so they don't tell people when there are problems, they don't tell them how to correct them, and then they fire them.


Bowen:    How likely is it for people to view the individuals who come to you as just sort of troublemakers, does that happen?

Watts:     That happens, oh, I'd say about 20, 30% of the time that does happen. Individuals say, oh well, they've been a troublemaker all along. And what we tell the company or the employer at that point is that, if that's the case, then it'll come out in our investigation. Please do not take any action against them, even if you believe them to be troublemakers 'cause this is a right. Under law, if you take any action against them, it's retaliation.

And sometimes we've not been able to prove the original claim of discrimination but the claim of retaliation has been proven. And as a result, awards have been higher. 'Cause at that point, you've been vindictive in trying to go after the persons. Usually they're not, they're either given bad assignments, we've had a couple where they've been fired outright once they filed charges with us. But employers will try not to fire them but they have not given them good assignments nor developmental kind of activities after that.

Bowen:    We've talked about the emotional impact on the individuals who are involved and allegedly being discriminated against, what sort of emotional toll is taken on coworkers?

Watts:     Well, usually, most people know about these complaints so coworkers are watching it. If they are viewing it, they sometimes have concerns about, if it were me, would they treat me the same way. So it adds some extra tension in the workplace.

Sometimes there's conflict between the worker who's filed the complaint and those who did not. 'Cause sometimes coworkers view this person as someone just rocking the boat, even if the situation might be true. They will say, we don't know anything about it. We're not going to talk to you about it, when our investigators go in. Or off the record, you know, they just create problems all the time. We wish they would just be quiet. It's not as good as it should be but it's not as bad as they say it is, which means that there is something going on there.

Work slows down sometimes. We see just conflicts that arise 'cause some people decide that they're gonna be what I call the pseudo-boss. So they're gonna also sort of try to enforce the rules of the workplace.

In addition to that though, we find that there is additional tolls to the employer, 'cause this is a costly proposition. There's a lot of people now involved in defending the charge-human resource people, managers, attorneys, usually either internal or external, if they're external the cost is a lot higher, then our cost at the agency in terms of investigations.

And then if they lose, the award is high. And there have been awards across the country ranging anywhere from, we've had some recent awards about 10, 15 thousand but they range all the way up to $400,000 or to suits like Texaco that are multimillion dollar suits, which are really kind of anomalies 'cause larger suits, they tend not to, they are really bad news when they blow up to that extent but some of them do blow up. The cost is tremendous.

A company could spend anywhere close to a half a million dollars before it even goes to hearing just defending it based on what's going on, especially if they're going to a hearing. Depositions are costly. Attorneys are costly and usually we see three or four corporate attorneys with some corporations, if they're large enough or they hire outside counsel, and we may see three or four attorneys there.

Bowen:    The irony of all of this, of course, is time and expense that is being spent in these areas could otherwise be spent in building better products and providing better services. Having said that, what recommendations do you have for organizations and for people?

Watts:     Well, I think, if you think you've been discriminated against, usually there are internal procedures in companies. We try to encourage people, as soon as they think it's happened, to bring it to the attention at the lowest possible level. That's good for them and it's good for the company. It's good for the individual because they don't, then it does not continue to, as I call it, eat on them, you know, gnaw at them. It's good for the company 'cause it costs less money. The sooner you settle it, the least amount of money. And sometimes at the earliest stage, there's really no money. It's just an opportunity that people are looking for-for a promotion or opportunity to do certain things. If they've been fired, that's a different story. But if it's not an outright firing, there's a lot that can be done.

I think companies ought to invest more in their human resources, that's the people who work for them and the people who help them in their relationships with their employees, that's their human resources, industrial relations staffs, those persons who can identify and spot the problems early and then do intervention, wherever that might occur, whatever form it might take. Some of it's simple. Some of it might be just reworking rules 'cause they don't make sense at that point. Other times it might be that we're going do to training for everyone involved so that everyone understands the rules. It's a variety of things.

For employees, I think, better training and understanding of their responsibilities is an ongoing daily process that managers have to be involved in. And if they do that, then I think they'll run into less problems.

When they do run into a problem, when there is a charge filed, don't get defensive. If they've done everything right, they need not fear from agencies such as ours, the EEOC or other local agencies, that do investigations. They just need to present the record. That's all, you know, and at that point, it's rather simple for them to do that.

If you are a complainant or a possible complainant, you need to keep records. If it happened on April the 10th at 10 a.m., you need to write it down. Who was there? Who knew about it? Did you talk to anybody right after that? And if you did, what did you say to them? 'Cause a lot of times we're dealing on, in administrative hearings such as the ones we have, you can have hearsay information that said you talked to, I talked to Brighton about 11 o'clock and told him that my boss told me I'd never get promoted 'cause I was a woman and, after all, he had all these men he needed to promote. Well, that's kind of a confirming factor that as soon as it happened someone talked to him. Or you tell friends that they said things out of line and they harassed me and I think it's sexual harassment and so you tell your friends that. It's a way of keeping track of the issues. And I brought it to the attention of management and they didn't do anything. And I told them on April the 12th. Those kind of things are good for us to know about.

If managers are doing the, I suggest that managers say so-and-so told us on April the 12th and this is the action that we took. And that it be in an official record somewhere.

Bowen:    Is there anything in the thought process at this time, with respect to EEOC, around prevention, around education, as opposed to penalty?

Watts:     We do a number of things. When we do investigate a charge, obviously, we're talking about statute, we're talking about law, so penalty is the natural outcome from that. However, EEOC, as well as us, here in Kentucky, are going to what's called mediation, in a number of cases. So that we can mediate disputes rather than, you know, moving through and just going with a straight penalty phase 'cause then we, obviously, sometimes end up in the courts on appeal.

There is an educational process that we have in Kentucky and that many of my counterparts across the country, who run State commissions, we're always training individuals, whether they are companies or citizens, about what to do if. That's companies and citizens... If you think you've been discriminated against, obviously, you can file a charge but then you can do some other things.

We do a lot of training with companies on diversity, on understanding our statute, understanding the law, and we've been doing that. The EEOC has been encouraging this for years and does a number of things with companies but they don't do as much as they would like to just because of backlogs and the number of cases that they're trying to clear up and clean out. But we do do a lot of that across the country-conferences and meetings with companies. It's a big business, really, in terms of the business, in terms of seminars and those kind of things. And while it is a big business, it concerns me that people are going but they're not following the practices that they're learning.

Texaco had spent a lot of money on training but Texaco was not, in fact, walking the walk, talking the talk. When it got down to the bottom line, they were still doing certain things. So even if you spend time on training, companies have to spend time talking to their managers. They have to spend time evaluating how well their managers are implementing the policy of the company as it relates to diversity and EEO. And then if managers are not, then they have to deal with that-the same way you have to deal with employees who don't meet the standards. This is truly an issue of management and managers and whether or not they're implementing that strategy at the level necessary to prevent problems.

See, the worst case scenario is that they don't file a charge and that their anger gets out of control. And we've seen that happen across the country. And it has not been a lot of instances, but it's enough. And they are so public that it creates a real concern about people thinking they've been mistreated and taking it into their own hands to seek their own justice. And that's because they don't think there's justice anywhere to be had for them.

Bowen:    What is the future of civil rights in this country?

Watts:     Well, I would have said ten years ago, maybe we would be out of business by the year 2000, maybe 15 or 20. There were better days. We are looking at a time now where I think we're more polarized than we've been in a while. That there are a lot of issues going on in the workplace and in society in general that's talking about I have a right to say this, I have a right to do this or that. This is a free speech issue. Some of it is free speech and, certainly, we don't want to violate free speech issues.

But we're finding that there are more and more small groups out here recruiting and they are really selling hate these days. At the same token, there are many, many more people really talking about harmony and justice and trying to get to know each other and working on this thing called 'this divide', whether it's gender or whether it's race, and the president's initiative on race is one of those efforts to bridge divide on a subject.

But there's a lot of issues around gender as well. We're seeing sexual harassment cases at an all time high. There are people saying things in 1998 that I thought they had stopped saying and that is, you know, well if women would just not encourage it to happen, you know, or they were encouraging or it was the woman's fault-those kind of things. So they're sort of blaming the victim, even in that arena.

As this country ages, we're finding that there are more and more charges as relates to age discrimination. Companies are outright firing people or releasing them because: a) it's cheaper to have younger workers-and they're saying it.

They're not hiring and accommodating persons with disabilities 'cause they don't think they have to. A person comes in, they can do the job except for a minimal accommodation and they're saying, we don't want to hire them; it's too much money. And they don't even know how much money it costs. Some of it's simple accommodation, some of it's 10, 15 cents kind of accommodations, literally. Some of it's more expensive but in the long run, studies have shown that workers, when they're accommodated, especially persons with disabilities, are very good workers, as a matter of fact, they're probably better than the average worker without a disability.

So there's a lot of things out here that disprove the things but a lot of these are individuals who don't think, who don't take the time to stop and think, who are making these decisions in companies and they're affecting the companies bottom line. 'Cause after all, if you're having to pay three and four hundred dollars out in settlements or an order of the court or an order of an agency like mine, it's costing you a lot of money and that doesn't include your attorneys fees or all your staff time spent defending those claims.

Bowen:    And apart from the cost of litigation, which can be substantial, there's the loss of opportunity to capitalize on the intelligence and the creativity of a diverse workforce?

Watts:     Absolutely. Absolutely.

Bowen:    What about the notion of glass ceiling, alive and well obviously, Workshops & Events in that area?

Watts:     It is alive and well. Women are probably parachuting out as quickly as possible or jumping out of a lot of corporations just because they think that they're at that. They're not seeing the movement that they need to see. That's why women-owned businesses are growing at a faster rate than any other group in the country. 'Cause they felt that: a) they would never get to a senior VP, let alone, president and CEO. So they're starting their own companies and they're becoming president and CEO.

We're also finding that the salaries are not competitive. Women, I think, are at 76 cents on the dollar that every man makes and that's some pay equity data that's out there that supports that. And we find that African-American males, I think, are 80 cents on the dollar. African-American females are at 66 cents on the dollar. So a lot of it has, so it's alive and well and it's supported by statistics, when you look at what people are being paid.

In a number of the large, high profile cases around the country where you're finding employers who are having to pay out large sums of money-Texaco, Shoney's was an employment-related case, and others-that they're not paying the salaries and that's what prompted the cases. And that there are whole classes of individuals who are saying, we've worked at it, we've done this, we're not being paid. The allegations in the recent Ford charges are that they were not paid the same salaries as other managers. Now that case, some of those have been settled but not all have been settled so that is still open pending investigation and/or litigation on those. But those were the allegations in the Ford cases here in Louisville, Kentucky and in other parts of the country. So it's alive, it's well.