Essay Sample: Comparison of Worker's Protection in USA and Pennsylvania

The United States of America is among nations in the world that boasts of having very integrated employee discrimination laws which are derived from the concept of the common law. However, the vital question to ask is whether the rules and policies are only paperwork communication or if they are being practiced in working institutions. In the USA, employment discrimination laws are supported by several federal and state laws under the guidelines of the Civil Rights Act, which were initiated in 1984 (Hardy et al., 1990). However, similar laws are also present in Pennsylvania state, although the governing body is The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act. When these policies and procedures are well practiced by organizational leaders while handling their employees at the national level, then their primary goal is to provide a balanced working environment that is free from any form of discriminative acts concerning the differences in race, gender, and age.

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Workers Protection Laws in the USA

The significant worker's protection body in the USA is the Civil Rights Act, which ensures that all the laws, policies, and rights of employees are adhered to by employers at any particular, to prevent the discriminative behaviors. The central aim of these laws is to offer protection for the employees against discrimination from specific characteristics or what is referred to as protected privileges. In support of the Civil Rights Act, the constitution for the United States of America similarly protects employees working at the state or federal level, as the two stages of government are fully equipped with guidelines and policies that must be followed while making employment decisions so that the outcome id satisfactory to everyone (Nagel et al., 2015).

Meanwhile, private sectors remain to be a question of concern, as they usually operate outside most of these policies: harassment and low wages being at the helm of problems faced by private-sector employees. Different forms of harassment include racial slurs, making negative remarks concerning an employee’s race, or color at work, limiting job opportunities for a particular gender at a workplace, and mistreating young employees with lower salaries and compensation schemes (Paterson et al., 2001). The good news is that the employees have begun working in organized labor or unions so that they interlink with employees from the public sectors to have equal rights at work. Unions are proving to be the best solution in private organizations because workers can smoothly go into demonstrations if one of them is racially abused, or in case of any gender, race misconduct. Unions provide room for the discriminated workers to file lawsuits easily, thus follow up procedures using the federal or state laws can be advocated to regain justice.

Typically, to collectively protect all workers from these forms of discrimination, federal law always demands reports for the following activities in an organization. (1) Recruitment strategies or procedures; (2) hiring plans and techniques; (3) job evaluations and promotions; (4) training and development services; (5) compensation schemes, and enactment of disciplinary actions. It is, therefore, imperative that these laws employees cannot be discriminated against based on gender, race, and age. For instance, the firth and fourteenth amendment acts of the USA constitution offer protective policies for workers against discrimination. Specifically, Title VII of the CRA for the year 1964 prohibits employers from treating their former employees, new applicants, and the entire working team in any unfair manner based on the characterization of race, gender, and age (Marritz, 1993). Nevertheless, the primary challenge that still makes employees seem as if they are not protected is the fact that most of the constitutional amendments and provisions only outline policies, without disciplinary policies that deviants need to go through. Therefore, Judicial service commission at the federal level has no laws or procedures to follow in case such cases are filed in courts. These loopholes have made various states to adopt independent measures to improve their levels of protection for the employees. Pennsylvania is one of the states whose workers protections are discussed below.

Workers’ Protection Policies in Pennsylvania

Just like the federal laws, Pennsylvania has formulated the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA), whose primary role is to protect employees against unlawful discriminations. For example, the body coincides with the provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 1964, to outline that it is unworthy, immoral and unlawful for workers to be treated with consideration of their characteristics including but not limited to age, gender, and race (Marritz, 1993). For the case of age, PHRA stipulated that neither should junior nor senior employees get mistreated because they equally play an integral role in the delivery organization's practices (Marritz, 1993).

Notwithstanding, PHRA has an additional future that most federal constitutional amendment acts miss. These include proper procedures that victims should follow while they suspect or experience a discrimination problem. The guidelines are not so strict in the federal laws, although they are mentioned in a particular section of constitutions like Title VII. PHRA act states that claims can accurately be filed by either the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (Richetti, 1992). These two agencies often work together to investigate the fate of the presented claim before making a final judgment. The time allowed for filing cases is also specified, and although some cases could be left out due to time issues, it is better than at the federal level, which has no such guidelines (Richetti, 1992). So, the presence of PHRC and EEOC in Pennsylvania state makes it more secure to work in than at the federal level in the USA, where employees lack the knowledge of how to file cases, even if they are sure their employers have discriminated them.

References

Hardy, B. A., Hood, J. B., & Lewis, H. S. (1990). Worker's Compensation and Employee Protection Laws in a Nutshell. West Publishing.

Marritz, D. (1993). Making Equality Matter (Again): The Prohibition Against Special Laws in the Pennsylvania Constitution. Widener J. Pub. L., 3, 161. https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/wjpl3&section=13

Nagel, C., Inwood, J., Alderman, D., Aggarwal, U., Bolton, C., Holloway, S., Walter, A. (2015). The legacies of the US Civil Rights Act, fifty years on. Political Geography, 48(1), 159-168. http://www.academia.edu/download/38438404/Civil_rights.pdf

Paterson, D., Willoughby, S., & Willoughby, D. (2001). Civil Rights in the USA, 1863-1980. Heinemann. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ksF5oiFwEzoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=Civil+Rights+Act+in+USA&ots=Dl5qbaEMH0&sig=m_rAOjG_DyMlzzO2tWuwotr9mm8

Richetti, S. E. (1992). The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act-Employment Discrimination-Burden of Proof. Duq. L. Rev., 31, 607. https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/duqu31&section=38