National origin discrimination involves treating an employee differently because he or she belongs to a particular country or speaks in an accent that is typical of a country. Often people are discriminated against, at the workplace or at the time of hiring based on their national origin, accent, expertise in a particular language, physical appearance, caste, gender, and even religion.
Discrimination based on national origin is a violation of both state and federal law. California fair employment and Housing Act (FEHA) prohibits any form of discrimination based on several factors or preserved characteristics. An employee under such circumstances can take the help of a National origin discrimination lawsuit defense lawyer.
Who is liable
An employer is liable for national origin discrimination if he exhibits the behavior of any nature that involves harassment or discrimination of any employee based on their preserved traits. This also appliestocoworkers who might try to harass or discriminate against his co-worker, and the employer fails to take any corrective measures even after being informed of such behavior.
How to incorporate the laws
As all the employees are protected to a great extent under the new regulations, the first step that an employer should undertake is to strategize and make his policies in line with the new regulations. It might be difficult to incorporate all the changes as per the new regulations as it does not elaborately mention or guide an employer on the behavioral practices. However, regular training and workshops to keep the employees abreast of the changes in the regulations should be part of a regular practice in all workplaces.
Bullying in the workplace
Though workplace bullying has not been made illegal under the statute, yet there is a fine line between workplace bullying and discrimination. Also, the definition of abusive behavior is not very clear as per the new regulations. Also, an employee can get away with a single incident of bullying, citing that the incident does not typically fall under discrimination. The employer is also not likely to conduct regular orientation sessions to address such issues.
Needless to say that when the law makes it as part of compliance for an organization to conduct training to address the issues of workplace bullying and discrimination without any proper guidance it is likely to create more confusion than clarity.
Also, manytimes workplaces have a competitive environment that could sometimes take a basic form of discrimination, but might not be deemed as harassment. Employee conduct to be termed as ‘’sabotage’’ should also be clearly defined This could be another form of undermining an employees' work which is a form of discrimination but might not be clearly stated out in the policy.
Every employee has the right to understand and know about their rights in the workplace. If they are not aware of their rights then they might not even know if they are wronged. Organizations should have an open policy where employees should be able to file a complaint in case of discriminatory behavior. An employee should not be ridiculed or retaliated if he/she decides to stand for his rights.
If there are records of such instances, the organization should take immediate precautionary steps to curb such behavior. Responsibility should lie with the executive body to make sure that the line managers and supervisors are not harassing or discriminating against the subordinates based on any particular factor.
Marina Pal is a renowned author and social media enthusiast.