EEOC claims Farmers Insurance illegally fired Hmong workers

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Farmers Insurance Exchange, alleging two Hmong employees were illegally fired by the company’s Fresno office because of their race, and a third was then let go for participating in an ensuing EEOC investigation.Filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Fresno, the discrimination and retaliation lawsuit says the two men were the only Asian-American employees working at the insurance company’s Fresno office at the time of their March 2009 termination.The EEOC alleges that a supervisor in the company’s Fresno office told staffers to code insurance claim payments in a way that those receiving the money wouldn’t be asked to take a customer survey. This was done, the EEOC said, by entering coding that showed the company had only made partial, not full, claim payments.