Employment Discrimination
Employment Discrimination laws seek to prevent discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, physical disability, and age. 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.
Cry Wolf Quotes
…the Secretary of Labor becomes prosecutor, judge, and legislator. He is given extensive authority to intervene and interfere in employer-employee relations. He must build a considerable Federal division of his Department to accomplish this purpose at increased cost to the taxpayers….Further, the Secretary is not required to await the complaint of an aggrieved employee. He is empowered to prevent any person from engaging in the prohibited wage discrimination. He may proceed on his own motion. There is not limit to the interference with efficient operations or the amount of snooping which may result in an effort to uncover evidence concerning existing or possible future wage discrimination.
Proponents of Federal equal pay at times say that variations in State laws indicate a need for a Federal law which will promote uniformity. Such a contention is unsound. A certain amount of experimentation is desirable to find the type of law that works best. The efforts in the 22 States [with equal pay laws already on the books] amount, in effect, to laboratories of experiment….This opportunity for the 50 States to learn from one another is highly desirable. It would be forever lost once Federal legislation takes effect.
It's opening the door to a lot more claims. That means more burdens on employers in terms of in-house costs, keeping more records and outside legal fees. It's going to be costly for businesses.
Petitioner, however, seeks a rule that would effectively eliminate any meaningful period of limitation in certain kinds of discriminatory pay claims, allowing an employee to wait years or even decades to challenge an allegedly discriminatory decision so long as the economic consequences of that decision have continued into the limitations period. Such a rule would be irreconcilable with Congress’ design for the administration of Title VII, and would subject the employers…to damages for entirely innocent decisions that have nonetheless become difficult or impossible to defend solely because of the passage of time….such a rule would impose an unwarranted and excessive burden on employers…
Related Laws and Rules
Evidence
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The Americans With Disabilities Act Didn't Cause A Flood of Lawsuits
Employer warnings of frivolous lawsuits in the wake of Americans With Disabilities Act were proven false.
Resources
University of California-Berkeley Labor Center carries out research on labor and workplace-related issues.
National Committee on Pay Equity is a coalition working to eliminate sex- and race-based wage discrimination and to achieve pay equity.
Institute for Women’s Policy Research is a prominent think tank that is largely focused on American women's issues. This covers everything from pay equity to welfare reform to domestic violence.
