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
Certain specific provisions of these bills are bound to result in extensive governmental intervention in employer-employee relations….These terms ‘comparable character’ and ‘comparable skills’ do not necessarily mean the same job. In fact, they are so general and so vague as to give an administrator a grant of power which could destroy the sound wage structure which many industrial companies have worked for years to perfect.
The new law would pretty clearly restart the time clock for filing the claim when an employee receives a retirement benefit, a pension benefit, even an (employee stock ownership plan payment). In doing so, the Ledbetter Act exposes employers to endless liability…[it is an] unprecedented expansion [of employment law].
This bill would allow an employee to bring a claim against an employer decades after the alleged initial act of discrimination occurred. Trial lawyers, you can be sure, are salivating at this very prospect.
There are four major developments which make this proposed law of dubious value. Advancement of the worthwhile and sound objective of equal pay for equal work has already been well accomplished through: 1) General acceptance by employers; 2) A continuing aftermath of World War II developments; 3) Collective bargaining agreements; and 4) The tremendous increase in the establishment of job evaluation systems under which pay differentials based on sex are automatically abolished. It is through these channels that progress has been made and will continue to be made in eliminating multiple standards in the payment of wages.
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.
