GENDER DISCRIMINATION
It is illegal under both Federal and State Law to discriminate in the terms or conditions of employment on the basis of a person’s gender.
“Terms or conditions of employment” means just about anything relating to someone’s job: their position, pay, title, hours, vacations, most everything is a term or condition of employment. Whether or not a person is hired is also considered a term or condition of employment.
There are two types of discrimination in the workplace: “disparate treatment” and “disparate impact”. “Disparate treatment” is straightforward discrimination. Simply put, it is treating a person differently because of a protected class, like sex or race. Disparate Impact Discrimination is slightly more complicated. “Disparate Impact” is where some type of company policy excluded a certain individual or individuals from the job or from promotions. The policy wasn’t designed to exclude them; that was just the unfortunate result.
In addition, under the Equal Pay Act, an amendment to the Fair Labor Standard’s Act, an employer may not discriminate in wages on the basis of sex. When male and female employees perform jobs which require substantially equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and are performed in similar working conditions, an employer must pay his employees equally. An employer, however, may be able to demonstrate that these payment decisions are based on a reasonable factor other than sex, such as merit, a seniority system, or a quantity system. If an employee can establish a violation of the Equal Pay Act, an employer must correct the differential by increasing the wages of the lower paid sex, not by decreasing the wages of the higher paid sex.
Making employment decisions based on stereotyping, including but not limited to ideas about gender roles, is also illegal.
“Terms or conditions of employment” means just about anything relating to someone’s job: their position, pay, title, hours, vacations, most everything is a term or condition of employment. Whether or not a person is hired is also considered a term or condition of employment.
There are two types of discrimination in the workplace: “disparate treatment” and “disparate impact”. “Disparate treatment” is straightforward discrimination. Simply put, it is treating a person differently because of a protected class, like sex or race. Disparate Impact Discrimination is slightly more complicated. “Disparate Impact” is where some type of company policy excluded a certain individual or individuals from the job or from promotions. The policy wasn’t designed to exclude them; that was just the unfortunate result.
In addition, under the Equal Pay Act, an amendment to the Fair Labor Standard’s Act, an employer may not discriminate in wages on the basis of sex. When male and female employees perform jobs which require substantially equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and are performed in similar working conditions, an employer must pay his employees equally. An employer, however, may be able to demonstrate that these payment decisions are based on a reasonable factor other than sex, such as merit, a seniority system, or a quantity system. If an employee can establish a violation of the Equal Pay Act, an employer must correct the differential by increasing the wages of the lower paid sex, not by decreasing the wages of the higher paid sex.
Making employment decisions based on stereotyping, including but not limited to ideas about gender roles, is also illegal.
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