Workplace Discrimination
Discrimination occurs when an employee suffers from unfavorable or unfair treatment due to their race, religion, national origin, disabled or veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. Employees who have suffered reprisals for opposing workplace discrimination or for reporting violations to the authorities are also considered to be discriminated against. Federal law prohibits discrimination in work-related areas, such as recruiting, hiring, job evaluations, promotion policies, training, compensation and disciplinary action. (employeeissues.com, 2006)
Aside from the obvious, unfair treatment does not always equal unlawful discrimination. Treating a person differently from others violates Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws only when the treatment is based on the presence of a protected characteristic, rather than on job performance or even on something as arbitrary as an employee's personality. Discrimination claims can sometimes be highly subjective. (employeeissues.com, 2006)
Discrimination accusations are best avoided by following the law which requires only that you extend the same employment opportunities and enforce the same policies for each employee.
DISCRIMINATION LAWS
Discrimination laws exist to prevent discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, physical disability, and age by employers. The main discriminatory practices identified today are bias in hiring, promotion, job assignment, termination, compensation, and various types of harassment. The following paragraphs outline the most common anti-discrimination laws today. (allbusiness.com, 2006)
The Equal Pay Act amended the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1963. The Equal Pay Act only prohibits payi...
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...nequal pay, sexual harassment, seniority and maternity leave. The antidiscrimination laws that exist today and the cases that are successful because of them create an awareness that no employer will go unaffected if a discrimination suit is brought forth. (Jennings, 2006)
References
AllBusiness.com. (2006). Understanding Workplace Discrimination. All Business Human Resources: Work, Health & Safety.
Cornell Law. (2006). Employment Discrimination. Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute.
EEOC. (2006). Discrimination by Type. US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
EmployeeIssues.com. (2006). Discrimination. Employee Issues.
Human Rights Campaign. (2006). GLBT Workplace Issues. HRC Workplace Discrimination.
Jennings, Marianne. (2006). Business: Its Legal, Ethical, and Global Environment. USA:
Thomas/South Western Publications.
The law prohibits discrimination when it comes to any phase of employing someone, including hiring, firing, getting a raise, getting a promotion and other related stuff.
Racial discrimination in hiring, is the practice of letting a person’s race or skin color becomes an unfairly factor when deciding whether to hire, promote, or other employment benefits. Often it affects minorities, but there have been cases where whites have claimed that they have experienced reverse discrimination. Companies
Discrimination, in one form or another, goes on everyday in the world around us. Discrimination affects all of us whether we are aware of it or not. Discrimination is defined as “unjustified differential treatment, especially on the basis of characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion” (MacKinnon). According to Eugene Lee of California Labor and Employment Law “racial discrimination and racial harassment” are the most popular complaint when it come to discrimination in the United States.
Discrimination in the workplace can occur more frequently than many expect in this advanced society. The history of job discrimination in general is vast and covers many different areas. In America, the history of discrimination in the area of employment options is a sobering one that reaches far beneath the surface of what many want to know about our seemingly “fair” society.
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act states that it is unlawful for an employer "to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin…" 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2(a)(1). This law was enacted in an effort to set right the wrongs of the past and instill equity in the workplace; yet a new set of wrongs and social injustices have been created. This newly created set of wrongs and injustices are referred to as reverse discrimination. Reverse discrimination is discrimination against a majority class, and is ever increasing in public-sector employment.
The laws forbids discrimination when it comes to any type of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, and any other term of employment. Harassing one can happen in different forms such as saying remarks to them, racial slurs, etc. Discrimination has been happening on the daily to some. Presence of racial segregation or based on studies that assess differential success in securing housing by race (Sheldon). Beth Sheldon says in her article that race and sex in the housing market is interesting and illustrates the complex nature of housing discrimination
Discrimination is known to exist in all workplaces, sometimes it is too subtle to notice, and other times it is exceedingly obvious. It is known that everyone subconsciously discriminates, dependant on their own beliefs and environments that surround them. However, discrimination can be either positive or negative in their results, and sometimes discrimination is a necessary part of life.
Employment Discrimination laws seek to prevent discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, physical disability, and age by employers. A growing body of law also seeks to prevent employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Discriminatory practices include bias in hiring, promotion, job assignment, termination, compensation, retaliation, and various types of harassment. The main body of employment discrimination laws consists of federal and state statutes. The United States Constitution and some state constitutions provide additional protection when the employer is a governmental body or the government has taken significant steps to foster the discriminatory practice of the employer.
Introduction- Discrimination affects people all over the world. People of all ethnicities and from all different walks of life are influenced in some way by workplace discrimination. "Discrimination" means unequal treatment. One of the most common elements discriminated against is a persons ethnicity, or their race. This is called Racial Discrimination. While there are many federal laws concerning discrimination, most states have enacted laws that prohibit it. These laws may have different remedies than the federal laws and may, in certain circumstances be more favorable than the federal laws.
Prohibiting Job Discrimination Questions and Answers.” EEOC.gov. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, November 21, 2009. Web. September 29 2011.
In conclusion, there are many rights to the employees’ when it comes down to equal opportunity employment. In this paper you learned of a few different types of discrimination towards employees’ and how different acts protect them in the workforce. It also has shown what rights a person has as an employee in the working environment.
Although some of the worst employment discrimination was eliminated by the Civil Rights Act in 1964, many women continue to undergo unfair and unlawful discrimination in the workplace. Even though women have come a long way, they are still being discriminated against in certain fields of work. High-end jobs, most commonly large companies and medical fields, continue to discriminate against women even though they have the same job qualifications as men.
Workplace harassment is unwelcome actions that are based on a person’s race, religion, color, and sex, and gender, country of origin, age, ethnicity or disability. The targets of the harassment are people who are usually perceived as “weaker” or “inferior” by the person who is harassing them. Companies and employers can also be guilty of workplace harassment if they utilize discriminatory practices against persons based on ethnicity, country of origin, religion, race, color, age, disability, or sex. These discriminatory practices have been illegal since the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Civil Rights Act of 1964), and have been amended to be more inclusive of other people who experience discrimination by the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (The Civil Rights Act of 1991), and most recently, President Obama’s signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (Stolberg, 2009).
Harassment and discrimination can affect a business in many ways. Having a history of harassment and discrimination claims can damage a business’ reputation and affect its bottom line. It can cost the business current and future clients as well as investors and employees. Depending on the gravity of the claim(s), the process of settling the claim(s) can take anywhere from months to years. Meanwhile, the cost of the settlement and other fees continue to add up. A business might have to compensate the affected parties besides paying court fees and lawyers. The EEOC has seen a rise in monetary rewards from 7.5 million to 24.3 million (Glazer, 1996) However, all of these can be avoided by properly educating employers and employees about their rights and what harassment and discrimination entails.
Work plays an important role in our daily life, it is considered much more huge part of our personal life. During our daily work we make many relationships throughout our career history. Sometimes these relationships become lasting, and sometimes employment discrimination might happen. This relationships that we thought it last could be cut off by the devastation of claims of discriminatory treatment. Discrimination in the workforce has been an issue since the first people of workers in United States in the present day and as well in the past. Some employees were subjected to a harsh working conditions, verbal abuse, denial of advancement,, and many other injustices. There was also the fact that certain employees were being treated differently than other employees.