Does filing an EEOC charge cost money?
Filing an EEOC charge is easy, it’s free, and there’s very little incentive to keep employees from doing so. Charges can be filed by mail or phone, or employees can go to the local EEOC office and talk with an intake officer about why they think they’ve been discriminated against. It’s just a fact of life that the party that has to bear the brunt of the expense, time, and effort in the EEOC process is the employer. The EEOC won’t process bogus charges, right? Many employers mistakenly assume that there’s a screening process at the EEOC that if a charge is completely baseless, the EEOC will refuse to accept and investigate it. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. By statute, the EEOC must accept the filing of a charge, and employees have the unfettered right to file charges no matter how weak the claim. What happens after an EEOC charge is filed? Once a charge is filed, the EEOC will begin its investigation, and the burden shifts to the employer to explain what happened. Soon after the c
