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

[W]e feel that in a free competitive economy, the task of equal pay to women workers is properly within the province of collective bargaining and not of police action by the government.

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George Meaney, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
06/06/1953 | Full Details | Law(s): Equal Pay Act

[The proposed ‘comparable’ work standard is] so general and so vague as to give an administrator a grant of power which could destroy the sound wage structure which many industrial companies have worked for years to perfect.

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The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) expresses their opposition to some of the initial Equal Pay Act’s wording.
06/14/1962 | Full Details | Law(s): Equal Pay Act

Although there may be some inequitable situations in an industry as large as retailing, it should be pointed out that there have been conscientious efforts made to correct them. Further, in many States the situation has been corrected through the enactment of equal pay laws.

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Statement of the American Retail Federation, at the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare (Subcommittee on Labor)
08/01/1962 | Full Details | Law(s): Equal Pay Act

…these bills grant extensive powers to the Secretary of Labor which permit of arbitrary application. For in proceeding under the law, the conclusion of the Secretary of Labor could not be upset by the courts, even if a company could prove that the jobs were not comparable, as long as the Secretary could show any substantial evidence that they were comparable.

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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.