HRM 1121-Chapter 3
Wednesday Sept.16, 2015
Instructor - Ms. Stephanie Hall, MBA/PA
My Student Rights, Responsibilities and Code of Conduct
STUDENT CODE OF CONDUCT:
As an enrolled student at Columbus State Community College, you have agreed to abide by the Student Code of Conduct as outlined in the Student Handbook. You should familiarize yourself with the student code. The faculty at Columbus State expect you to exhibit high standards of academic integrity. Any confirmed incidence of Academic Misconduct, including plagiarism and other forms of cheating, will be treated seriously and in accordance with College Policy and Procedure. Classroom conduct must include respect for the rights of other learners; therefore, disruptive or disorderly behavior will not be tolerated. Due to the nature of the course, controversial topics may arise. Students are expected to address such issues in a reasoned, respectful way. Please avoid tardiness, inappropriate language, phone use, and any behavior that interferes with the learning process. No food, drink, children, or guests are allowed in the classroom.
AT & T's Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
Importance of Employment Laws
Employment law is in place to assure a fair and safe working environment for employers and employees. Laws and strict rules outline, for the employer, how their employee’s should be treated within the workplace. Many employers and employees often do not realize how many rules and regulations are covered by employment law, leading to misunderstanding for employers and employees alike. There are many pieces protected by employment law which means employees can take legal action for being treated unfairly. Due to employers control over employees pay, promotions, working conditions etc..., it is mandatory that employees and employees have a comprehensive and equal understanding of employment law.
Example: If an employee feels they are being bullied, it is important they realize it is not acceptable and can take legal action against an employer.
Employers need to understand employment law so they are providing an optimal working environment for employees. Failure to adhere to employment law can be costly for an employer. Equality within the workplace ensures that everyone has equal opportunities and can’t be denied promotion or training for prejudicial reasons.
Employers cannot discriminate against employees because of age, gender, nationality, pregnancy and maternity leave, sexual orientation, disabilities, race, ethnic background, religion and beliefs. Legal action can be carried out, should an employee believe they are being treated unfairly due to prejudice.
Unfair Discrimination
Fair Discrimination
Unlawful Employment Practices
Equal Employment Opportunity
Employment Laws define what is expected and required of employers and clarify what is allowed.
Ways to Avoid unfair discrimination
2. Promote awareness of fairness and trust amongst employees and job candidates, which will increase motivation/engagement.
3. Reduce negative public relations that may have employees feeling they've been discriminated against and share with others.
4. Emphasize the organizations ethical culture and commitment to diversity inclusion.
5. Reduce turnover by cultivating employee motivation and awareness of fairness.
6. Promote diversity, which can enrich the organizations ability to influence a larger customer base.
The Importance of Diversity and Inclusion to Business Performance
Xerox Vice President " When you to be more open, as opposed to using the ideas of one group limited by their experiences, you get a chance to tap into the total spectrum of creativity".
Inclusion - All feel respected, have a voice and contribute to his or her full potential.
A global, diverse workplace provides a larger view of the world and assists with our differences and similarities.
Common Law - the body of case-by-case court decisions that governs what is legal and what resolves are appropriate.
Workplace Tort - a civil wrong in which an employer violates a duty allocated to its employees or customers.
Major Federal Employment Laws
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 - The FLSA establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments. Covered nonexempt workers are entitled to a minimum wage of not less than $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009. Overtime pay at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay is required after 40 hours of work in a workweek.
Equal Pay Act of 1963 - The Equal Pay Act requires that men and women in the same workplace be given equal pay for equal work. The jobs need not be identical, but they must be substantially equal. Job content (not job titles) determines whether jobs are substantially equal. All forms of pay are covered by this law, including salary, overtime pay, bonuses, stock options, profit sharing and bonus plans, life insurance, vacation and holiday pay, cleaning or gasoline allowances, hotel accommodations, reimbursement for travel expenses, and benefits. If there is an inequality in wages between men and women, employers may not reduce the wages of either sex to equalize their pay.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - This act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin and provide monetary damages in cases of intentional or non-intentional employment discrimination. This document was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.
REVIEW TABLE 3-1 AT THE TOP OF PAGE 68.
Bona Fide Occupational Qualification
Bona fide occupational qualifications (BFOQ) - are employment qualifications that employers are allowed to consider while making decisions about hiring and retention of employees. The qualification should relate to an essential job duty and is considered necessary for operation of the particular business.
The Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications rule allows for the hiring of individuals based on race, sex, age, and national origin if these characteristics are bona fide occupational qualifications. This is an exception and complete defense to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which protects employees from discrimination based on religion, sex, age, national origin and color at the workplace.
In order to establish the defense of bona fide occupational qualification, an employer must prove the requirement is necessary to the success of the business and that a definable group or class of employees would be unable to perform the job safely and efficiently. An employer should demonstrate a necessity for a certain type of workers because all others do not have certain characteristics necessary for employment success. However the employer's motivation for excluding the protected class is not significant in evaluating the BFOQ defense. The inquiry focuses on the necessity of using an expressly forbidden classification.
Examples of BFOQ's are: mandatory retirement ages for bus drivers and airplane pilots for safety reasons, churches requiring members of its clergy to be of a certain denomination and may lawfully bar, from employment, anyone who is not a member. However, for positions at a church such as janitors, discrimination based on religious denomination would be illegal because religion has no effect on a person's ability to fulfill the duties of the job. Other examples of bona fide occupation qualifications include the use of models and actors for the purpose of authenticity or genuineness, the requirement of emergency personnel to be bilingual, judged on language competency, not national origin.
ADEA of 1967
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) - only forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older. It does not protect workers under the age of 40, although some states do have laws that protect younger workers from age discrimination.
It is not illegal for an employer or other covered entity to favor an older worker over a younger one, even if both workers are age 40 or older.
Discrimination can occur when the victim and the person who inflicted the discrimination are both over 40.
In New Jersey it is illegal to discriminate against employees between the ages of 18-70.
Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Reasonable Accommodations
A reasonable accommodation - is a modification or adjustment to a job, the work environment, or the way things usually are done that enables a qualified individual with a disability to enjoy an equal employment opportunity. An equal employment opportunity means an opportunity to attain the same level of performance or to enjoy equal benefits and privileges of employment as are available to an average similarly-situated employee without a disability.
The ADA requires reasonable accommodation in three aspects of employment:
1) to ensure equal opportunity in the application process
2) to enable a qualified individual with a disability to perform the essential functions of a job
3) to enable an employee with a disability to enjoy equal benefits and privileges of employment.
Examples of reasonable accommodations include:
1) making existing facilities accessible; job restructuring
2) part-time or modified work schedules; acquiring or modifying equipment
3) changing tests, training materials, or policies; providing qualified readers or interpreters
4)reassignment to a vacant position.
Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978
It is illegal not to hire or promote someone because their pregnant.
Google the company - Lucasfilm
Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconcilation Act of 1986
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) - protects workers, their families, and communities by requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to provide notification 60 calendar days in advance of plant closings and mass layoffs.
Employee entitled to notice under WARN include managers and supervisors, as well as hourly and salaried workers. WARN requires that notice also be given to employees' representatives, the local chief elected official, and the state dislocated worker unit.
Advance notice gives workers and their families some transition time to adjust to the prospective loss of employment, to seek and obtain other jobs, and, if necessary, to enter skill training or retraining that will allow these workers to compete successfully in the job market.
- Generally, WARN covers employers with 100 or more employees, not counting those who have worked less than six months in the last 12 months and those who work an average of less than 20 hours a week.
- Employees entitled to advance notice under WARN include managers and supervisors as well as hourly and salaried workers.
- Regular federal, state, and local government entities that provide public services are not covered by WARN.
The ADA Act of 1990
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
The FMLA - entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave. Eligible employees are entitled to:
- Twelve workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for:
- the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth;
- the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement;
- to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition;
- a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job;
- any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty;” or
- Twenty-six workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the servicemember’s spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin (military caregiver leave).
The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008
Genetic testing can identify people genetically susceptible to disease that could result from workplace exposure to toxic substances such as chemicals or radiation.
Example: Job applications should not contain questions that can discriminate based on genetic makeup, and policies should be developed governing the use of social networking sites (Facebook etc...) that could inadvertently reveal protected personal information (candidate facebook post may state their father has been diagnosed with cancer).
NO EMPLOYMENT DECISIONS SHOULD BE BASED UPON GENETIC INFORMATION.
REVIEW TABLE 3-2 ON PAGE 73.
Global Differences
Affirmative Action - policy put in place to proactive eliminate discrimination post effects. It favors members of disadvantage groups who endure discrimination based on their culture.
Federal contracts of at least $50,000 and 50 or more employees must provide a formal affirmative action plan.
Protected Classes - Underrepresented groups in employment.
Groups of people with a common attributes who are legally protected from employment discrimination based upon their characteristics. Protected classes are created by both federal and state law.
Federal protected classes include:
Race.
Color.
Religion or creed.
National origin or ancestry.
Sex.
Age.
Physical or mental disability.
Veteran status.
Genetic information.
Citizenship.
Affirmative Action Plan - is a management tool designed to ensure equal employment opportunity.
Preferential Treatment - Providing an advantage to a particular person or group.
Independent Contractor - A individual/business which provides services to other individuals/businesses who control or direct the end result of the workplace project.
Pay their Social Security contributions
Responsible for reporting their income to Federal/State authorities
They do not receive benefits.
Employment Lawsuits
Sexual harassment can range from constant offensive sexual jokes to inappropriate touching to posting offensive material on a bulletin board. Sexual harassment at work is a serious problem and can happen to both men and women.
Quid Pro Quo Harassment
Occurs in the workplace when a manager or other authority figure offers or merely hints that he or she will give the employee something (a raise or a promotion) in return for that employee's satisfaction of a sexual demand. This also occurs when a manager or other authority figure says he or she will not fire or reprimand an employee in exchange for some type of sexual favor.
It also occurs in the workplace when a manager or other authority figure offers or merely hints that he or she will give the employee something (a raise or a promotion) in return for that employee's satisfaction of a sexual demand. This also occurs when a manager or other authority figure says he or she will not fire or reprimand an employee in exchange for some type of sexual favor. A job applicant also may be the subject of this kind of harassment if the hiring decision was based on the acceptance or rejection of sexual advances.
Hostile Environment Harassment
Examples:
Whistling
Lewd jokes
Pictures
Emails
Foul language
Disparate Treatment - prohibits employers from treating applicants or employees differently because of their membership in a protected class.
Adverse Impact - Occurs when an employment practice has disproportionateed effect on a protected group.
Race Norming - The practice of adjusting scores on a standardized test by using separate curves for different racial groups
Fraudulent Recruitment - Recruiting misreprentation of a position or organization.
Review page 82 - Five things to prove when filing a lawsuit for fraudulent recruitment.
Negligent Hiring - Negligent hiring is a claim made by an injured party against an employer based on the theory that the employer knew or should have known about the employee's background which, if known, indicates a dangerous or untrustworthy character.
Pre-employment background checks, employee drug testing, and employment physical exams are some of the ways negligent hiring claims can be avoided.
Review the bottom of page 82 - Five things to prove when filing a lawsuit for Negligent Hiring.
Retailiation - is the most frequently alleged basis of discrimination in the federal sector and the most common discrimination finding in federal sector cases
Enforcement Agencies - any agency which enforces the law. This may be a special, local or state police, federal agencies.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.
EEOC- Established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Their responsibility is to receive/investigate unlawful employment practices.
EEOC currently enforces the following federal statutes:
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)
Americans with Disabilities (ADA)
Rehabilitation Act
Civil Rights Act
Equal Pay Act
Review EEOC Remedies on page 85.
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program - OFCCP
Review the three on the bottom of page 85.
Stereotype - is used to catergorize a group of people or they will behave a certain way.
Prejudice - an unfair feeling of dislike for a person or group because of race, sex, religion, etc
Selection
Training
Evaluating performance in the area of diversity/inclusion
Tracking diversity of candidates recruited and hired by managment
Perception of Possible Personal Loss
Ignorance
LEAVING MANAGERS WITH HIRING AUTHORITY IN IGNORANCE OF THE BASIC FEATURES OF THE DISCRIMINATION LAWS IS AN "EXTRAORDINARY MISTAKE" FOR A COMPANY TO MAKE.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit