Workplace Discrimination
Discrimination in the Workplace
Most everyone has suffered discrimination in his or her daily lives. It's something a lot of people have to deal with on a daily basis. Discrimination is a major problem mainly in the employment industry. Even though there are many laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace, this problem still exist every day and many people don't know how to handle it. Discrimination is defined in civil rights law as "an unfavorable or unfair treatment of a person or class or persons in comparison to others who are not a member of the protected class because of race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, physical/mental handicap, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, and other factors that may occur".
Employment …show more content…
On the one hand, an employer can't make employment decisions based on a person's religion. On the other, they might have to take an employee's religion into account when making certain workplace decisions. This apparent contradiction comes from the fact that religion is not just a characteristic -- it is also a set of practices and beliefs. The law prohibits an employee from discriminating based on the fact of someone's religion (for example, that an employee is Jewish or Catholic or Baptist). However, it also requires you to make allowances for a person's religious practices and beliefs (for example, that an employee needs time after lunch to pray or that an employee needs Saturdays off to observe his or her Sabbath). An employer can't refuse to hire someone because he or she is Jewish and they can't promote someone because he or she is Muslim. If the nature of the job you are filling absolutely requires that it be filled by an employee of a particular religion -- for example, if you are hiring priests in the Catholic Church -- then you can make religion part of your hiring criteria. In all other situations, however, your job-related decisions must be based on nondiscriminatory reasons.
Proving discrimination in the workplace is more or less the same whether the discrimination is on the basis of age, race, sex, national origin, or anything that is illegal. This is especially true of disability discrimination in the workplace, where other factors, such as "reasonable accommodation" is taking place. A "reasonable accommodation" is where the employer modifies the job duties, provides some extra help, or takes some other measure to ensure that the person can still be able to do the
Most everyone has suffered discrimination in his or her daily lives. It's something a lot of people have to deal with on a daily basis. Discrimination is a major problem mainly in the employment industry. Even though there are many laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace, this problem still exist every day and many people don't know how to handle it. Discrimination is defined in civil rights law as "an unfavorable or unfair treatment of a person or class or persons in comparison to others who are not a member of the protected class because of race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, physical/mental handicap, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, and other factors that may occur".
Employment …show more content…
On the one hand, an employer can't make employment decisions based on a person's religion. On the other, they might have to take an employee's religion into account when making certain workplace decisions. This apparent contradiction comes from the fact that religion is not just a characteristic -- it is also a set of practices and beliefs. The law prohibits an employee from discriminating based on the fact of someone's religion (for example, that an employee is Jewish or Catholic or Baptist). However, it also requires you to make allowances for a person's religious practices and beliefs (for example, that an employee needs time after lunch to pray or that an employee needs Saturdays off to observe his or her Sabbath). An employer can't refuse to hire someone because he or she is Jewish and they can't promote someone because he or she is Muslim. If the nature of the job you are filling absolutely requires that it be filled by an employee of a particular religion -- for example, if you are hiring priests in the Catholic Church -- then you can make religion part of your hiring criteria. In all other situations, however, your job-related decisions must be based on nondiscriminatory reasons.
Proving discrimination in the workplace is more or less the same whether the discrimination is on the basis of age, race, sex, national origin, or anything that is illegal. This is especially true of disability discrimination in the workplace, where other factors, such as "reasonable accommodation" is taking place. A "reasonable accommodation" is where the employer modifies the job duties, provides some extra help, or takes some other measure to ensure that the person can still be able to do the