{"id":658,"date":"2026-07-29T20:14:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T20:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=658"},"modified":"2026-07-29T20:14:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T20:14:51","slug":"afge-sues-over-eeocs-apparent-shutdown-of-class-action-cases-against-agencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=658","title":{"rendered":"AFGE sues over EEOC\u2019s apparent shutdown of class action cases against agencies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The nation\u2019s largest federal employee union on Tuesday sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to force the quasi-judicial agency undo an unpublished edict that has blocked all class-action cases involving federal agencies for more than six months.<\/p>\n

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The American Federation of Government Employees accused EEOC Chairwoman Andrea Lucas of surreptitiously issuing a directive halting proceedings in all class-action discrimination and harassment complaints involving federal agencies last December. Though the document has never been published, administrative judges have since issued indefinite stays or otherwise paused class action case proceedings, including certifications, hearings and other appearances, and evidentiary and discovery processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cEffective immediately, all case processing in the above-captioned matter must be paused until further notice,\u201d wrote EEOC Administrative Judge Erania Ebron on Dec. 10, 2025. \u201cAll scheduled deadlines and appearances are also cancelled. This notification applies to all class cases in the federal sector, including those alleging disparate impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

AFGE filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alongside union members and U.S. Bureau of Prisons correctional officers Deanna Chelette and Alexzandria Boyd, both of whom are within a certified class alleging their employer does not do enough to prevent rampant sexual harassment of female employees by inmates at the Federal Correctional Complex in Pollock, La. Their EEO case, filed in 2024 and receiving class-action certification for around 200 employees in March 2025, reports that inmates routinely verbally harass female correctional officers and subject them to \u201cexhibitionist nudity,\u201d public masturbation, rape threats and unwanted touching.<\/p>\n

The EEOC\u2019s own regulations encourage the use of class-action cases as a cheaper and faster manner of resolving allegations of discrimination or harassment than requiring each employee to file complaints individually\u2014or filing individual or class-action lawsuits in federal court\u2014and requires that class complaints \u201cshall be processed promptly.\u201d The union\u2019s lawsuit accuses the commission of violating its own regulations, engaging in arbitrary and capricious decision-making in halting the processing of cases without any public announcement or rationale, among other violations of the Administrative Procedure Act.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDefendants have not published the suspension directive or provided any explanation or authority for the decision,\u201d the union wrote. \u201cThey have provided no procedure for an affected party to seek an exception or case-specific review. The directive has no stated termination date, leaving thousands of federal employees with no indication of when the EEOC will permit the adjudication of class claims to resume, and under what circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

AFGE argued that Lucas\u2019 directive does far more than simply block class action EEO cases from moving forward. Because of how classes are determined by the commission, individuals who are not involved in a case but could be covered by its class cannot pursue their own claims on their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe directive is also harmful to absent class members. In class cases, they cannot opt out, as their overlapping individual complaints are subsumed as soon as a formal class complaint is filed,\u201d the union wrote. \u201cThey therefore cannot pursue their own claims in any form, administrative or judicial, while the proceeding that governs their rights remains frozen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chairwoman Andrea Lucas surreptitiously ordered a halt on all class-action proceedings in which a federal agency is a defendant last December, despite regulations requiring such cases be handled \u201cpromptly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-workforce"],"yoast_head":"\nAFGE sues over EEOC\u2019s apparent shutdown of class action cases against agencies - Market Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=658\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AFGE sues over EEOC\u2019s apparent shutdown of class action cases against agencies - 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