EEOC v. O&G Spring & Wire Forms Specialty Co.

• Decision Date: 14 December 1988
• Docket Number: No. 85 C 9966.,85 C 9966.
• Citation: 705 F. Supp. 400
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois
• Parties: EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff, v. O & G SPRING AND WIRE FORMS SPECIALTY COMPANY, Defendant.

705 F. Supp. 400

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff, v. O & G SPRING AND WIRE FORMS SPECIALTY COMPANY, Defendant.

No. 85 C 9966.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, E.D.

December 14, 1988.

John Hendrickson and Mary B. Manzo, U.S. Attys., E.E.O.C., Kathleen Mulligan, Chicago, Ill., for E.E.O.C.

Andrew W. Levenfeld, Gerard C. Smetana, Philip T. Powers, Levenfeld & Aronson, Ltd., Chicago, Ill., for defendant.

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

LEINENWEBER, District Judge.

In accordance with Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a) the court finds that the facts specifically as set forth in the following Findings of Facts and states the following Conclusions of Law. To the extent any of the findings reflect legal conclusions they shall be deemed conclusions and to the extent that any of the conclusions as stated reflect factual findings they shall be deemed findings.

FINDINGS OF FACT

I. Parties

1. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") is the agency of United States charged with the administration and enforcement of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and of the Age Discrimination Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"). O & G Spring and Wire Forms Specialty Company ("O & G") is a corporation with its offices and factory located at the southwest corner of Division and Kostner Streets in the City of Chicago.

II. Jurisdiction and Venue

2. The court has jurisdiction over the parties and subject matter of this action under Title VII and the ADEA.

3. Venue is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b).

4. O & G is an employer in an industry affecting commerce within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e(g), (h) and 29 U.S.C. § 203.

5. All conditions precedent to suit have been satisfied by the EEOC. Specifically, one Walter Harris filed a charge of discrimination alleging race discrimination under Title VII and age discrimination under the ADEA with the EEOC on October 22, 1984 (plaintiff's ex. 1). He had applied for and been denied employment by O & G within the three hundred day period preceding the filing of the charge (plaintiff's ex. 345). The EEOC deferred the charge to the Illinois Department of Human Rights which waived its initial right to process the charge. O & G received notice of the charge, the EEOC investigated the charge, and on July 8, 1985 the District Director of the EEOC issued a letter of determination and letter of violation finding reasonable cause to believe that O & G had continuously discriminated against blacks and persons over the age of forty as a class in recruiting and hiring (plaintiff's ex. 11). A copy of this determination was received by O & G (Tr. 512-13). The EEOC attempted to conciliate the charge, was unsuccessful, and on July 24, 1984 O & G was advised that the EEOC's efforts to conciliate the charge were unsuccessful.

III. Background Facts About O & G

6. O & G is in the business of making springs and specialty forms from wire to order. Its customers include part suppliers to the automobile manufacturers, and other manufacturers and assemblers of products needing springs. It enjoys an excellent reputation for quality workmanship in its field (Tr. 754-55). It is a corporation with fifty percent of its shares owned by its president, Ted Grzeszkiewicz ("Grezeszkiewicz"), and fifty percent by its secretary/treasurer, Joseph Olinyk.

7. The company was started by Grezeszkiewicz in 1966 at Addison, Illinois and moved to its present location at the southwest corner of Division and Kostner in 1970.

8. Grzeszkiewicz was born in Poland, speaks fluent Polish, and English with a decided accent. Prior to forming O & G he worked for sixteen years as a tool designer and trouble shooter for American Spring & Wire ("American Spring"), a company that also specialized in making springs and other wire products. When Grzeszkiewicz left American Spring to form O & G in 1966, American Springs' work force was approximately ninety percent Polish-born and speaking. When he started up O & G he needed people and some of the American Spring people came over to O & G to work for him.

9. Throughout the 1970's O & G employed a modest work force of twelve to fifteen persons, which included three plant clerical people. In the early 1980s the work force began to increase. For the pay period ending March 31, 1981 O & G employed a total of forty. On March 31, 1982 O & G employed a total of forty-four people. On March 31, 1983 O & G employed a total of forty-one people. On March 31, 1984 O & G employed fifty-seven people. On March 31, 1985 O & G employed fifty-three people and on March 31, 1986 it employed forty-seven people (plaintiff's ex. 342A). These numbers include at least two or three clerical people for each year as well as certain skilled workers and supervisory employees.

10. The work of O & G involves low-skilled employees who operate kick and punch presses. O & G also employs skilled employees in tool and die making, heat treating and grinding. While past experience is desirable for the low-skilled jobs it is not necessary. Only the low-skilled category is involved in these Title VII and ADEA claims.

11. For the time period encompassed in this suit (1979 through 1987), O & G hired ninety-nine people for low-skilled jobs, of which five were black. However for the seven years, 1979 through 1985, when eighty-seven persons were hired for low-skilled jobs, no blacks were hired, while in 1986 and 1987 twelve persons were hired for these jobs, of which five were black (plaintiff's ex. 351A).

12. O & G has used employment applications since at least 1977. Applications are available only since 1983, those earlier having been legally destroyed. These applications indicate that slightly more than fifty percent of the persons hired were Polish and fifteen percent were Hispanic. Those employees identified as Polish or Hispanic indicated on employment applications that they either spoke Polish or Spanish, were educated in Poland or in a Spanish-speaking country, or were employed in Poland or in a Spanish-speaking country (plaintiff's ex. 366).

13. During the same period two hundred eleven applications were turned down, twelve and seven tenths percent were black, fifteen percent Polish, and thirty-two percent Hispanic.

14. There was a dramatic increase in the number of black applications after the complaint was filed with by EEOC. For the years 1984 and 1985, out of a total fifty-eight applications, four were black or approximately seven percent. For the years 1986 and 1987, twenty-seven out of one hundred fifty-four applications were black, or seventeen and one-half percent. It was in 1986 that O & G first began hiring blacks into unskilled positions.

15. In 1986, of the thirteen persons hired for shop work, three were black, nine were Polish and none were Hispanic. In 1987, of the six persons hired, three were black, two were Polish and one was Hispanic.

16. O & G relies almost entirely upon word of mouth to recruit applicants for its low-skilled jobs. It has never consulted the Illinois Job Service. On one occasion in the early 1980s it advertised in the Chicago Tribune for a shipping clerk and on another occasion in the early 1980s it advertised for skilled positions in the Polish language press. However the main source of information was from current employees of prospective applicants who would be available for employment with the company. The company exercises a strong preference in hiring to the personal recommendations of present employees (plaintiff's ex. 21, defendant's answers to interrogatories No. 4).

17. Of the seventy-one people hired at O & G between 1979 and 1985, twenty were age forty or older, forty-seven were under forty, and four did not have an available age. Factoring out the four whose ages were unknown, therefore thirty percent of the hires were forty or older and seventy percent of the hires were younger than forty. Thirteen of the new hires were forty-five or older, or nineteen and four tenths percent (plaintiff's ex. 416). When only considering unskilled jobs by age O & G did a little better. From 1979 through 1987, eighteen percent of those hired in unskilled jobs were forty-five or older.

18. During 1984 through 1987, the period of time in which O & G maintained its applications, O & G received approximately two hundred fifty-seven applications and hired fifty individuals (including two who were rehired), or roughly twenty percent. Forty-four of the total applicants indicated they were forty or older, of which O & G hired twenty-two or fifty percent. Of the two hundred fifteen applicants not hired during this period, one hundred six did not give their ages on the application. Assuming that the age distribution of those who did not give their ages parallel those that did, then approximately forty-four of the applicants not hired were more than forty. Under this hypothesis O & G hired approximately one-third of those over forty. Piecing together information from several exhibits, specifically plaintiff's Nos. 34 and 342, it would appear that as of June 30, 1986, of the fifty-three people then employed, twenty-seven were forty and older or fifty-one percent.

IV. Statistical Evidence of Discrimination According to Testimony of Pierre de Vise

19. Dr. Pierre de Vise ("de Vise"), Professor of Roosevelt University School of Urban Planning, was retained by the EEOC to determine the relevant labor market for the low-skilled workers at O & G.

20. Taking the residential origins reflected on applications produced by O & G by a mile ring from the O & G site for the years 1979 through 1987, and taking the percentage of black machine operators located in the same mile ring according to the 1980 census, de Vise determined that in the period from 1979 through 1987 there was an approximate twenty-three percent black availability (plaintiff's exs. 386-88).

21. de Vise then determined the number of blacks working as operatives, that is low-skilled jobs, for employers...