HELP!
Would the following situations be considered discrimination:
1. I have no set position in my company and have been promised one numerous times and it seems each time I am being told next week to shut me up. For months now it has been the same, meeting after meeting and I am still where I started.
2. I have told my boss that I can not be physically stressed because of my health condidtion. I have asked to have my desk moved to another office and they will not move me. There are plenty of available desks. The manager of the crdit department where my desk resides now is physically making me sick. Again, I have asked numerous times to be moved and nothing has been done about it.
3. Each morning I post checks. I am forced to finish posting checks by 1PM for some reason or another. Which was never an issue before. The only reason I am doing the posting is to help the credit department, but it is not my job. When the manager has to do the work it will sit over night, or sit until he is ready to do it. He is older and he is a manager (not my manager) and it seems that he very much takes advantage of the fact that I am in this office. I have repeatedly complained and nothing has been done about it.
4. On three different occasions I complained about one of my superiors making sexual comments towards me. There were never any reports taken, and he was never confronted with the issue. Again nothing was ever done about it.
Answers (1)
Not all forms of discrimination are illegal. Discrimination becomes illegal only if you can show that certain conduct is motivation by your membership in a protected classification. Gender is a protected classification, as is disability or handicap.
On the basis of this, nos. 1 and 3 probably aren't discriminatory, unless you can tie the behavior to 2 or 4.
Number 2 might be handicap discrimination, depending on the nature of your medical condition. Your medical condition may or may not be a disability, depending both on the nature of the disability and the law you rely upon. Under the American with Disabilities Act, you are probably don't have a disability because that law's definition of disability is read so narrowly. You might have a disability under New York State or even New York City law.
Number 2 might amount to a failure to provide reasonable accommodation, which could violate the law.
Number 4 might amount to sexual harassment, which is a form of gender based discrimination. Whether it actually amounts to sexual harassment depends on the nature, severity and frequency of the conduct.
posted by David M. Lira | Apr 23, 2002 10:24 AM [EST]
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