Fema Employment
On what basis can employers discriminate in hiring?
Employers can discriminate against smokers. Obviously, they should discriminate based on ability to do a job. If there are no workplace requirements for an attribute, can a large employer legally discriminate by: -sex -age -weight -race -sexual orientation Have federal laws or court decisions eliminated some of the employment discrimination protections?
Public Comments
- No, large companies cannot discriminate for any of the reasons you have listed. I know what you mean about smokers, but I don't think that has happened with large companies. I think it is more smaller privately owned companies that are doing that. They are getting away with it, though, because of insurance savings. Weight will be next for the same reason. And some do now when it comes to age, too, they just can't admit it. I think it's wrong, don't you?
- Sex, age, and race are all protected by federal law. Sexual orientation is protected by some state or local laws. However, weight is not protected by discrimination laws. It is conceivable that it could be, if it were considered a disability.
- I harbor some sort of general disdain for the federally mandated elimination of employment discrimination. Devices such as affirmative action carry with them implications. If I go to the doctor, I make sure that I am seeing a white male. Why? I can be assured that individual got where he is because of his own merits, not the government's silly regulations.
- Although it's unethical employers can discriminate based on weight and sexual orientation. Currently there are 7 protected class: race, color, sex, religion, national origin, gender, and age. Employers can also not discrminate based on an actual or perceived disability (or is the person is close to someone who has a disability) as long as the limitations due to the disability do not significantly affect the requirements for the job. There is an exception to this but it is rarely used. If the job qualifies for a BFOQ (Bona Fide Occupational Qualification) then there could be an exception. For example, if there is an ad posted for a female model to model women's clothing, the employer can obvious note hire (discriminate) against a man even if he can fit in the clothes. Hope this helps.
- technically and legally - you cannot discriminate for sex, age, weight, race, sexual orientaiton - but is it done - you bet - every day problem is - when an interviewer speaks with a person he may be biased and has decided he wants a specific gender or age group etc... to fill a position - but, he will not tell anyone - so when he completes his interview process he hires the person that fits his desires - both for job capability and personal preferences regardless of the law - large corporations do and will monitor hiring trends by managers - for instance - I worked for a California based company as general manager of a plant somewhat east of Pittsburgh Pa - this is NOT a very cultural diverse area - well the HR guys came in one day and took a look around and made note that we had no orientals, indians (american or otherwise), blacks, hispanics, etc..... in fact out of 198 people we only had 8 women - so a witch hunt was started - well - a complete review of ALL applications place over a 5 year period was done - the applications all had a place to mark what you were ethnically (voluntarily of course) - and when the one week analysis was done - it was found that we had hired a proportianate number of blacks, hispanics, indians, orientals, and women relative to the number of like applicants - in other words we had no black, hispanic, oriental, indian applicants and we had an extremely low percentage of female applicants - so their crew of 3 HR folks packed up and flew back to California expense reports in hand and could report no wrongdoing as you can tell - I have a low regard for HR types
- First of all not all employers can discriminate against smokers. That is a very small handful of states who passed public policies allowing employers to do this. More than 30 states do not allow this form of discrimination. Secondly, there have been absolutely no new cases where an employer can discriminate against an employee based on any of the areas you cited. It is still discrimination and not legal on a state or Federal level. Insofar as discriminating against an employee based on their ability to do a job. Well, that is why a majority of states are Employee-At-Will states allowing them to terminate an employee for whatever reason they see fit. Even if there is no reason.
