The battle continues for Meathead Movers CEO Aaron Steed now 10 years into facing age discrimination allegations. One month ago, he took to social media to explain the situation and lawsuit that his company currently faces with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
In 2023, the largest independent moving company in California, Meathead Movers, was sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming the locally-owned storage and moving company “failed to recruit and hire applicants over 40 into moving, packing and customer service positions.”
“It's always been, can you do the job or not?" Steed said. "We don't care what you look like, how old you are. It's all about can you work up to the Meathead job standard?”
For Steed, it’s been a long back-and-forth battle with the government agency and still no answers.
“Why us? Why are we target? Why is the EEOC targeting us? Why are they trying to put us out of business?,” he said.
For Steed and attorneys, it is a strange case. Within the EEOC, no current or former employee has ever filed an age discrimination claim against Meathead Movers.
The EEOC has filed only eight lawsuits based on its own initiated investigations within the last 10 years across all statutes and in all federal courts across the entire country.
“So those are less common," employment attorney with Employer Advocates Group Steven Chanley explained. He has worked on employment law for the past 35 years.
“In a typical case, an individual will file a claim alleging age discrimination," Chanley said.
But in this case, it didn’t happen, which Chanley describes as rare but said can happen if the governing agency believes there is systemic discrimination within the company, something Steed, who’s paid well over $1 million in legal fees, believes is way off base for his company.
“As if having a small business in California isn't difficult enough, to have this on top of it for a crime we didn't commit makes it even that much more challenging. But Meathead Movers is worth fighting for,” he said.
The EEOC said it cannot comment on ongoing litigation. According to Steed, within the company they have hired employees, which include laborers, who are over 40 years old.
In a civil complaint, the EEOC explained that since 2017, Meathead Movers is "exclusively depicting young individuals in Meathead Movers marketing, recruitment, and training materials online, including on its website, social media, physical merchandise, and posters in Meathead Movers’ physical workplaces."
However, Steed continues to stand his ground, explaining that his company has done nothing wrong.
He is hoping his case gets a fresh set of eyes on it from the EEOC but as of right now, the next court date is set for August of 2026.
Meathead Movers is in seven locations across Central and Southern California
