SEX DISCRIMINATION suits are never filed against small companies. Employees and the government target companies with deep pockets that can pay substantial awards. Walmart was not the object of one of the largest class-action sex discrimination suits for no reason.

This is important to bear in mind when looking at a recent suit, filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), against New Prime Trucking, Inc. New Prime, headquartered in Springfield, Mo., is one of the nation’s largest refrigerated, flatbed and tanker carriers. It employs over 2,000 people and, due to this success, was almost certain to come under intense scrutiny.

In 2003, New Prime was sued by the EEOC for sexual harassment of female truckers. The women claimed that they were bothered while in training. Usually trainees spend long hours in a truck with a trainer and three women alleged they were the victims of sexual behavior. New Prime settled the suit for an unspecified amount in 2004.

As a result of that previous suit, company management decided to train female employees with female trainers to make sure the conditions for any conceivable “harassment” did not occur.  The company apparently found it difficult to hire adequate numbers of trainers and thus potential women employees were put on waiting lists. The EEOC filed a new suit on Sept. 22 charging the company with discrimination. Barbara Seeley, an EEOC attorney, stated the company should have prevented harassment by “monitoring male employees.” But how could the company effectively monitor female employees to prevent them from perceiving sexual harassment during training unless it made the trainers female?

The trucking company is expending enormous sums defending itself for engaging in sensible business practices. These costs will be borne by its customers and the costs of the EEOC suits will be borne by taxpayers.

It is sensible for a trucking company to hire men and to discriminate in favor of them. Men are stronger than women. They are more mechanically inclined, which is important when alone with a large vehicle on the highway, and they are better drivers because of higher spatial aptitude. Also, if a woman can’t defend herself against a co-driver, as claimed in the sexual harassment suit, how can she be expected to defend herself on the road? By the logic of the EEOC, none of this matters. Women should be truck drivers, even though normal women do not want to be truck drivers.

The harassment and discrimination suits filed by the federal agency contradict each other, claiming that women are defenseless on the one hand and, on the other, they can do anything men can do.

Your tax dollars are going to make sure that our roads are less safe, trucking is more expensive, fewer men have jobs and plain reason is abused.

                                                                      — Comments —

Eric writes:

Most female truckers are part of a husband and wife team. I doubt many women would tolerate the weeks away from home, and I have observed that women do not like to keep jobs in which they must work alone.

Laura writes:

There will never be many women who want to be truckers. It is a physically demanding and lonely job.

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