You are the HR director at ParlaTech. The CEO, Jacob Zielinski, has asked you to meet with him to discuss some of the ideas he has around tracking candidates for the new job openin

Welcome to Parlatech

Mission To provide customers with high-quality communication technology that contributes to the achievement of customers' goals and objectives

Vision To become the company of choice for global M2M communication needs

Our Values We are committed to

• our employees and their continuous growth and development; • open and clear communication with our stakeholders; • building relationships with accountability, honesty, and integrity; and • innovation and responsiveness to customer needs.

Organizational Structure The organizational structure is very streamlined. The CEO is hands-on and communicates directly with all departments.

Retrieved from https://leocontent.umgc.edu/content/dam/course-content/tus/hrmn/hrmn-495/document/Parlatech%20Company%20Profile_Legal.pdf

Learning Topic

Employment Laws and Regulations

Tanasin Srijaroensirikul / EyeEm / Getty Images

Employment Legislation

What happens when businesses make decisions that violate laws and

regulations designed to protect workers? It can cost companies a great deal,

including money. Consider the following awards and settlements:

• $180,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit against Walgreens

(“America’s Largest Drug Store,” 2014)

• $850,000 to current and former United Airlines workers with

disabilities who were denied employment opportunities at San

Francisco International Airport (“The US EEOC,” 2010)

• $1.28 million to settle a wage‐and‐hour lawsuit by 61 employees of a

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Domino’s franchise (Greenhouse, 2014)

In other cases, the monetary damage may be minimal, but the reputation of

the business becomes tarnished, and HR has difficulty recruiting and

retaining quality employees. Businesses that disregard worker protections

may find themselves on a list of “worst places to work.” Such was the case

with the retail clothing store Forever 21.

The financial news service 24/7 WALL ST, based on its analysis of

thousands of employee reviews of more than 540,000 companies posted on

the career website Glassdoor, listed the worst US companies to work for as

Family Dollar Stores, Express Scripts, and Forever 21 (2016). As a business

owner, you wouldn’t want to join them on that list.

Anti‐Discrimination Legislation

Protecting workers from unfair treatment is at the heart of US

antidiscrimination legislation. In 1963, the proposed legislation prohibited

discrimination on the basis of sex and race in hiring, promotion, and firing

only. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed on July 2, made it unlawful for an

employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or

otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his

compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment, because of

such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

Over the years, amendments have expanded the scope of the law. Today,

the EEOC enforces laws that prohibit discrimination based on an expanded

list of protected classes that includes disability, veteran status, citizenship,

familial status, and age. Antidiscrimination law today applies not only to

hiring, promoting, and firing, but also wage setting, testing, training,

apprenticeships, and other terms or conditions of employment.

While the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not mention affirmative action

—redressing the disadvantages associated with past and present

discrimination—it did authorize federal rules to help end discrimination.

Affirmative action “refers to both mandatory and voluntary programs

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intended to affirm the civil rights of designated classes of individuals by

taking positive action to protect them” from discrimination (VCU Libraries,

2015).

The first federal policy of race‐conscious affirmative action emerged in

1967. It required government contractors to set “goals and timetables” for

integrating and diversifying their workforce (Kansas Department of

Administration, n.d.). Similar policies began to emerge through a mix of

voluntary practices and federal and state policies on employment and

education. These include government‐mandated, government‐sanctioned,

and voluntary private programs that focus on access to education and

employment, granting special consideration to historically excluded groups

such as racial minorities and women. One impetus is the desire to ensure

that public institutions including universities, hospitals, and police forces are

representative of the populations they serve.

In the United States, affirmative action tends to emphasize not specific

quotas but rather “targeted goals” to address past discrimination in a

particular institution or in society through “good‐faith efforts … to identify,

select, and train potentially qualified minorities and women” (LaFollette,

2005, p. 274). For example, many higher education institutions have

voluntarily adopted policies that seek to increase recruitment of racial

minorities. Another example is executive orders requiring some government

contractors and subcontractors to adopt equal employment opportunity

measures like outreach campaigns, targeted recruitment, employee and

management development, and employee support programs.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act created the EEOC to implement the law, and

subsequent legislation has expanded its role. As an independent regulatory

body, the EEOC plays a major role in dealing with the problem of

employment discrimination. Since the EEOC’s creation in 1964, its powers

have been greatly expanded by Congress to include investigations,

conciliation programs, lawsuits, and voluntary assistance programs.

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The regulatory authority of the EEOC includes enforcing a range of federal

statutes prohibiting employment discrimination. The titles and descriptions

of these laws are as follows:

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on

the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The prohibition

against sexual harassment falls under Title VII of this act, which

prohibits harassment of an applicant or employee on the basis of sex.

Harassment can include sexual harassment, including unwelcome

sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or

physical harassment of a sexual nature.

• The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967 and its

amendments prohibit employment discrimination against individuals

age 40 or older. ADEA’s protections apply to both employees and job

applicants. Under the ADEA, it is unlawful to discriminate against a

person because of age with respect to any term, condition, or privilege

of employment, including hiring, firing, promotion, layoff,

compensation, benefits, job assignments, and training. The ADEA

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permits employers to favor older workers based on age, even when

doing so adversely affects a younger worker who is 40 or older.

• The Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits discrimination based on gender in

compensation for substantially similar work under similar conditions. In

essence, people doing equal jobs must receive the same pay, regardless

of gender. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women’s salaries

compared with men’s have risen dramatically since the law’s passage,

from 62 percent of men’s earnings in 1970 to 83 percent in 2017 (Graf

et al., 2018). Nonetheless, the act’s equal pay for equal work goals have

not been achieved.

• The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 prohibits private

employers, state and local governments, employment agencies, and

labor unions from discriminating against qualified individuals with

disabilities in job application procedures; hiring; firing; advancement;

compensation; job training; and other terms, conditions, and privileges

of employment. The ADA covers employers with 15 or more

employees, including state and local governments. It also applies to

employment agencies and to labor organizations. The ADA's

nondiscrimination standards also apply to federal sector employees

under section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act (US EEOC, n.d.).

• The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of

1994 (USERRA) protects the civilian employment of active and reserve

military personnel in the United States called to active duty. The law

applies to all US uniformed services and their respective reserve

components.

These laws were enacted to protect workers, but the existence of laws

doesn’t guarantee that employers will follow them. EEOC acts as a

watchdog and steps in to assist employees who believe they have suffered

workplace discrimination. Just how often do employees turn to the EEOC?

In fiscal year 2017, the EEOC received 84,254 charges of workplace

discrimination (US EEOC, 2018). During that time, the percentage of

charges alleging retaliation for asserting rights to work free from

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discrimination and harassment reached 48.8 percent of all charges filed. The

percentage of charges alleging race discrimination was 33.9 percent. In

fiscal year 2017, the EEOC collected $398 million through voluntary

resolutions and litigation, and it filed 184 lawsuits alleging discrimination.

Labor and Safety Legislation

There are many other laws designed to regulate the employer‐employee

relationship. Summaries of these laws are as follows:

• The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 created collective bargaining

in labor‐management relations and limited management’s right to

interfere with the right of employees to have a collective bargaining

agent. In essence, this act both legitimated and helped regulate labor

union activities.

• The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established a national minimum

wage, forbade oppressive child labor, and provided for overtime pay in

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designated occupations. It declared the goal of assuring “a minimum

standard of living necessary for the health, efficiency, and general well‐

being of workers” (US Department of Labor, 2011). These standards

affect more than 130 million full‐time and part‐time workers in the

private and public sectors.

• The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) requires

employers to maintain workplace conditions or adopt practices

reasonably necessary to protect workers on the job, be familiar with

and comply with standards applicable to their establishments, and

ensure that employees have and use personal protective equipment for

safety and health. The major areas covered by OSHA standards are

toxic substances; harmful physical agents; electrical, fall, trenching, and

digging hazards; hazardous waste; infectious disease; fire and explosion

dangers; dangerous atmospheres; machine hazards; and confined

spaces.

• The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 requires employers

to verify the identity and employment authorization of all new hires,

including whether they are citizens or noncitizens. Employers must

ensure proper completion of Form I‐9 for each person hired for

employment in the United States.

• The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 requires businesses with 50

or more employees to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year

for an employee when they become a parent through birth or adoption,

or in the event of serious illness of a parent, spouse, or child.

There has been an explosion in the number of employee lawsuits in the

United States in the past few decades, and the trend does not appear to be

diminishing. Many of these lawsuits could have been avoided. That’s why

it’s important to know at least the basics of employment law.

The main areas of US laws and regulations that you should be familiar with

are as follows:

Compensation

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• Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA)

(https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/retirement/erisa)

• Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov

/files/WHD/legacy/files/FairLaborStandAct.pdf)

• Equal Pay Act of 1963 (amending FLSA (https://www.eeoc.gov

/statutes/equal‐pay‐act‐1963) )

Equal Employment Opportunity

• Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA)

(https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/age‐discrimination‐employment‐

act‐1967)

• Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (https://www.ada.gov

/ada_intro.htm)

• Civil Rights Acts (https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title‐vii‐civil‐rights‐

act‐1964)

• Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 (https://www.dol.gov

/sites/dolgov/files/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/eeopost.pdf)

• Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (1978)

(https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR‐2017‐title29‐vol4/xml

/CFR‐2017‐title29‐vol4‐part1607.xml)

• Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA)

(https://www.eeoc.gov/genetic‐information‐discrimination)

• Multiculturalism and the Law (https://open.lib.umn.edu

/humanresourcemanagement/chapter/3‐3‐multiculturalism‐and‐the‐

law/))

• Human Resources Management and Compliance

(https://openstax.org/books/principles‐management/pages/11‐2‐

human‐resource‐management‐and‐compliance)

Employee Relations

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https://www.ada.gov/ada_intro.htm

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