Truck carrier PJAX Inc., which had agreed Monday to pay five female employees in Pennsylvania more than $500,000 to settle a discrimination suit, settled an additional suit yesterday for $2 million.
EEOC officials said that the case, filed in Baltimore, was brought by 200 female PJAX employees in Maryland who alleged they were routinely denied trucker and dockworker jobs because of their gender. A terminal manager, fired for protesting that policy, will also get money under the settlement, the EEOC said.
Officials of privately-held PJAX, based in Gibsonia, PA, have denied all the allegations, and decided to settle the suit to avoid the expense and distraction of a court case.
The case settled on Monday was filed in May in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh and accused PJAX of subjecting several female employees to sexual harassment since at least May 1999. The suit alleged that PJAX's owners and other management screamed vulgarities at female employees, called them sexually derogatory names and made them perform chores for the owners, including picking up laundry and cleaning the owners' cars, the EEOC said. The suit also alleged that one women was asked to perform sexual favors for a PJAX official's bookie to reduce a gambling debt.
