The United States Labor Department has ordered Bank of America to pay 1,147 black job aspirants more than 2 million US dollars in back wages and interest to settle a discrimination case of wrongful rejection of their applications.
The agency blamed the Charlotte-based bank for applying unfair and inconsistent selection criteria, which led to rejection of qualified black applicants for teller and entry-level clerical and administrative positions, the Courier Mail reports.
It awards a total of 964,033 US dollars to 1,034 applicants who were rejected for jobs in 1993, and 1,217,560 US dollars to 113 individuals who were rejected between 2002 and 2005.
An administrative law Judge, Linda S Chapman, rejected the bank's arguments for a lower punishment on the grounds that they could not make use of missing records that they had failed to keep.
