Last month, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") filed a lawsuit against Ilinois-based Mach Mining for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to hire any female miners since beginning operations in 2006, despite having received applications from "scores of" qualified women.

Despite Loretta Lynn's cautions of the hardship of the job,

Well, I was born a coal miner's daughter,
In a cabin, on a hill in Butcher Holler,
We were poor, but we had love,
That's the one thing my daddy made sure of,
He shoveled coal to make a poor man's dollar...

more than 60 women have applied to Mach to no avail. "We contacted a number of the women during the investigation and found that these were serious applicants. They had mining certificates, many of them had prior and current mining experience," says EEOC trial lawyer Ethan Cohen. The mine, headquartered in Marion, began operations in 2006 and currently employes over 130 men in various coal extraction jobs. Mach has never hired a single female miner for its Southern Illinois coal mines.

In fact, bathrooms and changing facilities were not even provided for women miners in a new facility, according to a news release from the federal agency

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) says that Mach Mining "needs to realize this is 2011, not 1911." Maybe Ms. Lynn's lyrics, performed brilliantly in the movie production of the film of the same name by Sissy Spacek, need to be reworded (emphasis added):

Well, a lot of things have changed since way back then,
And it's so good to be back home again,
Not much left but the floor, nothin' lives here anymore,
'Cept the memories of a coal miner's daughter.

Mach has until just after Thanksgiving to file a response to the lawsuit. In the meantime, other employers can take note that the EEOC will not view favorably any employer that refuses to hire qualified female applicants, even when the job was historically held only by males and even when it requires physical exertion and tolerance for dirt under the fingernails.

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