When you sit back and think about it, discrimination and prejudice in the workplace have been around for many and many and many of years. These prejudice and discriminations come in the form of sexism and racism, even if the two people haven’t had any sort of contact with each other. According to the U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) they had received an astonishing amount of job discrimination complaints. The number came out to be 95,402 complaints, and this was just within the United States alone. Sadly, I am not surprised by this number, and neither should you. Even though discrimination and prejudice in the workplace are serious offenses that could ultimately result in severe penalties, many people look past this because …show more content…
The act that is already in place for this, the Equal Pay Act or EPA, requires that women and men in the same workplace must be given equal pay for equal work, preventing anyone from getting paid a fraction of what the other gender is. Many work places still do this, but the employees are unaware as it is considered unprofessional to talk about your pay within the work place to other co-workers. Also, employers have an easy way to get around this by saying that one does more work and takes on more responsibilities, when in reality, the other one may work just as hard if not harder. Under the Title VII of the ADA and ADEA prohibits compensation discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, and age. As I mentioned earlier, this is known almost worldwide, but actually doesn’t occur that often. In the past 3 years, there have been under 1,100 reports each …show more content…
This is maybe one of the biggest filed complaints when it comes to any kind of discrimination that is brought about in the work force. Just in 2010 alone, there were 33,395 complaints, and over 100,000 complaints in just 2010 – 2013. The law states that it is forbidden to discriminate when it comes to any type of employment, which includes job termination, job hiring’s, job assignments, promotions, and most of all, pay. Once again, this is something that is known to be a huge problem, but yet it is hard to actually prove that someone has that view about someone else. You can always plead your case, but the employer can always come back and turn it around to say it’s about his or her job performance or how they go about situations in the workplace. Harassment plays a huge role in race or color discrimination as it is usually the main factor in which gets reported. Harassment can include racial slurs, offensive and derogatory marks about an individual and or their ethnicity, or the display of racially-offensive symbols. When it comes to the law aspect, it actually does not protect an individual from simple teasing, certain comments, or even isolated incidents that are not very serious. Harassment in the work place becomes illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates an uncomfortable or even hostile/offensive work
Discrimination and prejudice can impact any group or individuals well-being. Jewish Americans are no exception. They face judgments, threats, isolation and stereotypical opinions of others daily. Many Jewish individuals are hesitant to seek counseling because they fear the non-Jewish counselor may not be empathic to their specific issues or be able to discern their problems (Sue & Sue, 2016). Additionally, they have strong religious beliefs and worry counselors may make suggestions that go against these beliefs. It would be helpful if the counselor became knowledgeable about the Jewish culture and religion. Therefore, Sue & Sue (2016) suggest conferring with a rabbi as to how best to counsel those from the Jewish community. Counselors need
In a study that was reviewed by Deitch and her colleagues (2003), blacks were interviewed at work about whether the felt they were being discriminated. Most participants had difficulty answering because they were not sure whether discrimination was linked to their race or different factors like gender. Such inconclusive research only adds to the haziness of work related issues defined as ones of “racial discrimination” (Deitch, Barsky, Butz, Chan, Brief & Bradley).
According to an article by Georgina Fuller a writer for People Management it was shown that a “shocking 52 per cent of more than 1,400 workers surveyed by business psychologists Pearn Kandola said they had witnessed an act of racism at work”(Fuller, People Management). This is an enormous amount which affects how people act and achieve “success” in a workplace environment. However, some may say that many may not even be aware the their views or actions on issues within the workplace are even racist. Often, it is hard to fully notice these issues unless you are on the receiving end of
Research reveals that insults and derogatory remarks towards minorities are common in the workplace with workers and supervisors ignoring the occurrences because that is the way things are (Larcom & George, 1992). More subtle discrimination also occurs. For example, a Hispanic woman enters a department store and she is either ignored by employees or is followed around to make sure nothing is stolen (Kuntz, 1998). This kind of subtle discrimination is not as overt as other types but still is considered an example of prejudicial discrimination.
So many stories across the United States similar to this that at times is hard to prove due to privacy and no transparency. Why is it such a big issue on why a company would want to behave in this manner and not being fair? Blacks are subjected more to hostile work environments than whites and have to work much harder to prove they are qualified for the job than whites. Title VII of the Civils Rights Act of 1964 is supposed to protect the African Americans in the workplace, but for some companies it really does not mean anything and in most cases will try to work around it and get away with it. There are lawsuits that will never make it due to shortage of funds to proceed on making the
While the world has unanimously advanced and is more accepting of change, the workplace continues to be a place of discrimination, prejudice and inequality. Discrimination is broadly defined to ‘distinguish unfavourably’, isolate; and is context based (Pagura, 2012). Abrahams (1991) described the workplace as an ‘inhospitable place’ where gender disparity and wage gaps persist (Stamarski & Son Hing, 2015). Among other states and countries, the Australian government actively implements and passes laws to protect and maintain equal employment rights. While the objective of these laws is ‘to eliminate discrimination,’ the regulatory mechanisms in the legislation are largely ineffective at achieving this ultimate goal (Smith, 2008). However,
In workplaces, institutional racism is a common factor for minority groups. In a 2012 study of the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, conducted on people with French-Canadian surnames and people with surnames of other origines, found that 60% of the French-Canadian had better changes of getting called back for an interview than the candidates that had a foreign sounding last name. In fact, if a person of visible minority gets a job offer, it is most likely a lower payed job with fewer chances of becoming a higher ranked employee in the company (Canadian Race Relations Foundation). These results prouve that society still has a stigma against visible minority which plays a key role in employment. When it comes time to apply for a job, only haft of visual minority students out of University get a high-skill job. This is not because they aren’t as successful in their field as white people, but rather because employers tend to overlook credentials and look at skin colour first (Canadian Race Relations Fondation). Lets not forget to mention that systemic racism is more subtile than other forms of racism so when it comes time to prove it, it’s a difficult and almost impossible task (Hicks). Under those circumstances, it is generally a high ranked White employee in the company that is discriminating against a co-worker or futur employee.
This is known as direct discrimination (Racial Discrimination, 2005). Even if you do not realize it discrimination is all around you. It could be a very small instance or a large scale one and most people will just ignore what they see. Racial discrimination in not only wrong but it is immoral and it goes against everything that this country stands for. Today discrimination can occur in the hiring or recruiting of jobs, in the service of customers, and even inside a company in the workplace. For example if there are certain rules or guidelines that you must go by to perform your job, then it is expected that everyone in your company go by those same guidelines. However, if you have different ways of handling things with different people within the company then you are discriminating against some of your workers (Quizlaw, 2005). This is considered corrupt and illegal, but it happens every single day in some places.
With all of the advances in modern society and human behavior, racism is still a crisis that many people have to cope with. It can occur at any place or at any time, including in the workplace. Racial discrimination arises when someone is treated differently based on their actual or perceived race. Many people believe that if one were to be in the vicinity of a respected workplace that they would be respected by all co-workers and employers; this is in no way true. A big amount of minority employees, mainly African-Americans, are affected by racial discrimination in the workplace whether it’s from their employers or their fellow co-workers, and it is not at all acceptable. Racial discrimination is a situation that has always been a problem, so we must show an effort to try to eliminate it from our society.
This paper will assess my personal experience with prejudice in the workplace, including the implications of the situation to the organization in terms of its stakeholders, reputation, and its legal responsibilities. Furthermore, I will analyze the negative effects the discriminatory behavior had on morale and functioning of coworkers and employees. Lastly, I will recommend three action steps that I would have taken as a manager to avoid the situation, in addition to three steps to render the situation.
Author Lilia Cortina writes in the peer-reviewed Academy of Management Review that while there are specific laws, policies and taboos against blatant racial and gender bias, that does not stop some individuals from masking "…everyday acts of incivility" (Cortina, 2008, p. 55). In other words, Cortina and all alert observers know that "…blatant intentions" to openly "alienate women and minorities from organizational life" is not acceptable behavior in the workplace, and can result in sanctions for the offending person (55).
Great post Stephanie, it's somewhat unfortunate that certain things while we may not have experienced them that we are completely aware that they go on all around us this especially is true when it comes to differences in the workplace. The "glass ceiling" term is a perfect example for the specific fact that it is covert. In today's society most things would need to be convert to get away with specific types of prejudice or discrimination while i'm not denying some organizations or business's are non covert about some of their practices I would think given the heightened climate of prejudice and discrimination today most organizations would be covert in order to avoid situations of being accused of being prejudice or discriminatory. Regardless
What’s worse, race discrimination is hardly to be proved when it is actually charged by employees. In 2014, “the EEOC received 31,073 charges alleging race-based discrimination, but dismissed 71.4% of them due to a lack of reasonable cause” (Vega, 2015).
Discrimination comes in many forms. Discrimination and diversity are closely linked considering the reasons behind discrimination are what makes up the definition of diversity. Not only is discrimination made against gender, race, and religion, but it is also made of age, disabilities, appearance and in a lot of cases, women who are pregnant too. This is very much a reality for many employers. There are laws protecting acts of discrimination. This topic is so sensitive, that many employers implement diversity and discrimination into their mission statements. Many companies make it their practice to host training sessions to prevent discrimination from happening, then there are many companies who can’t afford such training for their
Since the end of the segregation with the Civil Rights Movement, many believed that racism in the United States had come to an end. However, there are still many instances where racial inequality still occurs, and this is especially prevalent in the workplace. Although this sort of discrimination is illegal, individuals cannot always be prosecuted for this crime because it often happens in subtle manners that are not easy to prove. Regardless, every person, no matter the color of their skin, has the inherent right to be treated with fairness and equality, especially when dealing with matters in the corporate world.