IDEA Team Blog Series: Discrimination in the Workplace
by Alayna L. Vander Veer on 2025-02-14T10:16:00-05:00 in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | 0 CommentsThis IDEA Team Blog Series post was inspired by the February 2025 Black History Month theme — "African Americans and Labor" (ASALH, n.d).
Workers' belonging to marginalized and/or oppressed groups have long struggled for fair treatment, better wages, and safer working conditions. Many workers still face discrimination based on race, gender, age, disability, and other factors, leading to unequal pay, limited opportunities for advancement, and even job insecurity. However, legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which prohibit discrimination in hiring, promotion, and employment practices, supports creating more inclusive workplaces, ensuring that all workers have the right to fair treatment, regardless of their background or identity. Advocates' fight for workplace equality continues, as systemic discrimination remains an issue, but the progress made highlights the importance of workers' rights in fostering diverse, equitable, and respectful environments. The following collection of books from the library discuss aspects of workplace discrimination like causes, qualities, and effects on vulnerable populations.
List of Books:
Black Women, Intersectionality, and Workplace Bullying by
ISBN: 9781032035345
Publication Date: 2022-08-01
Black Women, Intersectionality, and Workplace Bullying extends and enriches the current literature on workplace bullying by examining specifically how work abuse disproportionality hurts women of color, affecting their mental health negatively and hence their career progression. In this interdisciplinary text, Hollis combines the fields of intersectionality and workplace bullying to present a balanced offering of conceptual essays and empirical research studies. The chapters explore how researchers have previously used empirical studies to address race and gender before arguing that the more complex an identity or intersectional position, such as being a Black gender fluid woman, the more likely a person shall experience workplace bullying. The author also looks at how this affects Black women's mental health, such as through increased anxiety, depression, insomnia, and self-medicating behaviors, before looking specifically at Black female athletes as a study, the topic of colorism at work and its impact on Black women, and how workplace bullying compromises organizations diversity and inclusion initiatives. This book will be of immense interest to graduate students and academics in the fields of social work, ethnic studies, Black studies, Africana studies, gender studies, political science, sociology, psychology, and social justice. It will also be of interest to those interested in intersectionality and how this relates to race and gender of women.
Sex Discrimination in the Workplace by
ISBN: 9781405134491
Publication Date: 2007-06-11
Sex Discrimination in the Workplace is an interdisciplinary volume that examines the various approaches to the study of sex discrimination and explores solutions and interventions. With riveting first-hand accounts from plaintiffs, lawyers and expert witnesses who have mounted battles against discriminatory employers, it is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to gain a better understanding of precisely what sex discrimination is and what can be done to combat it. Examines sex discrimination through the eyes of law, economics, sociology, and psychology, providing expert descriptions of the fundamental research related to sex discrimination and their field Contains first hand accounts of sex discrimination cases, many of which relate to landmark contemporary incidents Concludes with solutions to the problems of discrimination from individual, organizational, and societal perspectives Written in clear, engaging prose with contributions from eminent scholars
The Civil Rights Act and the Battle to End Workplace Discrimination by
ISBN: 1442237236
Publication Date: 2014-08-01
On the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, Raymond F. Gregory evaluates our progress towards the full implementation of one of the law's key provisions: Title VII, which prohibits discrimination in the workplace. Gregory looks at key litigation as the law has come to include discrimination based on more than just race, but on gender, age, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. From the segregationist policies of the past to lingering workplace oppression in the form of sexual harassment, age discrimination, and religious conflicts, the places we work have always been the scenes of some of our greatest civil rights battles. This study of the landmark cases and rulings, and debates surrounding workplace discrimination of all kinds sheds light on the cultural tensions we grapple with in America. Gregory also looks at the broader history of oppression suffered, recognized, and overcome, in the 50 years since this country passed its Civil Rights Act. In addition to a detailed history of the legal history of civil rights and America's workplace discrimination, this book also outlines positive ways forward for our society as we continue to diversify and redefine what it means to be respectful of our fellow citizens' most inalienable, protected, and sacred rights.
Disability and Equity at Work by
ISBN: 0199981221
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Despite international and national guarantees of equal rights, there remains a great deal to be done to achieve global employment equality for individuals with disabilities. In OECD countries, the employment rate of persons with disabilities was just over 40%, compared to 75% for persons without a disability; in many low- and middle-income countries, the employment rates are even lower. There are numerous reasons why persons with disabilities fare poorly in the labor market; Disability and Equity at Work is the first book to document what can be done to improve this imbalance. Chapters in this volume address all relevant facets of this topic and include:· Extensive examination of the factors contributing to inequitable access to work among persons with disability· Analysis of the economic benefits of increasing employment equity· Successful employment strategies at every stage of a worker's career· Evidence-based recommendations and in-depth case studies of innovative policies and programs around the worldChapter contributors include leaders from international organizations, government, civil society, and academia, including experts from UN agencies, leaders in nongovernmental advocacy and research organizations, and senior academics in the field. Disability and Equity at Work fills a needed gap that will appeal to those interested in and engaged in public policy, global health, equal rights, business, labor, and other fields.
Race, Identity and Work by
ISBN: 9781787695016
Publication Date: 2018-10-29
This volume examines the connections between race and work, focusing on three key themes. First, contributors consider how racial minorities deal with questions of identity in the workplace. This is especially important as ideas about professionalism often hinge on implicitly racialized criteria, to an extent that racial identity may pose a challenge to meeting occupational requirements. Secondly, contributors address ways racial exclusion occurs in jobs in the new economy: while organizations can no longer legally segregate or discriminate on the basis of race, exclusion processes still occur in the contemporary workplace. Finally, this volume considers the strategies that minority workers use to combat and change patterns of workplace inequality. In the new economy, where workers arguably have limited power relative to organizations, the techniques of the past may not be as effective. Providing valuable insight on a growing segment of the labor force, this book considers the US's rapidly changing racial demographics and how this phenomenon fundamentally alters many aspects of work, providing an in-depth understanding of how race affects work for people of color across occupations, workplaces, and industries.
Lifetime Disadvantage, Discrimination and the Gendered Workforce by
ISBN: 1107558972
Publication Date: 2018-06-14
Lifetime Disadvantage, Discrimination and the Gendered Workforce fills a gap in the literature on discrimination and disadvantage suffered by women at work by focusing on the inadequacies of the current law and the need for a new holistic approach. Each stage of the working life cycle for women is examined with a critical consideration of how the law attempts to address the problems that inhibit women's labour force participation. By using their model of lifetime disadvantage, the authors show how the law adopts an incremental and disjointed approach to resolving the challenges, and argue that a more holistic orientation towards eliminating women's discrimination and disadvantage is required before true gender equality can be achieved. Using the concept of resilience from vulnerability theory, the authors advocate a reconfigured workplace that acknowledges yet transcends gender.
Equality on Trial by
Queer Career by
Fight Like Hell by
Religious Freedom, Religious Discrimination and the Workplace by
Autism Equality in the Workplace by
Out at Work by
Equality on Trial by
ISBN: 9780812292831
Publication Date: 2016-04-29
In 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act outlawed workplace sex discrimination, but its practical meaning was uncertain. Equality on Trial examines how a generation of workers and feminists fought to infuse the law with broad notions of sex equality, reshaping workplaces, activist channels, state agencies, and courts along the way.
Queer Career by
ISBN: 9780691215310
Publication Date: 2023-01-31
A masterful history of the queer workforce in America Workplaces have traditionally been viewed as "straight spaces" in which queer people passed. As a result, historians have directed limited attention to the experiences of queer people on the job. Queer Career rectifies this, offering an expansive historical look at sexual minorities in the modern American workforce. Arguing that queer workers were more visible than hidden and, against the backdrop of state aggression, vulnerable to employer exploitation, Margot Canaday positions employment and fear of job loss as central to gay life in postwar America. Rather than finding that many midcentury employers tried to root out gay employees, Canaday sees an early version of "don't ask / don't tell": in all kinds of work, as long as queer workers were discreet, they were valued for the lower wages they could be paid, their contingency, their perceived lack of familial ties, and the ease with which they could be pulled in and pushed out of the labor market. Across the socioeconomic spectrum, they were harbingers of post-Fordist employment regimes we now associate with precarity. While progress was not linear, by century's end some gay workers rejected their former discretion, and some employers eventually offered them protection unattained through law. Pushed by activists at the corporate grass roots, business emerged at the forefront of employment rights for sexual minorities. It did so, at least in part, in response to the way that queer workers aligned with, and even prefigured, the labor system of late capitalism. Queer Career shows how queer history helps us understand the recent history of capitalism and labor and rewrites our understanding of the queer past.
Fight Like Hell by
ISBN: 9781982171056
Publication Date: 2022-04-26
A 2022 New Yorker Best Book of the Year A 2022 Esquire Best Nonfiction Book of the Year A 2022 BuzzFeed Book You'll Love A 2022 LitHub Favorite Book of the Year "Kelly unearths the stories of the people-farm laborers, domestic workers, factory employees--behind some of the labor movement's biggest successes." --The New York Times A revelatory, inclusive history of the American labor movement, from independent journalist and Teen Vogue labor columnist Kim Kelly. Freed Black women organizing for protection in the Reconstruction-era South. Jewish immigrant garment workers braving deadly conditions for a sliver of independence. Asian American fieldworkers rejecting government-sanctioned indentured servitude across the Pacific. Incarcerated workers advocating for basic human rights and fair wages. The queer Black labor leader who helped orchestrate America's civil rights movement. These are only some of the working-class heroes who propelled American labor's relentless push for fairness and equal protection under the law. The names and faces of countless silenced, misrepresented, or forgotten leaders have been erased by time as a privileged few decide which stories get cut from the final copy: those of women, people of color, LGBTQIA people, disabled people, sex workers, prisoners, and the poor. In this assiduously researched work of journalism, Teen Vogue columnist and independent labor reporter Kim Kelly excavates that history and shows how the rights the American worker has today--the forty-hour workweek, workplace-safety standards, restrictions on child labor, protection from harassment and discrimination on the job--were earned with literal blood, sweat, and tears. Fight Like Hell comes at a time of economic reckoning in America. From Amazon's warehouses to Starbucks cafes, Appalachian coal mines to the sex workers of Portland's Stripper Strike, interest in organized labor is at a fever pitch not seen since the early 1960s. Inspirational, intersectional, and full of crucial lessons from the past, Fight Like Hell shows what is possible when the working class demands the dignity it has always deserved.
Religious Freedom, Religious Discrimination and the Workplace by
ISBN: 1509902864
Publication Date: 2016-11-03
This book considers the extent to which religious interests are protected at work, with particular reference to the protection against religious discrimination provided by the Equality Act 2010. It establishes a principled basis for determining the proper scope of religious freedom at work, and considers the interaction of freedom of religion with the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of religion and belief. The book locates the debates surrounding religion and belief equality within a philosophical and theoretical framework in which the importance of freedom of religion and its role within the workplace are fully debated. This second edition is fully revised and updated in the light of recent case law from the UK and the European Court of Human Rights, which deals with religious discrimination and freedom of religion.
Autism Equality in the Workplace by
ISBN: 9781784501976
Publication Date: 2016-04-21
Neurodiversity in the workplace can be a gift. Yet only 15% of adults with an autism spectrum condition (ASC) are in full-time employment. This book examines how the working environment can embrace autistic people in a positive way. The author highlights common challenges in the workplace for people with ASC, such as discrimination and lack of communication or the right kind of support from managers and colleagues, and provides strategies for changing them. Setting out practical, reasonable adjustments such as a quiet room or avoiding disruption to work schedules, this book demonstrates how day to day changes in the workplace can make it more inclusive and productive for all employees. Autism in the Workplace is intended for any person with an interest in changing working culture to ensure equality for autistic people. It is an essential resource for employers, managers, trade unionists, people with ASCs and their workmates and supporters.
Out at Work by
ISBN: 0816692483
Publication Date: 2001-01-03
Today in thirty-nine states, employers may legally fire workers simply because they are known or thought to be gay. Clearly, the struggle against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation has a long way to go. In Out at Work, a distinguished group of prominent gay rights activists, union leaders and members, policymakers, and academics--including U.S. Representative Barney Frank, AFL-CIO president John J. Sweeney, and rights advocate Urvashi Vaid--offers a spirited assessment of the challenges faced by lesbians, gays, and other sexual minorities on the job. Although mainstream gay rights organizations have tended to imagine their community as primarily middle class, an overwhelming number of lesbians and gays are working class, and many are already union members. Indeed, most of the progress made toward improved workplace conditions for gays and lesbians has been accomplished by rank-and-file union activists. Out at Work identifies the important parallels between the labor and gay rights movements and their shared work of foregrounding human rights, fighting homophobia, and embracing the full range of sexual expression. Through case studies of organizing efforts and more broadly political approaches, the authors call for both movements to reexamine their priorities and practices. There is much to be gained from a partnership between these movements, they conclude: for the gay rights movement, having the bargaining power of the trade unions behind them; for organized labor, a broader base of support.
More resources:
Association for the Study of African American Life and History. (n.d.) Black History Themes. https://asalh.org/black-history-themes/
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (n.d.) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964
U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. (n.d.) Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as Amended. https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/ada/
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