Stevens Transport faces EEOC sexual discrimination charge

The National Women’s Law Center has filed a class action discrimination charge against Stevens Transport, alleging unfair hiring procedures.

On Thursday, Oct. 5, the National Women’s Law Center and co-counsel Peter Romer-Friedman Law filed a class action hiring discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Stevens Transport. Along with Real Women in Trucking, three women accuse the trucking company of denying them truck driver positions because they are women.

According to the charge, the complainants are challenging Stevens Transport’s policy and practice when it comes to hiring female drivers. Specifically, the charge points out that the company “routinely denies truck driving positions to women by only allowing women to train for driving positions at Stevens with women instructors.” However, the complainants assert that the company does not have enough female instructors to train most qualified female applicants.

“Because Stevens does not have enough female driving instructors, new women drivers are forced to sit on a ‘female waitlist’ for many months to start a job with Stevens or they are never hired by Stevens,” the charge claims. “In contrast, male drivers head to the front of the line and start their jobs right away. What’s more, Stevens discourages women drivers from pursuing driving jobs with Stevens by telling them they will need to wait for a long time to start, deterring many women from submitting job applications.”

One of those complainants is Ashli Streeter, who obtained her CDL in May. Streeter applied to work at Stevens Transport on May 19 and June 1. Each time Streeter applied, she was told the same thing: She could train only with a female trainer, but there were no female trainers available to train her. Consequently, the company could not hire Streeter.

Streeter had told Stevens Transport that she was willing to train with a male trainer in order to expedite the hiring process. However, she was told that the company required women to be trained only by female trainers.

In September, Streeter followed up with Stevens Transport regarding the status of her application. She was told by a company representative that her application had been denied.

Real Women in Trucking asserts that many more women seeking employment at Stevens Transport have had similar experiences.

“We know sexual harassment is a major issue in a lot of industries, including trucking, but limiting opportunities for women drivers through discriminatory policies is certainly not the way to solve the problem,” Liz Chacko, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, said in a statement. LL