Conciliation talks mediated by a US federal agency between Cisco and a group of its own employees over complaints that the company discriminated against pro-Palestine workers have broken down after the technology firm was accused of failing to engage with the process in good faith, Middle East Eye can reveal.

The talks were facilitated by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency that investigates allegations of worker discrimination, following a complaint by Bridge to Humanity (B2H), a group of Cisco employees created to raise concerns about the company's ties with the Israeli military.

In a letter in June, the head of the EEOC's local office in San Jose told Cisco and lawyers representing B2H that she had determined there was reasonable cause to believe the company had subjected some employees from Muslim and Middle Eastern backgrounds to a "hostile work environment" and proposed conciliation talks between the two parties.

Talks on an online video platform were then scheduled to take place in August.

But MEE understands that these collapsed before any negotiations had taken place, with the EEOC official telling B2H representatives and their lawyers that Cisco was not engaged in the process.

“Today CISCO has not come to the conversation in good faith,” the investigator said, according to multiple people present at the meeting who spoke to MEE. “I cannot allow conversations to continue.”

Christopher Ho, programme director for Legal Aid at Work and the lawyer representing B2H, described the abrupt end to the conciliation process as a "surprise" to his clients.

“We participated in conciliation for three hours, with little communication from Cisco. Around that time, the EEOC representative entered our virtual room and stated that Cisco would not respond to the EEOC’s proposal, and that therefore the EEOC was going to ‘fail’ the conciliation - which means ending it,” Ho told MEE.

“It was a surprise because we hadn’t even exchanged settlement proposals with Cisco.”

Revealed: Cisco talks with pro-Palestine employees over discrimination complaint collapse

Conciliation talks followed US employment agency investigation, which found tech firm had likely subjected Muslim and Middle Eastern workers to a 'hostile environment'

Middle East Eye (www.middleeasteye.net)