Family Responsibilities Discrimination
The employment law regime has several pieces of legislation that aim at protecting of employee rights. However, family responsibilities discrimination seems not to be getting adequate attention in terms of legislation, activism and actual realization of their rights. Family responsibilities discrimination covers employees who are exposed to discrimination at the workplace primarily due to their additional familial responsibilities. The pieces of legislation that protect these employees against discrimination include Title VII, The Family and Medical Leave Act and Americans with Disabilities Act. Some of the routine familial responsibilities covered by these pieces of legislation include pregnancies, care for the ill, the aged and the children (these often compels the employee to seek day offs, leaves and absenteeism).
Ideally, the law ought to be consolidated into a comprehensive singular family responsibility discrimination Act. However, it is imperative to recognise the fact that the current regime caters for racial, sexual and disability based discrimination cases. Accordingly the law suffices for the protection of these vulnerable groups who get discriminated merely on the family responsibility grounds. It is essential for employers to be wary of the fact though federal legislation does not directly provide laws against family responsibility discrimination cases but the spirit of the law and the applicability of the mentioned pieces of legislation could be read to imply that the law is against such instances of discrimination.
Employers are, therefore, best advised to shun incidences of discrimination and see to it that all employees are treated on an equal footing. This paper expands on material on the text since it talks about family responsibilities discrimination which was not handled in the text.
Reference
Bogas, K. L., & Croson, C. (2009, January). Family Responsibility Discrimination. Michigan Bar Journal, 18-21.
