CU agrees to pay $450,000 to settle discrimination charges by former executives
Tucoemas Federal Credit Union will take steps to prevent workplace discrimination and retaliation issues.
A California credit union will pay $450,000 to settle a sex, age and retaliatory discrimination lawsuit brought by three former women executives after they applied for the CEO position for which a younger man was hired with no prior credit union experience, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Friday.
The EEOC in Fresno said earlier this year it conducted an inquiry and found reasonable cause that the $239 million Tucoemas Federal Credit Union in Visalia violated federal sex and age discrimination laws and then retaliated against two of the three former credit union professionals.
The federal agency was unable to secure an acceptable conciliation agreement with the credit union. That led EEOC to file a civil rights, employment discrimination lawsuit in Fresno federal court in July on behalf of Sherry Belcher, former CFO, Cynthia Seymour, former vice president of lending and Cindy Summers, former vice president of human resources.
In August 2015 when former Tucoemas President/CEO Linda Reese announced her retirement, she encouraged the three women to apply for the job. When they were interviewed, Belcher was 50, Seymour was 60 and Summers was 55. They all met the minimum qualifications required by the credit union, according to the EEOC complaint.
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