Glunt Industries to Pay $2 Million in EEOC Sex Discrimination Case

CLEVELAND – Glunt Industries, Inc., a Warren, Ohio machining company which operates four large-scale fabrication plants, will pay $2 million and provide other relief to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

The EEOC’s suit charged that Glunt engaged in sex discrimination when the company denied production jobs to a class of women since at least 2018. In addition to systemically not hiring women, the EEOC alleged that Glunt failed to provide women’s restrooms on the plant floor in any of its plants.

Glunt also discriminated against its human resources director and retaliated against her for her role in hiring two women for project manager positions, leading to her separation. Glunt then fired the women and hired men to fill their positions, according to the lawsuit.

“For more than 60 years, sex discrimination in hiring, job assignments, and other employment decisions has been unlawful,” said EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas. “And the agency has made clear that failing to provide women with restrooms constitutes sex discrimination as well. Employers are legally required to abide by these federal protections, and the EEOC will hold them accountable when they do not. Our work remains essential to protecting the rights of America’s workforce.”

Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio (EEOC v. Glunt Industries, Inc., Civil Action No. 1:24-cv-01687) after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

“The EEOC remains firmly committed to eliminating and remedying unlawful hiring practices that deny women employment because of sex, including in the manufacturing industry,” said Debra Lawrence, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Philadelphia District Office. “With this consent decree, the EEOC obtained substantial monetary and injunctive relief for women who were unjustly discharged from their jobs at Glunt, the class of women denied production positions, and the public.”

Under the two-year consent decree resolving the lawsuit, Glunt will pay $2 million in monetary relief to be distributed by the EEOC to Glunt’s former HR director, the two women who were discharged from project manager positions, and a class of women who applied for production positions at Glunt and were not hired.

Pursuant to the consent decree, Glunt will also cooperate in efforts to provide equal employment opportunities for specific female applicants who applied for a production position at Glunt and were not hired. The consent decree also prohibits Glunt from discriminating based on sex, and it provides for training, record-keeping, monitoring, and reporting.

For more information on sex-based discrimination, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/sex-based-discrimination. For more information on retaliation, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/retaliation.

The EEOC’s Philadelphia District has jurisdiction over Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, and parts of New Jersey and Ohio. The legal staff of the EEOC also prosecutes discrimination cases in Washington, D.C., and parts of Virginia.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division; the EEOC is responsible for investigating charges against state and local government employers before referring them to DOJ for potential litigation. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov. Stay connected with the latest EEOC news by subscribing to our email updates.