Before the EEOC sues an employer for employment discrimination, it must engage in conciliation.  Court review of the EEOC’s conciliation efforts is limited to determining whether the EEOC informed the employer of the specific acts of alleged discrimination and the employee or group of employees affected, and whether the EEOC then engaged the employer in some form of dialogue about remedying the charged misconduct.  The EEOC is not required to conciliate with the employer on behalf of individual employees before bringing suit on behalf of a class of employees, but may conciliate on behalf of the class and then join to the suit particular individuals who fall within the specified class.  An employee who has not filed a charge with the EEOC may still pursue a claim against the employer by piggybacking on a charge filed by another employee who makes similar allegations against the employer.  In such a case, the piggybacking employee must have suffered discriminatory acts within 300 days before the other employee filed the charge with the EEOC.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Callahan, J.); March 14, 2016; 2016 WL 945634