Implementing Equal Employment Opportunity

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ImplementingEqual EmploymentOpportunity

• Chapter 3

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Learning Objectives

1. Explain the role of the Employer Information
   Report, EEO1.
2. Define employment parity, occupational parity,
   systemic discrimination, underutilization, and
   concentration.
3. Describe an affirmative action plan.
4. Define bona fide occupational qualification
   (BFOQ).
5. Explain what business necessity means.
6. Define sexual harassment.
7. Describe the comparable worth theory.

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Legal Powers of the EEOC

• EEOC is authorized to develop and publish
  procedural regulations regarding the enforcement
  of civil rights acts
• EEOC also has enforcement authority to initiate
  litigation and to intervene in private litigation

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EEOC Posting Requirements

• Title VII requires employers, employment
  agencies, and labor organizations covered by act
  to post EEOC-prepared notices summarizing
  requirements of Title VII, the ADEA, Equal Pay
  Act, ADA, and Civil Rights Act of 1991

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Records and Reports

• Employer Information Report (EEO1)
• Employers with 100 or more employees are
  required to file with EEOC requires a breakdown
  of employers workforce in specified job
  categories by race, sex, and national origin

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Records and Reports

• Title VII requires covered organizations to make
  and keep certain records that may be used to
  determine whether unlawful employment practices
  have been or are being committed
• EEOC allows organizations to use a separate form,
  often called an applicant diversity chart, for
  collecting certain data

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Steps in Processing a Discrimination Charge
Table 3.1
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Compliance Process

• Employment parity
• Situation in which proportion of minorities and
  women employed by an organization equals
  proportion in organizations relevant labor market

• Occupational parity
• Situation in which proportion of minorities and
  women employed in various occupations within an
  organization is equal to their proportion in
  organizations relevant labor market

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Compliance Process

• Systemic discrimination
• Large differences in either occupational or
  employment parity

• Relevant labor market
• Refers to geographical area in which a company
  recruits its employees

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Compliance Process

• Underutilization
• Practice of having fewer minorities or females in
  a particular job category than would reasonably
  be expected when compared to their presence in
  relevant labor market

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Compliance Process

• Concentration
• Practice of having more minorities or women in a
  job category than would reasonably be expected
  when compared to their presence in relevant labor
  market

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Compliance Process

• Right-to-sue letter
• Statutory notice by EEOC to charging party if
  EEOC does not decide to file a lawsuit on behalf
  of charging party

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Affirmative Action Plans

• Affirmative Action Plan
• Written document outlining specific goals and
  timetables for remedying past discriminatory
  actions

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Affirmative Action Plans

1. The chief executive officer of the organization
   should issue a written statement describing his
   or her personal commitment to the plan
2. A top official of the organization should be
   given the authority and responsibility for
   directing and implementing the program
3. The organizations policy and commitment to that
   policy should be publicized both internally and
   externally.
4. Present employment should be surveyed to identify
   areas of concentration and underutilization

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Affirmative Action Plans

1. Goals and timetables for achieving the goals
   should be developed to improve utilization of
   minorities and females
2. The entire employment system should be reviewed
   to identify and eliminate barriers to equal
   employment
3. An internal audit and reporting system should be
   established to monitor and evaluate progress
4. Company and community programs supportive of
   equal opportunity should be developed

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Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ)

• Bona Fide Occupational Qualification
• Permits employer to use religion, age, sex or
  national origin as a factor in its employment
  practices when reasonably necessary to normal
  operation of that particular business

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Typical BFOQ Exceptions

• Ability to perform (e.g., physical ability to
  perform jobs that involve strenuous manual labor)
• Same-sex BFOQ that relates to accommodating
  personal privacy of clients and customers
• Customer preference BFOQ where the customer
  states a desire to be served only by a person of
  a given sex

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Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ)

• Courts generally have a narrow interpretation of
  most defenses based on BFOQ exception
• Courts have usually held that each individual job
  applicant should be permitted an opportunity to
  demonstrate ability to perform

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Business Necessity

• Business necessity
• Condition that comes into play when an employer
  has a job criterion that is neutral but excludes
  members of one sex at a higher rate than members
  of the opposite sex.

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Business Necessity

• The focus in business necessity is on the
  validity of various stated job specifications and
  their relationship to the work performed

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Sexual Harassment

• Sexual harassment
• Unwelcome sexual conduct that has the purpose or
  effect of unreasonably interfering with an
  individuals work performance or creating an
  intimidating, hostile, or offensive work
  environment

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Sexual Harassment

• When deciding to impose liability on an employer
  for a supervisors sexual harassment, courts have
  considered an employers failure to investigate
  complaints of sexual harassment as significant

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Sexual Harassment

• An organizations policy on sexual harassment
  should
• Define and prohibit sexual harassment
• Encourage any employee who believes that he or
  she has been a victim of sexual harassment to
  come forward to express those complaints to
  management

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Comparable Worth and Equal Pay Issues

• Comparable worth theory
• The idea that every job has a worth to the
  employer and society that can be measured and
  assigned a value
• Each job should be compensated on basis of its
  value and paid the same as other jobs with the
  same value

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Comparable Worth and Equal Pay Issues

• Employers should attempt to avoid
  over-concentrations of men or women
• Employers should evaluate whether there is any
  direct evidence of bias in setting wage rates
• Employers should resist the temptation to deviate
  from an internal job evaluation survey or a
  market survey

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Comparable Worth and Equal Pay Issues (cont.)

• An employer who utilizes a certain type of job
  evaluation system companywide and then deviates
  from it obviously runs a severe risk
• An employer should constantly monitor any job
  evaluation system to determine the average wages
  being paid to men and women for comparable jobs

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Other Areas of Employment Discrimination
Religion

• The EEOCs Guidelines on Religious Discrimination
  proposes
• Arranging for voluntary substitutes with similar
  qualifications
• Flexible scheduling of arrival and departure
  times
• Lateral transfers or changes in job assignments

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Other Areas of Employment Discrimination