Employment- at-will Doctrine and Employee Discrimination - Assignment Example

41. The employment-at-will doctrine allows that when an employee does not have a written employment contract and the term of employment duration is infinite, the employer can terminate the employee for reasonable cause, wrongful cause, without any cause at all. Thus, the employment-at-will doctrine reflected the belief that people should be free to enter into employment contracts of a specified duration, but that no obligations attached to either employer or employee if a person was hired without such a contract.

Because employees were able to resign from positions they no longer cared to occupy, employers also were permitted to discharge employees at their own will. The Industrial Revolution planted the seeds for the erosion of the employment-at-will doctrine. When employees began forming unions, the collective bargaining agreements were formed and the unions had to negotiate with employers frequently because the agreement had provisions in them that required just cause for adverse employment actions, as well as procedures for arbitrating employee grievances.

The 1960s marked the beginning of Federal legislative protections (including Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act) from wrongful discharge based on race, religion, sex, age, and national origin. These protections reflected the changing view of the relationship between employer and employee. Rather than seeing the relationship as being on equal footing, courts and legislatures slowly began to recognize that employers frequently had economic advantages when negotiating with potential or current employees.  42. An employer may be held guilty of breach of statutory requirements if they indulge in discriminating employees on the grounds of: sex or marital status gender reassignment race religion or belief sexual orientation trade union membership part-time work fixed-term work disability Employers should use gender-neutral terms when advertising for staff.

For example, adverts for a postman, waitress, salesgirl, which use a job description with a sexual implication, are likely to violate the Sex Discrimination Act. Occasionally, however, an employer may be able to lawfully discriminate on grounds of sex or race, for example, a department store could legitimately advertise for male applicants to play Father Christmas. When interviewing applicants for a job, an ideal approach for an employer should be to ask the same questions from each of the applicants.

On the basis of above facts, it is quite clear that Muhammad pursues a claim for discrimination against Joes Bakery since the discrimination has been made on the grounds of racial discrimination by refusing him the job right away which also calls for a prima facie case. 43. The basic difference between a bona fide occupational qualification and a legitimate business necessity is essentially the quantum or degree of necessity. Proving a bona fide occupational qualification requires to prove that the business cannot exist without discrimination.

Proving a legitimate business necessity requires to prove that the business would be seriously impacted with a different policy. The only defense to a facially discriminatory policy is a bona fide occupational qualification. The defense to a facially neutral policy is to prove a legitimate business necessity. If the employer can prove that the policy reflects a legitimate business necessity, they can overcome the presumption of discrimination. 44. Yes, they will have a reason for concern with respect to racial discrimination as the plaintiff has a valid reason to sue them on the grounds of racial discrimination.

This is maintainable under Title VII of the Civil rights Act, 1964 which contains a provision relating to prohibition of discrimination by covered employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. They have discriminated him by not suggesting him to improve his performance on the basis of his color which is one of the prohibitions contained under the aforesaid Act. 45. Refer case EEOC v. Pacific Press Publ’g. Ass’n, 676 F.2d 1272, 1276; EEOC Notice,N-915, September 23, 1987.

In some cases, an employer may claim that a discharge has a valid discriminatory reason based on religion under the Title VII exemption, while the employee claims the discharge is based on some other Title VII prohibition and therefore improper. For example, in several cases, employees of religious organizations, particularly private religious schools, are discharged after becoming pregnant. The employer claims that the termination was based on a violation of an organization policy against extra-marital sex, stemming from the religion’s teachings.

The employee claims that the action is unlawful sex discrimination based on her pregnancy. If the court determines that the employer’s action was taken in response to the resulting pregnancy, rather than because of a violation of the faith-based policy, the organization may be held in violation of Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination. If the court determines the discharge was based on religious teachings, the organization can claim Title VII exemption. In this case, also the reasoning of the aforesaid case would apply and the action would be maintainable only if the termination was on the grounds of the extra-marital affair which resulted into pregnancy without violating the faith-based policy, the religious bookstore may be held in violation of Title VII’s prohibition against sex discrimination.

However, if the discharge was based on religious teachings, the organization can claim the Title VII exemption.