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Pre-Employment Strength Test Held Unlawful

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a pre-employment strength test which had a disparate impact on female applicants.  Dial Corporation runs a canned meat factory in Iowa.  Sausage packing employees were required to carry about 35 pounds of sausage and lift the sausage 30-60 inches off the floor.  During the course of the day they carried approximately 18,000 pounds.  The company was experiencing a high number of injuries and implemented a number of measures to reduce the injury rate.  In 2000 it added a strength test.  Prior to the test being implemented about 46% of the sausage packing employees were female.  After the testing began only about 15% were female.

The disparity in hiring between men and women was nearly ten standard deviations.  Usually any deviations of more than 2-3 is considered suspect.  The company claimed its strength test was valid because its injuries had been reduced since the testing began.  The court rejected that claim stating the company failed to prove the test was justified as a business necessity.  The company could not prove content or criterion validity for the test and the company had not controlled for other variables which could have led to the decline in injuries.

For example, while the test had applicants carry and lift the same weight, the test required four times as many lifts as the work performed and there were no breaks.  Also, injuries had been declining for two years prior to the strength test being implemented.  The company failed to account for this decline.  It could not prove other measures could or were having the same effect.

Employers who use or are thinking about using any sort of pre-employment testing or screening procedures should be very cautious.  The test needs to be established properly and needs to be monitored to see if it has a disparate impact on any particular group of applicants.  For more information on this issue, please contact Doug Witte.

EEOC v. Dial Corp., Case No 05-4183 (8th Cir. 2006)

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