Family Responsibilities Discrimination Cases Against Employers are Rising, Plaintiffs are Winning Written by Olivia Riggio on July 23, 2019

More people than ever before are filing — and winning — family responsibilities discrimination lawsuits against their employers.
The number of family responsibilities discrimination suits has risen by 269 percent between 2005 and 2015, according to a 2016 report by the Center for WorkLife Law.
The idea of one spouse working and the other staying home and raising children is becoming less of a reality, the report says. With the cost of childcare rising, more parents are opting to juggle professional lives with running their households. Additionally, those responsible for taking care of elderly, sick or disabled relatives are also standing up to employers who do not fairly accommodate them.
A February New York Times investigation that dug up pregnancy discrimination suits from some of the largest companies in the country revealed: “Whether women work at Walmart or on Wall Street, getting pregnant is often the moment they are knocked off of the professional ladder.”
The most common plaintiffs in these lawsuits are pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and people caring for elderly relatives. Experts say the cultural sea change taking place in the wake of the #MeToo movement may also be a contributor to the phenomenon as women become more aware of their rights and emboldened to demand them.
Working women aren’t just filing these lawsuits at a higher rate; they’re winning them. Women file approximately 88 percent of family responsibilities discrimination suits. The chances of employers winning these suits if they go to trial instead of being settled are low, with success rates of about 15 to 33 percent.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act makes it illegal to discriminate against a pregnant employee. In 2015, the landmark Young v. United Parcel Service case determined the Pregnancy Discrimination Act applied to workplace accommodations too.
In Young’s case, she was a UPS driver who asked for lighter lifting during her pregnancy and was denied, despite other workers with injuries or disabilities being granted it.  An employer must accommodate a pregnant person’s needs if the accommodations are available to workers with non-pregnancy related conditions. One cannot prevent a pregnant woman from sitting instead of standing, keeping water with her, taking more frequent bathroom or snack breaks, requesting help lifting, reducing hours or taking leave.
Related Story: Serena Severely Penalized by 99 Percent White World Tennis Association for Maternity Leave
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also makes it illegal to pass an applicant up for a job because she is pregnant. Despite these laws, discrimination based on pregnancy is still rampant, with employers thinly veiling their intentions to force pregnant women out of their jobs by not accommodating their needs.
Once they become mothers, however, discrimination often continues. Between 2006 and 2015, there were just 46 cases of breastfeeding discrimination brought to court. The Family Responsibility Discrimination Act was published in 2014 and in the first three years since it was published, there were 37 cases that made it to court, according to the 2016 report.
Women are not the only people with family responsibilities, though, and the number of discrimination claims brought by male caregivers is rising. Another form of family responsibilities discrimination can be verbal comments that hearken to gendered stereotypes: Women who work too much may be labeled as selfish or bad mothers, while pregnant women may be dismissed as lazy or flighty. Men who work less to take care of children or other relatives are shamed for not being masculine enough. These examples are all forms of sex discrimination under Title VII.
Though the wording of Title VII does not specifically protect pregnant people from discrimination, it is sex discrimination if a woman is treated differently than her male colleagues because of her pregnancy or motherhood.

Former Colorado Renaissance Festival Employee Michele St. Michael Sues for Workplace Discrimination

Written by Olivia Riggio on July 24, 2019

According to the plaintiff, Michele St. Michael, the umbrella company of the Colorado Renaissance Festival, Rocky Mountain Festivals, thinks it can still treat women like it’s the 15th century. She is suing for workplace discrimination and sexual harassment.
St. Michael worked at the fair for over 30 years, but her contract was not renewed in 2016. She believes her job was terminated because she reported an attempted sexual assault in 2013.
The incident allegedly occurred one night when St. Michael attempted to leave the festival. One of the festival managers, David Walker, took her festival pass from her and demanded oral sex.
She fled and reported the harassment to the festival’s owner, James Paradise Sr. Paradise did not do anything, and Walker allegedly began smearing St. Michael’s reputation and trying to get her removed. After the 2015 season, she was not invited to return.
The festival does not have a sexual harassment policy or any equivalent to an HR department to handle complaints. Workers at the festival are technically independent contractors, which complicates the issue. Under the law, places that hire independent contractors are not technically employers.
However, St. Michael is arguing Paradise’s stringent “Rules of the Realm” that govern the Colorado Renaissance Festival employees and dictate what they can wear, how they can interact with customers and what hours they have to be there are involved enough to classify the festival as an employer.
This debate over whether anti-workplace discrimination laws apply to independent contractors is poised to be solved in many states beginning in New York. There, a bill Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he will sign proposes an expansion of protections to non-employees working for a company.
Related Story: New York State Expands Workplace Harassment Laws
Paradise claims he never heard about the incident and terminated St. Michael because she was not a good worker. He also said St. Michael took too long to complain, another excuse that would not be acceptable under the proposed New York law. Paradise’s attorney argued the strict “Rules of the Realm” are necessary to make the festival as authentic as possible.
Perhaps the authenticity went too far when St. Michael also took on the antiquated status of a second-class citizen.
Renaissance fairs are a notorious place for sexual misconduct, especially as workers across the country are using social media to come forward about assault and harassment they faced — some of them as young teens.
One former worker at the Kansas City fair began her job as a performer at age 15. Men working at the festival groomed her until one man pushed her into a room, violently kissed her and tried to take her clothes off.
Though Renaissance fairs can be an entertaining way for history and fantasy enthusiasts to go back in time, women of the 21st century are demanding discrimination and harassment not be swept under the rug anymore.

Ask the White Guy: Decision Making, Clarity of Values & What to Do When It Goes Horribly Wrong Luke Visconti, Chairman, DiversityInc June 13, 2011

Consejos basados en la observacion
Muy Interesante

We previously covered a story regarding an anti-LGBT-rights law promoted by the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce. The chamber was reacting to the city of Nashville passing a pro-LGBT-rights law. Several companies on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list are members of that chamber. We confronted them and asked how they could support a bill that was in conflict with the values espoused by their corporate leadership via their diversity departments.

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All stated their opposition to the bill, but the damage was done, and as the heat started to rise, the governor signed the bill into law, bringing Tennessee into the circle of states that affirmatively oppress their LGBT citizens.
The corporate reaction to our questions was swift but after the fact. I think most companies’ headquarters were genuinely surprised by the actions of their colleagues on the chamber’s board. That leads us to a “teachable moment”—here are some ground rules I’ve learned by observing companies closely:
1. Decision making is best by having clarity on your values.
Credibility received for your professed values is dependent on your decisive execution of actions based on your values. This does not preclude empathy and forgiveness for mistakes, but values cannot be parsed without exposure to repercussions.
2. Your best possible business outcome is dependent on your ability to equitably execute on fair and equitable treatment.
People treated fairly have a better relationship with you—better relationships transcend commodity pricing and increase the quality of your revenue stream. Better relationships also increase employee engagement and productivity—as well as reduce regrettable loss.
3. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, you cannot hide.
Your actions will be publicly evaluated and the resulting addition or subtraction from your brand image will have an impact on your business.
Here is some food for thought regarding human rights, business and our LGBT neighbors:
Rights afforded to one group that do not diminish another group’s rights are what this country is all about. This was the basis of women’s suffrage and the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act—and it is the basis of the lawsuit that overcame the anti-LGBT Proposition 8 in California. The anti-LGBT forces could not produce a single expert who could show that same-sex marriage in any way diminished heterosexual marriage. Married couples have certain legal rights, and extension of those legal rights to same-sex couples does not hurt heterosexual marriages and does not force your house of worship to marry same-sex couples. Freedom from a state-run religion and freedom of religion from the state are part of our Constitution.
Here’s some personal advice if you think marriage is for one man and one woman: Don’t marry someone of your own sex.
Finally, especially for companies that are publicly traded and/or regulated by the government (which, in aggregate, includes just about every company), there are some things to keep in mind regarding communications, donations and membership:
1. Communications sent in “secrecy” are worse than no letter at all, as “secret” complaints constitute tacit approval.
2. An organization cannot stink selectively. The chamber’s actions were anti-LGBT rights, period. This cannot be parsed, and if your continued membership in an organization conflicts with your stated values, then you have a problem across the entire organization.
3. Conflict in values produces brand damage and potential exposure to lawsuits and is detrimental to shareholder equity. Your personal opinions or politics do not trump your organization’s need to do business properly. This is especially true for leaders.
Over the almost 14 years of publishing DiversityInc, we’ve seen the practice of managing diversity become more effective by orders of magnitude in the most competitive companies. Questions about diversity are now on 100 percent of DiversityInc Top 50 companies’ requests for proposals (RFPs). This directly communicates a statement of values. The ripple effect of diversity values is aggregating into a bow wave as globalization is enhanced by web and cell communications. This gives companies unprecedented opportunities—and unprecedented responsibilities—that transcend nations.
This creates seemingly complex challenges—but I don’t think they’re all that complex: If you have clarity on your values, then don’t violate them; if you’re doing business with a company that violates your values, you are violating your values; and if you make a donation or support an organization that has facets that violate your values, then you are violating your values.
We will all make mistakes. As Dr. Cornel West said at one of our events, “We are all cracked vessels,” and the public is very forgiving of a speedy and forthright apology, particularly if it’s backed by redemptive action. Such as, for example, resigning from the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce.
Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column is a top draw on DiversityInc.com. Visconti, the founder and CEO of DiversityInc, is a nationally recognized leader in diversity management. In his popular column, readers who ask Visconti tough questions about race/culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability and age can expect smart, direct and disarmingly frank answers.

Una herramiento de medicion y balance % Una meta??????

Estrategias para medir e implementar un balance adecuado.....................................................

The 2018 Disability Employment Tracker is now open for enrollment. Complete the free and confidential survey by March 1, 2018 to receive a complimentary benchmarking Scorecard.

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Completion of the Tracker is a requirement to be considered for the 2018 DiversityInc Top 50 and to compete for the 2018 NOD Leading Disability Employer Seal. Start today: NOD.org/tracker
More and more American businesses share a goal to increase the number of employees with disabilities within their workforce, driven by motivators like competition for top talent, achieving a competitive advantage through diversity, compliance with federal regulations, or all three. As a result, increasing disability self-identification rates among new and existing employees with disabilities has become a priority to many human resources and diversity & inclusion teams.
Yet, at the National Organization on Disability (NOD), we’ve seen that despite making strides in implementing disability inclusion policies and practicesmany companies still struggle to see their percentage of employees who identify as having disabilities rise.
So, as we analyzed the data gained from our 2017 Disability Employment Tracker, the National Organization on Disability’s confidential, annual survey of corporate disability inclusion policies and practices, we aimed to find out what differentiates companies that have been successful at building disability-strong workforces from those that have not.
As we pored over the 2017 Disability Employment Tracker results, which measure practices and outcomes of more than 175 companies that together employ more than 10 million workers, across a range of industries, we sought to discover what companies with an above average percentage of employees had in common.
We uncovered five practices shared by high achieving companies that reported a disability workforce representation of 4% or more:

1. Strategy & Metrics. Senior leaders discuss and publicly promote overall diversity. Further, they have a plan of action for improving disability inclusion practices that is driven by a disability champion who is accountable to advance this strategy.
2. Climate & Culture. Priority is given to creating employee/business resource or affinity groups that are specific to disability. Moreoverand this is criticalthese groups have annual budgets that allow them to take visible and impactful action.
3. Recruiter Training. Recruiters, who are on the front line in the pursuit of employees with disabilities, are trained in, and know how to find and use the company’s accommodation process. This helps ensure candidates gain access to the supports needed to be successful and land the job.
4. People Practices. HR teams are trained to proactively ask new hires if they need an accommodation in the post-offer and pre-employment stages. This ensures that there are no gaps in providing support to employees with disabilities from day one, and goes a long way to protect the employee experience. These “moments of truth” can make or break how the employee feels about their new employer, which, ultimately, affect retention and turnover rates.
5. Workplace & Technology. As new facilities are built, universal design principles, a set of guidelines that ensure environments, processes, policies, technologies and tools work for people of every ability, are routinely applied.

Companies struggling to attract and keep talent with disabilities should reexamine their efforts against these key practices, which the Tracker results found are correlated to successful workforce outcomes, to identify opportunities for improvement. Without this foundation, companies may struggle to see disability self-identification rates rise.
While the research does show a lot of effort and hard work on the part of employers to advance disability inclusion practices, ultimately, we are not seeing significant increases in disability inclusion in the American workforce. On average, we found the workforce representation of people with disabilities was 3.2%well below the target of 7% set by the Department of Labor for those companies that do business with the federal government. When you consider that one in five Americans has a disability, the gap is striking.
Admittedly, finding the right workers in any labor poolespecially one not yet fully familiar to many employersmay demand some skills and types of effort that are out of the ordinary. Recruiters and hiring managers need to know where to source this talent, and how to address the needs of candidates with disabilities in the pre-offer stage.
A cross-departmental effort, including representatives from IT, Facilities, Legal and HR, is needed to provide comprehensive accommodations in a reasonable amount of time, so employees with disabilities can be successful on the job. Most importantly, leaders must create a culture of trust and open communication to engender a spirit of ‘disability pride’ where employees with disabilities feel welcomed and supported in order to perform, produce and progress. Doing so, will create an employee cohort that will surely be among the most engaged, committed and productive.
The National Organization on Disability, the national leader in helping business tap the disability labor pool, offers companies a complete set of solutions, including benchmarking, program design and planning, and customized local hiring engagements. Our employment experts make the journey with companies, from initial exploration through stage after stage of improvement, all the way to success.
We’ve partnered with over a dozen Fortune 500 companies, like EY, Kaiser Permanente, Prudential Financial, PwC, Sodexo, and Toyota to help them advance their disability inclusions efforts to the next level.
For American businesses that prioritize disability inclusion the benefits are many. Employees with disabilities are a rich supply of talent, ready to be tapped, at a time when talent is at a premium, and the employers who hire from this pool consistently rank employees with disabilities among their best, most dedicated workers, with some of the lowest rates of turnover.
Furthermore, research has shown that the vast majority of consumers prefer to buy from companies who hire people with disabilities, and Americans with disabilities and their friends and families constitute a huge and growing consumer segment with over $3.9 trillion in disposable income.
To start the free and confidential Disability Employment Tracker today, visit www.NOD.org/tracker

Ask the White Guy: How to Implement Diversity in a Small Group

Interesante serie de questionamientos acerca del mundo de la Diversidad
Los invito a leer
Bendiciones

Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column is a top draw onDiversityInc.com. Visconti, the founder and CEO of DiversityInc, is a nationally recognized leader in diversity management. In his popular column, readers who ask Visconti tough questions about race/culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability and age can expect smart, direct and disarmingly frank answers.
Q. How do I implement diversity-and-inclusion practices in a small agency of fewer than 10 employees (two full-time and eight part-time) Is it necessary to put such practices in place now so that they are in place and ingrained in the agency culture and promoted as we grow Or should we wait until we grow to put such policies, procedures and practices in place
A. Implementing diversity-and-inclusion practices is a response to a question and a condition. Do you believe people are created equally If so, then we must accept that people aren’t treated equally. This is easy to measurefor example, only 4.4 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. Yet, of people in that age group, women earned roughly 50 percent of the bachelor’s degrees. The reasons are not necessary to address here; there are a list of articles you can read at the bottom of this page. What’s left is what you will do to ensure your agency isn’t an agent of injustice, and that your group will have clarity on its values.
Values are independent of size and really definable down to the individual. However, the difference between individual values and group values is extremely important. If you have clarity on the group values, you can define who does not behave in a way that is in keeping with the group. Therefore, clarity on values is scalable from a handful of people to hundreds of millions.
I think it’s important to understand this key point: You may have your own valuesand your own free speechbut when your values conflict with the organization, you run the risk of being detrimental to the work of the group.
Values usually end up being codified, but it’s rare to see a well-written statement of value; most lack definition and specificity. I think our Constitution is the most powerful statement of values I’ve ever read4,400 words and the longest-lived constitution of any country in known history. The specific values it set forth aren’t perfectour Constitution does not include the right to vote, did not include women and maintained slaveryhowever, the values are strong enough to overcome the weaknesses. Success is self-evident. There were 4 million Americans when it was signed. There are 316 million today. We have the largest GDP in the worldand on a per-capita basis, it will take China decades to catch up
In my opinion the best corporate statement of values is Johnson & Johnson’s Our Credo. It fits on one sheet of paper and was written by Robert Wood Johnson, Chairman of J&J, in 1943, just before the company went public. In only 308 words, the credo outlines whom the organization must take care of, to what standard and in what specific orderpatients and customers, employees, community and finally (and last) shareholders. Shareholders come last because as the credo’s last sentence states, “When we operate according to these principles, the stockholders should realize a fair return.” The word “diversity” does not appear in the credo, but I see the concept tightly integrated with it. It is decisively inclusive.
J&J’s website states that the credo is not just a moral compass, it’s also “a recipe for business success.” From J&J’s results, you can certainly say that’s true. It’s worth noting that J&J’s new CEO, Alex Gorsky, installed a 10-foot-tall copy of the credo in his office, across from his desk chair so it’s in his view at all times.
So in your case I would start with values. If you’re the leader, it’s easier to do this and you can define how you want to run your small agency. But even if you’re not a leader, I encourage you to think through how you’re going to promote diversity and inclusion in your sphere of influence. Starting from the concept that we are all created equally, you can define your behavior, and the behavior that you will tolerate around youfor example, what language will you use and allow to be used around you With whom will you socialize What information will you share How will you conduct your charitable work You can also be very practical. Everyone in the hiring process can use the Rooney Rule (to interview at least one person not in the majority). My good friend John Kemp, President and CEO of the The Viscardi Center, came up with the Viscardi Rulethat every interview process should include a person with disabilities. Finally, we must all have selfdiscipline to continue to learn and evolve.
As you scale up, you will know you’re doing a good job by watching the numbers. It’s easiest to measure human capitalrecruitment, retention and talent development. More difficult, but still quantifiable, is your marketwhom you serve. Finally, the most elusive thing to measure is innovationbut we know intuitively and studies have shown that diverse groups, properly managed, will outperform homogeneous groups (see Professor Ron Burt from the University of Chicago and James Surowiecki, the author of The Wisdom of Crowds). Our DiversityInc Top 50 is the world’s most heavily participated in diversity survey. It’s all metrics, and in its 14th year will have more than 1,000 corporations participate this year. The metrics show that there are clear best practices that are correlated with results.