125.4 Promotion, compensation, terms of employment

Discrimination was not established where the Complainant failed to demonstrate that the duties and responsibilities of his job were similar to his comparators or required the same skill level and where the evidence demonstrated that the individuals hired to replace the Complainant, who were not part of the protected class, were paid less than the Complainant. Lozano v. The Carlson Co. (LIRC 12/30/19).

The fact that one of the managers involved in disciplining the Complainant was the same race as the Complainant does not compel a finding that race discrimination did not occur but does tend to render it less likely. Boyd v. Goodwill Indus. of Se. Wis., Inc. (LIRC 09/27/19).

The Complainant's compensation claim was based on national origin/ancestry and not sex. As a result, it did not qualify for an "Equal Pay Act analysis." Gallardo v. Accurate Specialties, Inc. (LIRC, 09/06/19).

Showing that the employer's decision-makers are of a different race, national origin or religion than the Complainant is not enough to support an inference of discrimination. Shi v. Univ. of Wis. Sys. Bd. of Regents (LIRC 09/11/15).

Where the selection device at issue was not pass/fail but involved the ranking of candidates, a balanced bottom line could be considered as a defense and a disproportionate distribution of blacks in the seniority rankings was not found to have a per se disparate impact. The Complainant did not establish unlawfully discriminatory disparate impact where he failed to present expert statistical evidence to demonstrate that the distribution of blacks (in terms of relative seniority) was different to a statistically significant degree from what might be expected to arise by chance. Moncrief v. Gardner Baking (LIRC, 07/01/92).

In a case alleging a failure to promote because of race, the Complainant’s initial burden is to show that: (1) he belongs to a protected group, (2) he was qualified and applied for a promotion, (3) he was considered for and denied a promotion, and (4) other employees of similar qualifications who were not in the protected group were promoted. Krueser v. City of Madison (LIRC, 06/30/92).

Race discrimination was established when the supervisor’s credibility as a witness was placed in doubt because he told the Respondent’s employee relations manager that the Complainant did not want full-time hours when the supervisor knew the opposite to be the case and when it was shown that “concern about the Complainant’s paperwork” was pretext. Smith v. Condere Corp. (LIRC, 03/27/90).

The Complainant was denied a promotion to route driver in part because of his race. However, even in the absence of discrimination, he would not have been promoted because of his work performance problems. Jones v. Dy-Dee Wash (LIRC, 11/04/88).

An employer’s stated reason for not promoting a black employee, slow performance, was a pretext for race discrimination where his evaluations had been “completely satisfactory” and the employer’s evaluation process overall was subjective and utilized an evaluation from one supervisor who was admittedly biased. Bolden v. Wis. Tel. (LIRC, 08/04/81).

The transfer of a less senior white employee who had heard of a job opening by word of mouth did not discriminate against a black employee where the employer did not customarily post job openings or have a transfer policy based on seniority. Harris v. Color Corp. of America (DILHR, 08/18/76).

It was a violation of the Act to transfer a white security guard from a position in Milwaukee’s inner city because of a customer request based on the employee’s race. Waldo v. Milwaukee Metro Security (DILHR, 04/08/76).