Identify 5 of the major discrimination laws. How are these laws intended to protect employees? Are these
laws necessary and effective, or instead do they restrict the manager�s ability to properly manage?
The following conditions must meet in the essay:
1) I want a typical and a quality answer which should have about 1400 words.
2) The answer must raise appropriate critical questions
Introduction
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Employment discrimination laws were established to protect employees against various
circumstances that they encounter in their workplace. Every working or employed person has a
right to get protection from his/her place of work. These rights are applicable to all the
employees regardless of the employment terms or working duration set by the employer. It is
important, therefore, for both the employers and the employees to be aware of the laws that
regulate discriminatory acts in the workplace.
Age Discrimination
Age discrimination involves giving preferential treatment to one worker than the other on
the basis of their age. The law forbids favouritsm in terms of hiring, firing, promotion, job
assignments, pay and training. Harassment with relation to age is also prohibited in the
workplace (Neumark & Buttom 2014). Making offensive remarks to another person about
his/her age in the workplace is an unlawful act. The act covers all the offenders starting from
workmates to those in the leadership and the clients (Okechukwu et al. 2014). Employment
policies or practices can be termed as illegal if they impact negatively on the employees.
Disability Discrimination
Disability discrimination is termed as treatment of a qualified but disabled individual in a
workplace unfavourably because of his/her disability state. Disability can be physical or mental
impairment of an individual in a workplace. It may also be in a case where a person is suffering
an incurable or long illness. It is also unlawful to mistreat an employee who has a relationship
with a disabled person such as in the case of husband and wife (Blanpain, Walgrave & Jacqmain
2014). It means that if an employee makes offensive remarks to a colleague who has a disabled
husband, wife or family member is subject to prosecution. The law requires employers to
reasonably accommodate employees and job applicants with disability unless if the move will
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complicate or cost the employer. A reasonable accommodation refers to any change in the
organization that can favour a disabled person such as use of wheelchairs (Ford 2014).
Discrimination with regards to disability in all the other forms of employment such as payment,
training and benefits is also prohibited by the act. It is the responsibility of the employers to put
in place measures that assist reporting of disability mistreatment cases.
Religion and Worship Discrimination
People have the freedom to worship in the manner they wish and the religion or
denomination they chose. The choice of religion has no relationship with one’s work
performance or output. The employers are, however, supposed to respect religious observances
of all the employees by granting them their time to participate in religious works. Workers who
mock, abuse or mistreat their colleagues on the basis of their religion violate the Religion act
(Sinclair 2014).
Racial Discrimination
Discrimination because of one’s race in the workplace is also protected by the equality
act. All forms of preferential treatment to workers with regard to race are illegal. Workers are
expected to receive payment according to their level of education, skills and experience and not
by terms of race (Pattison, Sanders & Ross 2014). Workers who mistreat their colleagues
because of their race are subject to questioning and punishment. Employers are also needed to
view all the employees as the same regardless of their race and should entitle them to all the
benefits that employees are supposed to receive in the workplace (Goldberg 2014).
Equal pay and Compensation
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The law requires that all employees delivering the same task in a company are entitled to
the same pay and compensation. Payment in favour of gender, race or age is strictly prohibited
by this act. Women who deliver the same tasks as men are supposed to be given the same pay.
Giving men a higher pay than women will imply a violation of the equal pay act. Employers are
required to award the employees equally according to the tasks they have delivered to the
company and not as per their physical, sexual or age differences. The law covers all forms of
payments such as salary, overtime, profit sharing and bonuses, insurance, vacation and holidays
(Mallory, Hasenbush & Davis 2014).
Effectiveness of the Laws
The discrimination laws are with no doubt effective to any organization. However, the
effectiveness of these laws largely depends on the management of the organization. Since it is
the responsibility of the administration to monitor the laws and ensure that they are taking course
effectively, their impact largely depends on the company’s leadership (Selmi 2014). Most
employers have not been able to distinguish whether certain acts are discriminatory or not.
Consider a typical scenario where a woman was denied employment in a construction company
because she failed to meet the 5feet 8 inches and 160 ponds requirements. Compare the scenario
with the one where a male boss fired his female secretary because of ugliness and replaced her
with a good looking female secretary. An act can be termed as discriminatory depending on the
intentions of the employer and the outcomes of the decision of the employer (Pattison, Sanders &
Ross 2014). In the first case, the employers’ decisions seemed to be paramount but the results of
the decision were disadvantageous to women in general. In the second scenario, the motive of
the employer is despicable, although, it did not discriminate the women in general since the place
was filled by the same gender (Pattison, Sanders & Ross 2014).
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Management of a company can be hectic if the discriminatory laws are not well
understood because the acts of the employers in the examples given above can bring challenges
to managers. This is because those who do not understand the provisions of the discriminatory
laws will pose great challenges to the management. Discriminations mean treatment that is unfair
for those who are membership in a protected group (Ford 2014). Appearance is not classification
that is protected by law and, therefore, the employer cannot be accused of discrimination. Some
regulations put in place by employers are meant to protect women such as a company that
employs only men because the working conditions are not favourable for women. In this case,
the employer is in fact protecting the rights and welfare of women but not discriminating on
them. Discrimination laws, hence, can greatly affect the manager’s implementation of tasks
because of the difficulties in establishing whether an act is discriminatory or not.
An organization is fond of constituting individuals with different, strengths, abilities and
capabilities. Even though the individual employees might be in the same position and receive the
same salary, some tasks are more suitable for employees who are capable of delivering these
tasks perfectly. The managers are also aware of the qualities and talents that their workers
possess. They may opt to assign or delegate important tasks to the talented individuals for
purposes of assistance or saving time. This being an important step for a manager to make, it
may be viewed by the rest of the workers as favouritsm especially if the duties assigned to them
are lighter than the ones done by other employees. The managers are, hence, faced with the
challenge of deciding on such tasks. They fear the reactions from the company about doing right
things that may appear as discriminatory.
The discriminatory laws have also impacted positively on the companies. The
performance of companies where such rules are strictly followed has greatly improved. Stemcor
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Company in London is one of the world’s largest steel producers. The company has been very
successful because of its observances of the code of ethics and the discriminatory laws. The
company has enforced a bullying and harassment policy on the employee portal. In its emphasis,
the policy states that the company shall not tolerate any form of bullying or harassment. The
equal opportunity policy of the company also emphasizes that the firm is discrimination free and
the employer offers equal opportunities to all the employees (SGEP 2012). This implies that
discrimination laws have played a significant role in the company’s success over the years.
Generally, discrimination laws are an essential tool to any organization that aims to
success. Since their establishment, the laws have been introduced to all business entities but the
impact of the laws to a specific entity seems to depend with the leadership in the company. The
administration that well interprets the discriminatory laws cannot face the negative impacts of
these laws in the company. It is therefore the responsibility of those who are in power to make
sure that everyone in the company understands and respects the provisions of the discriminatory
laws.
Reference List
Blanpain, R, Walgrave, J & Jacqmain, J 2014, Unlawful Employment Discrimination: A
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Discussion of Belgian Law and Related Issues. Georgia Journal of International &
Comparative Law, vol.20 no.1, p.123.
Ford, RT 2014, Bias in the Air: Rethinking Employment Discrimination Law. Stanford Law
Review, vol. 66 no.1381
Goldberg, S 2014, 21st Century Employment Discrimination: LGBT Employees and New
Perspectives on Workplace Law.
Mallory, C, Hasenbush, A & Davis, GK 2014, Employment discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity in South Carolina.
Neumark, D & Button, P 2014, Age discrimination and the Great Recession. FRBSF
Economic Letter, 10.
Okechukwu, CA, Souza, K, Davis, KD & de Castro, AB 2014 Discrimination,
harassment, abuse, and bullying in the workplace: Contribution of workplace injustice to
occupational health disparities. American journal of industrial medicine, vol. 57 no.5,
pp.573-586.
Pattison, P, Sanders, DE & Ross, J 2014, The Squiggly Line: When Should Individual
Choices Be Protected from Employment Discrimination? Southern Law Journal, vol.24
no.1, p.29.
Selmi, M 2014, The Evolution of Employment Discrimination Law: Changed Doctrine for
Changed Social Conditions. GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper,
Sinclair, AJ 2014 Delimiting Title VII: Reverse Religious Discrimination and Proxy Claims
in Employment Discrimination Litigation. Vand. L. Rev., vol. 67, pp239.
Stemcor Group Ethics Policy, 2012, Group Ethics Policy: Relationship with Employees
