Opinion ID: 2183798
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Conciliation

Text: DILHR correctly states that the Fair Employment Act places a priority on ending discrimination through conciliation. Sec. 111.36 (3) (a), Stats., provides: If the department finds probable cause to believe that any discrimination has been or is being committed, it shall immediately endeavor to eliminate the practice by conference, conciliation or persuasion. In case of failure so to eliminate the discrimination, the department shall issue and serve a written notice of hearing, specifying the nature of the discrimination which appears to have been committed, and requiring the person named, hereinafter called the `respondent', to answer the complaint at a hearing before the department. The notice shall specify a time of hearing not less than 30 days after service of the complaint, and a place of hearing within either the county of the respondent's residence or the county in which the discrimination appears to have occurred. The testimony at the hearing shall be recorded or taken down by a reporter appointed by the department. In Ross v. Ebert , [2] decided before findings under the act could be enforced by order, this court stated: . . . Evidently it was the opinion of [the legislature] that the public policy declared by [the Fair Employment Act] is better served by peaceful persuasion and moral pressure than by force . . . . Even after order-making power was granted to enforce the act in 1957, [3] this court, in Murphy v. Industrial Comm . [4] recognized that conciliation was a mandatory preliminary procedure: . . . the provisions of sec. 111.36 (3), Stats., limit the circumstances in which the commission can enter orders in the first instance. It must first `endeavor to eliminate the practice by conference, conciliation, or persuasion.' . . . Only when it has determined that such efforts have failed may it compel a hearing. Only if after a hearing the commission determines that respondent has engaged in discrimination can it make recommendations and order respondent to comply with the `recommendations.' In other words, if there is compliance in the first instance, no order can issue. DILHR argues here that the word conciliation should be given an expansive definition. Conciliation, according to DILHR, occurs whenever, absent economic injury, the discriminating employer or union voluntarily brings its conduct into line with the statutory mandate to end discrimination, even if this occurs years after the alleged discrimination began, as in this case. Since the county welfare department did transfer Watkins, and since Local 594 did offer to process the grievance through the final step, DILHR concludes that conciliation has taken place, and that it is legally precluded from proceeding to a determination of the question of discrimination. This is not true. Conciliation requires the assent of both disputing parties to the proposition that the dispute has ended. Unilateral offers by the employer and union, when they are threatened with a finding of discrimination, do not in and of themselves constitute conciliation. Nor can it be said that complainant's acceptance of a job, to which she may have been entitled years before, implies an agreement on her part that the dispute between her and her employer and union is entirely over. Watkins was unwilling to agree to a conciliation without some sort of resolution of the question whether discrimination had ever occurred. Both the employer and the union persistently refused to concede that they had ever discriminated, and so Watkins aimed for a finding by DILHR on discrimination even though she now had her desired job. Yet DILHR concluded, pursuant to its definition of conciliation, that Watkins had no legal right to such a finding. While a statutory interpretation by the agency charged with the enforcement of a statute is entitled to some deference, [5] DILHR's broad definition of conciliation is contrary both to the prior cases which speak of conciliation, and to the overall purposes of the Fair Employment Act. The persuasion described in Ross v. Ebert [6] referred solely to the means by which the industrial commission was to enforce its recommendations, after a finding of discrimination had been made. In that case the agency made specific and detailed findings that a union had discriminated against two black workers who sought membership in the union, but it could only enforce its recommendation that they be granted membership by persuasion, and not by order. Ross thus cuts more in favor of the position that the agency should find on the question of discrimination, than it does in favor of the position that findings are unnecessary because some illusory conciliation has occurred. DILHR contends that in Murphy v. Industrial Comm . [7] this court held that whenever compliance occurs by an employer or union, the agency can enter no order. The narrow issue in Murphy was whether or not the agency had the power to award back pay in a discrimination case in the absence of specific statutory authority to do so. The court held that, since conciliation was the only legislative policy contained in the statute which related to a time prior to the hearing, the additional remedy of back pay could not be granted for this anterior period of time. But remedies which related to the future, such as reinstatement, could be granted. The concept of conciliation was thus used in Murphy solely as a means of rebutting a back-pay claim, and not for the purpose of announcing a broad and general definition of conciliation. The purpose of the Fair Employment Act is to encourage and foster to the fullest extent practicable the employment of all properly qualified persons regardless of their age, race, creed, color, handicap, sex, national origin or ancestry. [8] One of the means to this end is conciliation. Another equally important means is to expose and to give publicity to discrimination where it is found. [9] Exposure and publicity of course require a prior finding on the question of discrimination. To adopt a view of conciliation which would free the department from the necessity of making such a finding when in fact no real conciliation has occurred would reduce the situations in which exposure and publicity would serve as a deterrent to future discrimination. We therefore reject the department's proposed definition of conciliation as contrary to the intent and aim of the Fair Employment Act.