Family Responsibility Discrimination: What Is It and How Will It Influence Business and Employees
Family Responsibility Discrimination:
What Is It and How Will It Influence Business and Employees
Raymond Joy
Professor Grandinetti
BUS352 – 2012 Q5
Family Responsibility Discrimination
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 originally protecting against discrimination in employment based upon race, color, national origin, religion and gender. Such discriminations, or disparate treatments, are often easy to identify. Most companies today have established concrete policies and rules to avoid discrimination in workplace and in recruitment procedures. However, new forms of discrimination emerge as the society is constantly changing. Family responsibility discrimination (FRD) is one of them.
People who do not have work experience may not be familiar with the term. According to Joan William and Consuela Pinto, FRD “also called caregiver discrimination, is discrimination against employees because of their family caregiving responsibilities.” (2008). More specifically, “Pregnant women, mothers and fathers of young children, and employees with aging parents or sick spouses or partners may encounter FRD. They may be rejected for hire, passed over for promotion, demoted, harassed, or terminated — despite good performance — simply because their employers make personnel decisions based on stereotypical notions of how they will or should act given their family responsibilities.”( Work Life Law).
According to William and Pinto, employees have been filing discrimination cases based on their caregiver status since early 1970’s after Title VII enacted. However, the number of claims is spiking in recent years. Many factors contribute to the change: employees’ desire to shift the work-life balance; the trend of aging population and dual worker families; and the increased awareness by employees of their rights. With the increasing number of cases, there are new legal theories developed, and new state and local laws were enacted to protect employees from FRD.
Legal
What Is It and How Will It Influence Business and Employees
Raymond Joy
Professor Grandinetti
BUS352 – 2012 Q5
Family Responsibility Discrimination
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 originally protecting against discrimination in employment based upon race, color, national origin, religion and gender. Such discriminations, or disparate treatments, are often easy to identify. Most companies today have established concrete policies and rules to avoid discrimination in workplace and in recruitment procedures. However, new forms of discrimination emerge as the society is constantly changing. Family responsibility discrimination (FRD) is one of them.
People who do not have work experience may not be familiar with the term. According to Joan William and Consuela Pinto, FRD “also called caregiver discrimination, is discrimination against employees because of their family caregiving responsibilities.” (2008). More specifically, “Pregnant women, mothers and fathers of young children, and employees with aging parents or sick spouses or partners may encounter FRD. They may be rejected for hire, passed over for promotion, demoted, harassed, or terminated — despite good performance — simply because their employers make personnel decisions based on stereotypical notions of how they will or should act given their family responsibilities.”( Work Life Law).
According to William and Pinto, employees have been filing discrimination cases based on their caregiver status since early 1970’s after Title VII enacted. However, the number of claims is spiking in recent years. Many factors contribute to the change: employees’ desire to shift the work-life balance; the trend of aging population and dual worker families; and the increased awareness by employees of their rights. With the increasing number of cases, there are new legal theories developed, and new state and local laws were enacted to protect employees from FRD.
Legal