Business
Students Name
Institution of Affiliation
Course Title
DateRacial Discrimination in work places
Racial discrimination in workplaces involves the treatment of an applicant or an employee unfavorably because they are of a certain race or due to personal characteristics that are associated with a certain race such as skin color, hair texture and or specific facial features (Delgado, 2017). President Lyndon B. Johnson after the passing of The Civil rights act of 1964, was very sure that racial discrimination, as well as the acts of segregation, would be discontinued. According to Title VII of the civil rights act of 1964, it is unlawful employment for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or discharge any individual or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to their compensation, conditions, terms or the privileges of employment due to the person’s race, religion, color, sex or even nationality (Hahn, Truman and Williams, 2018). It is also deemed to be unlawful to segregate, limit or even categorize the employees or the applicants of a job in any manner to which would deprive the person of employment opportunity or otherwise get adversely affected through their status as employees due to such individual’s racial components.
Racial based discrimination in the workplaces has been ongoing in the modern day, a fact that the society tends to overlook on the daily basis (Thompson, 2016). In some cases, racial discrimination in the workplaces has continued to get worse. In the year 2004, the equal employment opportunity commission submitted a report of around 28,000 cases of racial discrimination to which had a 125% increase since the year 1994. The organization to which differentiate their employees by race, despite the prohibition by the law, have a higher risk of losing their financial support, preposterous fines, a decrease in notoriety as well as lawsuits and the incorrigible outcome of demoralization in the workplace.
There are rumors as well as truths that tend to circulate throughout the business community as the potential applicants for jobs tend to spread the word about businesses that are purported to engage in the practices of discrimination. The allegations of discrimination may have the probability of ruining the relationship between the vendors and suppliers, and all of these issues tend to take a toll on the organizations business reputation, the inability to recruit new talents or employees and the core of it all the profits gains of the company. The employers who fail to implement the non-discriminatory actions in their workplaces are likely to suffer from financial losses as racial discrimination in the business tends to divide the company’s loyalties affecting the workplace productivity and can thus be an embarrassing issue for the company that interferes with the business (Sawyer, 2014). As already possessing and being labeled immoral and dissipated, the companies and businesses that are corrupt begin to lose the equal opportunities of clients that results to their financial cutbacks to which may lead the organization to collapse.
The preposterous fines and the lawsuits get to be much common in the event after an employer has displayed the racial partiality. There are three examples to which individuals and companies have been put to justice using the civil rights act of 1964. Some of the cases include Gonzalez v. Abercrombie and Fitch, equal employment opportunity commission v. Walgreens Co. and the Bowles v. Osmose Utilities Services Inc. A class action lawsuit was filed in June 2003, against the Abercrombie and Fitch on behalf of the nine young adults that had been victims of racial discrimination where they were denied sales jobs based on their race and ethnicity. The president of litigation for MALDEF, Thomas A. Saenz stated that the organization had systematically cultivated an all-white A$F look and then faulted the Latinos, African American and Asian Americans as well as other potential employees and recruits for failing to fall under the whole racial image of the whites. When other people other than the whites happened to apply to work for the company, the managers would always suggest that they should work in the stockroom or rather in the sales position despite their high qualifications and were only denied the chance for a better position due to their race. In the year 2005, the organization was required to pay 5o million dollars less the attorneys’ fee and costs to the victims who had sued the company for discriminatory practices. The settlement also requires that the company should institute a range of policies as well as programs in promoting the diversity of the company’s workforce and prevent further discrimination based on race or gender.
In the second example, The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the year 2007, filed a class lawsuit against the Walgreens Company for employment discrimination practices (Cavico et al. 2016). There were thousands of African American who came forth with the allegations that the Walgreens Company were practicing racial bias. The workers stated that the company had assigned the managers, pharmacists and management trainees to low-performing stores and the stores in the African American communities due to their race. The workers were also denied equal promotional opportunities based on their race, which is a violation of federal laws. The lawsuit was filed under the VII of the civil rights act of 1964 in the US district of Illinois; this was after the first attempt to reach a voluntary settlement of the Equal employment opportunity with the Walgreens Company. Following a fair hearing, the court ruled that the consent decree of over 24 million dollars which happens to be one of the largest monetary settlements of the racial cases by the EEOC, was issued to which was fair, reasonable and adequate.
In the last example, Orris Bowless in May 2006 filed a discriminatory case that was based on race against Osmose Utilities Services Inc. Bowless was hired by Steve Fisher, a foreman of the Osmose company to work on Fisher’s utility pole treatment crew. Fisher began making racial insults towards Bowless along with other African American members soon after he had started working on the crew. On one occasion, Bowless ground his teeth so hard such that he broke one and the harassment that he suffered made him drink more heavily leading to domestic upheavals. After a bench trial, a district court ruled in favor of Bowless requiring Fisher to pay him 20,000 dollars as a compensation for the damages and 80,000 dollars in punitive damages.
The equal opportunity employment commission has made laws that are aimed to protect the employees against unethical actions in their workplaces (Blount et al. 2016). The commission provides for an atmosphere that is of equal opportunity for the employees to work. There are many cases of racial discrimination that happens in every day, some to which never get reported and the above is just a sample of the cases that have been filed about racial discrimination in the workplaces. According to statistics, racial discrimination is an ongoing problem that tends to get worse with time as more and companies tend to make employment for some races difficult.
The harsh results of operating in an unethical business are the biggest problem a prejudice organization can experience. The demoralization of a workplace taints the overall attitude of the other employees that eventually result in negative actions and poor work productivity. The crippling effects of workplace racial discrimination involve poor culture and a demoralized workforce, a debilitating effect on the person, negative fallout for the society as well as the reduced profits for the organizations. Racial discrimination can lead to the perplexing of the employees; it can also cause the formation of cliques making teamwork as well as the group functions relatively impossible.
According to studies, job satisfaction is lowest when the employees get to experience racial discrimination as the workers tend to lose focus and start procrastinating (Sargeant, 2016). Racial discrimination does not only affect a person but also the entire staff is also affected. The time used in resolving the racial issues could otherwise be used in a better way such as improving the operations of the organization. The loss of staff focus leads in the loss of productivity as the employees who feel discriminated tend to seek for employment in other firms to which they can be treated better thus resulting to loss of time in the organization in trying to search for replacements. More costs get to be added to the company as the newly hired employees need to be trained as well as dealing with the setbacks that result of lack of productivity for the new employee. There are various studies that have indicated that racial discrimination is a predicament for psychological problems as well as higher stress levels. The psychological problems associated with racial discrimination include depression, low satisfaction rate in life, and higher levels of anxiety. According to some reports, the stress levels can be so high that eventually may lead an individual to get hospitalized. There is also a possibility that racial discrimination could cause such negative effects such as hypertension, headaches, and insomnia as well as chest pains in addition to other mental and physical problems. The individuals who have been deprived employment by racial segregation may react violently due to anger and frustration from the situation, as they feel inadequate and could harm the people who are around them. Cases that have been reported as a result of overreaction after denial of employment by racial discrimination include domestic violence as well as killing sprees.
The organizations differentiating their employees by race have a higher risk of lawsuits as well as hefty fines (Wagner III and John 2014). It is evident that majority of the companies have lost millions of dollars to the employees who have left their organizations due to racial discrimination. The lawsuits based on racial segregation make the company lose notoriety as well as respect from their customers. Also, the company is at the risk of ruining their reputation that they have taken a lot of time to build and also a lot of time and money is wasted in the trial process and compensations. The practices of racial segregation create an environment that is unfit for work, and other employees fear that to some extent some form of discrimination may happen to them in the course of their work. The employees may, therefore, become depressed and fearful of losing their jobs thus creating high levels of anxiety on the personal levels and therefore, the employees should be made comfortable at their workplaces.
Unethical behaviors in the workplaces only result in the decrease of the organization’s morale (Askew et al. 2015). An approximate of around 34,000 claims had been filed with the EEOC against the bigoted companies in the year 2008. The attorney of the EEOC stated that there is a new generation of workers in the current regime who are still not raised in the civil rights movement. The individuals have not been aware of the existence of specific laws that have come about to the defense against racial discrimination, and that is the trend that has been witnessed in the society in general. In an attempt to reduce and prevent the rate of racial discrimination in the workplaces with the future employees, the companies are advised to start new employee orientation with a zero-tolerance policy of discrimination to which results in termination if they get to be violated. Anti-discriminatory policies should, therefore, be included in the employee’s handbooks, all the employees should, therefore, be trained in ways to prevent the incidences of racial segregation in workplaces as well as the employers should obtain and provide the educational resources that are crucial about racial discrimination to their employees.
The promotion of teamwork as well as group activities will tend to shift the focus to a more contagious like setting and thus allow the employees and co-workers to mingle, have a chance to know each other personally creating the possibility of generating a healthy and non-discriminatory staff. In summing up, the issues of discrimination in workplaces could be avoided if the employers would abide by the law and provide proper training for all of their employees, and as well encourage a working environment that is non-discriminatory for the employees to work. The formation and application of policies that are zero tolerant to racial segregation in all aspects of the organization are among the best steps towards the elimination of racial segregation in workplaces.
Work Cited
Askew, Octavia A., Jeffrey M. Beisler, and Jetonga Keel. “Current trends of unethical behavior within organizations.” International Journal of Management & Information Systems (Online) 19.3 (2015): 107.
Blount, Justin, et al. “Social media: creating student awareness of its use in the hiring process.” Southern Journal of Business and Ethics 8 (2016): 202.
Cavico, Frank J., Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, and Marissa Samuel. “Code words and covert employment discrimination: Legal analysis and consequences for management.” International Journal of Organizational Leadership 5.3 (2016).
Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. Critical race theory: An introduction. NYU Press, 2017.
Hahn, R. A., B. I. Truman, and D. R. Williams. “Civil rights as determinants of public health and racial and ethnic health equity: Health care, education, employment, and housing in the United States.” SSM-population health 4 (2018): 17-24.
Sargeant, Malcolm. Age discrimination: Ageism in employment and service provision. CRC Press, 2016.
Sawyer, Jeremy S. What Long Term Business Strategies Can Be Implemented by the Lodging Industry to Succeed Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?. Diss. Empire State College, 2014.
Thompson, Neil. Anti-discriminatory practice: Equality, diversity and social justice. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Wagner III, John A., and John R. Hollenbeck. Organizational behavior: Securing competitive advantage. Routledge, 2014.
