HR Law 101: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination against workers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. An array of federal and state laws further refine the definition of discrimination ...

HR Law 101: Your supervisors probably understand that they can’t pay a male more than a female to perform the same job or dole out promotions only to males. What they may not appreciate are the more subtle forms that gender discrimination may take. They may not make an effort to scrutinize their decisions to uncover any entrenched patterns of discrimination and practices that discourage women from applying for promotions or asking for raises ...

HR Law 101: The Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits employers from paying different wages on the basis of gender for “equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility and which are performed under similar working conditions...” Female employees must also receive the same level of benefits as their male colleagues ...

HR Law 101: The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) of 1978 prohibits discrimination on the basis of "pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions." Employers can't deny a woman a job or a promotion merely because she's pregnant or has had an abortion ...

HR Law 101: Sex discrimination and sexual harassment are illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The law requires that employers treat male and female workers equally in all terms and conditions of employment ...

HR Law 101: Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, employers with 20 or more workers can’t engage in personnel practices that discriminate against individuals age 40 and older. Most age discrimination cases grow out of wrongful discharge and mandatory retirement policies, but they can involve any adverse change in working conditions ...

HR Law 101: When designing compensation plans, employers should take into consideration whether the pay schedules have a negative impact on older workers. Several pay discrimination cases have reached the Supreme Court in recent years ...

HR Law 101: Under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act, employees must be 40 or older to file an age-bias lawsuit. But several states (among them Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Oregon) don’t include a minimum age at which legal protection begins ...