Discrimination in the Workplace

Omar Romero- Cruz

English 103

Dr. Irvine

November 1, 2017

Discrimination in the Workplace

Introduction

Have you ever been bullied in the workplace, or have been discriminated because of your race, gender, age, or sexual orientated? Discrimination in general has been an issue in this country for centuries. Title VII is a law that prevents employers to discriminate others based on their race, religion, sex, and nationality. America has a law that prevents discrimination in the work place, yet we still have discrimination in the workplace. It has gone to the point where companies, business, and business owners to act and protect those who are being discriminated at work. The workplace needs to address the issue of discrimination and make changes on their policies about discriminating others based on their race, sex, gender, ethnicity, religion, age, and sexual orientated because it can have a negative effect on the victims.

About

Discrimination can easily be defined as the practice of unfair or unequal treatment of an individual or group based on certain characteristics, these characteristics can include; age, disability, ethnicity, gender, marital status, national origin, race, religion, and sexual orientation. Discrimination can take on many forms and can use at any time and people won’t even notice, he or she is being discriminated. Discrimination practices can be bias of promotion, job assignment, retaliation, job hiring and various types of harassment.

Laws

There are three main Federal Workplace Discrimination Laws, that protects people from discrimination in the workplace. Title VII which is the biggest and most important law that comes to preventing discrimination in the workplace. Title VII requires that employers do not discriminate based on the federal protected classes of race, color, religion, age, sex, pregnancy, familial status, disability status, veteran status, and genetic information. (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2017). Then there is the Equal Pay Act of 1963 & Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. First, the Equal Pay Act requires that, when a man and woman do the same job, regardless of job title, they must be paid the same amount. Then, the Lilly Ledbetter Act compliments this law by amending the original statute of limitations on equal pay lawsuits to be 180 days after the most recent paycheck (meaning, the statute resets each paycheck that is discriminatory). (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2017). Last but certainly not least, The Civil Rights Act of 199. This law is related to the damages if an employer is found in the wrong of a discrimination lawsuit. This 1991 law details provisions of monetary damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination, expanding the previous laws that only accounted for attorney’s fees, and includes emotional distress damages. (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2017). Still, these laws only apply when there are 15 or more full time employees. Even with this small problem there are a more problems when it comes to protecting people’s rights. Claire Zillman is a reporter for the Fortune, a multinational business magazine. Zillman (July 27, 2017), is the author behind, “Why Trump’s Justice Department Increased the Stakes in the Fight for LGBT Workplace Rights,” which she focusses on how Title VII does not protect LGBT members from employment discrimination. Claire talks about how the Title VII does not protect the LGBT community and how it is a disgrace to the members that we still do not have a law pass to protect members of the LGBT community from employment discrimination. The article helps show on the law side that there are still things need to be done in order protect people from workplace discrimination. The article further helps show that people can be discriminated based on sexual orientation, and is another issue that needs s to be further address. America as a country still needs to work on making laws to protect people’s right in the workplace. Still, employees, and people of high power in the workplace must practice the laws we have now, otherwise what is the point of having these laws if there is no practice of the law? The workplace needs to practice these laws during the job it is not just because is by law, but it is also because of people’s rights and equal rights to all. Still, employees, and people of high power in the workplace must practice the laws we have now, otherwise what is the point of having these laws if there is no practice of the law? If the workplace those not change and actually practice laws that protects people from discrimination in the workplace, then the effects are negative.

The Effects

America has laws that protects people from discrimination, but there are effects when it comes to discriminating others based on certain characteristics. In article Racial/Ethnic Bullying: Exploring Links Between Bullying and Racism in the US Workplace focused on the issue bullying in the working environment. The main point of the article is the connection between bullying in the workplace and race. Suzy Fox, and Lamont E. Stallworth (2005) did a study of individual’s experience going through bullying in the workplace based on the color of the person’s skin. The participants in the study (Asians, African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and Whites) had to respond to a survey of bullying experience in the workplace. Fox, and Stallworth focused a lot in the article about their research and that the study shows that bullying based on racism can come from any job title. Meaning that there was a wide range of occupation in the study. Their research had participants in the study (Asians, African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and Whites) to respond to a survey of bullying experience in the workplace. The article also pointed out that there was no study about bullying in the workplace based on the person’s skin.  Now, Fox, and Stallworth show that bullying in the working place is a problem especially those who are not white. They use their research and data they collected from that research to show that bullying in the working place is a problem to the minorities. The study concluded that almost majority of the people of a minority race has gone through racial bullying in the working place. Suzy Fox, and Lamont E. Stallworth wants to inform of this issue, and that there are people in the world who are being bullied in work place because the color of their skin is different. Kelly D. Davis, A. Butch de, Cassandra A. Okechukwu, and Kerry Souza (2014) all focusses on the effects discrimination, harassment, abuse, and bullying in the workplace can do to the individual’s health. In the article (Discrimination Harassment, Abuse, and Bullying in the Workplace: Contribution of Workplace Injustice to Occupational Health Disparities) was published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine which they focus on journals that on safety and health. The authors review articles on injustice in the workplace and the effects on people’s health. The authors find out that minorities are more likely to be victims of discrimination and to have suffered worst health wise then the majority group. They go on saying that discrimination can harm a person’s psychological health, physical health, and unhealthy behaviors. Still, the authors of the articles even say that there should be and needs to be more research on this. There are a lot of articles that have been reviewed in this article by experts that have done studies in this field. The articles have strong support for their side with research done by experts in their field, even though it’s not a lot. The information we have from this article is not much, but it still further helps my side that discrimination I the workplace can have a negative effect on the individual. This article can help show that injustice in the workplace can have serious consequence on the victim’s health.  These two scholarly articles are just more proof that the workplaces need to address issues when it comes to issues on discrimination.