Employment Discrimination

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

[T]he act will tend to cause labor unrest and labor disputes and disrupt collective bargaining agreements. In virtually every industry of any size, [employees] are represented by a collective bargaining agent which has negotiated an agreement with the employer covering rates of pay and conditions of employment.

-
Arnold Becker, Supervisor, Labor Relations, Hazel-Atlas Glass Division, Continental Can Company, Testimony, House Committee Hearing.
03/26/1963 | Full Details | Law(s): Equal Pay Act

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].

-
Michael Layman of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Inc.Com.

I assume that a typical goal of the proposed bill would be to eliminate [pay differentials]….if the bill did this it would eliminate thousands and even hundreds of thousands of job opportunities for women.

-
William Miller representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Testimony, House Hearing.
03/26/1963 | Full Details | Law(s): Equal Pay Act

…the passage of Federal legislation will add an unnecessary additional Federal bureaucracy and the inherent added enforcement expense will only increase the already large deficit in the Federal budget. State action and voluntary employer activity have done an excellent job in the area of equal pay to date, and we are optimistic that such activity will proceed at an even faster pace in the future.

-
Statement of the National Association of Manufacturers at the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare (Subcommittee on Labor). Aug 1, 1962.
08/01/1962 | Full Details | Law(s): Equal Pay Act

Evidence

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.

National Women’s Law Center

is a prominent think tank and legal advocacy organization.

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.