U.S. Employment Law & Regulations

McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green

Case that established criteria for disparate treatment.

Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)

U.S. act that prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of age.

Civil Rights Act of 1991

U.S. act that expands the possible damage awards available to victims of intentional discrimination to include compensatory and punitive damages; gives plaintiffs in cases of alleged discrimination the right to a jury trial.

Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company

2007 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that claims of sex discrimination in pay under Title VII were not timely because discrimination charges were not filed with the EEOC within the required 180-day time frame.

Labor-Management Relations Act (LMRA)

U.S. act that imposed several restrictions and requirements on unions.

Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corporation

1971 U.S. case that stated that an employer may not, in the absence of business necessity, refuse to hire women with preschool-aged children while hiring men with such children.

Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA

U.S. act that protects the employment, reemployment, and retention rights of persons who serve or have served in the uniformed services.

Griggs v. Duke Power

U.S. case that set the standard for determining whether discrimination based on disparate impact exists.

Hostile environment harassment

Occurs when sexual or other discriminatory conduct is so severe and pervasive that it interferes with an individual’s performance; creates an intimidating, threatening, or humiliating work environment; or perpetuates a situation that affects the employee’s psychological well-being.

Weingarten rights

Union employees’ right in U.S. to have a union representative or coworker present during an investigatory interview.

Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA)

U.S act that prohibits discrimination against individuals on the basis of their genetic information in both employment and health insurance.

Quid pro quo harassment

Type of sexual harassment that occurs when an employee is forced to choose between giving in to a superior’s sexual demands and forfeiting an economic benefit such as a pay increase, a promotion, or continued employment.

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

U.S act that establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, youth employment, and record-keeping standards affecting full- and part-time workers in the private sector and in federal, state, and local governments.

Workweek

Any fixed, recurring period of 168 consecutive hours (7 days times 24 hours = 168 hours).

Davis-Bacon Act

U.S. act that requires certain contractors and subcontractors to pay laborers and mechanics no less than the locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits for corresponding work on federal contracts.

Disparate treatment

Type of discrimination that occurs when an applicant or employee is treated differently because of his or her membership in a protected class.

National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA)

U.S. acts that expanded FMLA leave for employees with family members who are covered members of the military.

Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)

U.S. act that prohibits discrimination against job applicants on the basis of national origin or citizenship and establishes penalties for hiring undocumented workers.

National origin

Refers to the country (including those that no longer exist) of one’s birth or of one’s ancestors’ birth.

Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act

U.S. act that established the first national policy for workplace safety and health and continues to deliver standards that employers must meet to guarantee the health and safety of their employees.

Executive Order 13672

Amends Executive Orders 11478 and 11246 to include gender identity and sexual orientation.

Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA)

U.S. act that imposed regulations on internal union affairs and the relationship between union officials and union members.

Protected class

People who are covered under a particular federal or state antidiscrimination law.

Equal Employment Opportunity Act

U.S act that amended Title VII and gave the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission authority to “back up” its administrative findings and conduct its own enforcement litigation.

Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

U.S. act that provides employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for family members or because of a serious health condition of the employee.

Electronic Communications Privacy Act

U.S. act that made it unlawful to intercept messages in transmission, access stored information on electronic communication services, or disclose any of this information.

Drug-Free Workplace Act

U.S. law that requires federal contractors with contracts of $100,000 or more as well as recipients of grants from federal government to certify that they are maintaining a drug-free workplace.

ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA)

Amendments to U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act covering the definition of individuals regarded as having a disability, mitigating measures, and other rules to guide the analysis of what constitutes a disability.

Disparate impact

Type of discrimination that results when a policy that appears to be neutral has a discriminatory effect; also known as adverse impact.

Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act

U.S. act that establishes a minimum wage, maximum hours, and health and safety standards for contracts to manufacture or furnish materials, articles, or equipment to the U.S. government or the District of Columbia.

Portal-to-Portal Act

U.S. act that defines what is included as hours worked and is therefore compensable and a factor in calculating overtime.

Occupational injury

Injury that results from a work-related accident or exposure involving a single incident in the work environment.

General Duty Clause

Statement in U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Act that requires employers subject to the act to provide employees with a safe and healthy work environment.

Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA)

U.S. act that amended the Age Discrimination in Employment Act to include all employee benefits; also provided standards that an employee’s waiver of the right to sue for age discrimination must meet in order to be upheld by a court.

Reasonable accommodation

Modifying a job application process, a work environment, or the circumstances under which a job is performed to enable a qualified individual with a disability to be considered for the job and perform its essential functions.

McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act

U.S. act that requires contractors and subcontractors on certain contracts to pay service employees in various classes no less than the wage rates and fringe benefits found in the locality or the rates found in the previous contractor’s collective bargaining agreement.

Essential functions

Primary job duties that a qualified individual must be able to perform, either with or without accommodation.

Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA)

U.S. act that provides individuals and dependents who may lose health-care coverage with opportunity to pay to continue coverage.

National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)

U.S. act that protected and encouraged the growth of the union movement; established workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively with employers.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)

U.S. act that requires that all publicly held companies establish internal controls and procedures for financial reporting to reduce the possibility of corporate fraud.

Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth

U.S. court ruling that distinguished between supervisor harassment that results in tangible employment action and supervisor harassment that does not.

Vicarious liability

Legal doctrine under which a party can be held liable for the wrongful actions of another party.

Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)

U.S act that protects privacy of background information and ensures that information supplied is accurate.

Occupational illness

Medical condition or disorder, other than one resulting from an occupational injury, caused by exposure to environmental factors associated with employment.

NLRB v. Weingarten

Landmark 1975 U.S. labor relations case that dealt with the right of a unionized employee to have another person present during certain investigatory interviews.

Employment at-will

Principle of employment in the U.S. that employers have the right to hire, fire, demote, and promote whomever they choose for any reason unless there is a law or contract to the contrary and that employees have the right to quit a job at any time.

Nonexempt employees

Employees covered under U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act regulations, including minimum wage and overtime pay requirements.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

U.S. act that prohibits discrimination against a qualified individual with a disability because of his/her disability.

Bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ)

Factor (such as religion, gender, national origin, etc.) that is reasonably necessary, in the normal operations of an organization, to carry out a particular job function.

Overtime pay

Required for nonexempt workers under U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act at 1.5 times the regular rate of pay for hours over 40 in a workweek.

Faragher v. City of Boca Raton

U.S. court ruling that distinguished between supervisor harassment that results in tangible employment action and supervisor harassment that does not.

Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures

Procedural document designed to assist employers in complying with federal regulations prohibiting discrimination.

Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA)

U.S. act that prohibits discrimination against specified categories of veterans; applies to federal government contractors and subcontractors.

Equal Pay Act (EPA)

U.S. act that prohibits wage discrimination by requiring equal pay for equal or “substantially equal” work performed by men and women.

Comparable worth

Concept that jobs filled primarily by women that require skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions comparable to similar jobs filled primarily by men should have the same classifications and salaries.

Adverse impact

Type of discrimination that results when a policy that appears to be neutral has a discriminatory effect; also known as disparate impact.

Sexual orientation

Sexual, romantic, or emotional/spiritual attraction that one feels for persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or both sexes and more than one gender.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

First comprehensive U.S. law making it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Lechmere, Inc. v. NLRB

1992 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an employer cannot be compelled to allow nonemployee organizers onto the business property.

Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act

U.S. act that requires some employers to give a minimum of 60 days’ notice if a plant is to close or if mass layoffs will occur.

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius

U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requirement that individuals purchase health insurance was constitutional but requirement that states expand Medicaid was not.

Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA)

U.S. act that prevents private employers from requiring applicants or employees to take a polygraph test for preemployment screening or during the course of employment, with certain exceptions.

Pregnancy Discrimination Act

U.S. act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.

Disability

Physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one’s major life activities.

Employment practices liability insurance (EPLI)

Type of liability insurance covering an organization against claims by employees, former employees, and employment candidates alleging that their legal rights in the employment relationship have been violated.

Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)

U.S. act that established uniform minimum standards to ensure that employee benefit and pension plans are set up and maintained in a fair and financially sound manner.

Prudent person rule

States that a fiduciary of a plan covered by the U.S. Employee Retirement Income Security Act has legal and financial obligations not to take more risks when investing employee benefit program funds than a reasonably knowledgeable, prudent investor would under similar circumstances.

Employees

Individuals who exchange work for wages or salary; in the U.S., workers who are covered by Fair Labor Standards Act regulations as determined by the IRS.

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

U.S. act that creates a rolling time frame for filing wage discrimination claims and expands plaintiff field beyond employee who was discriminated against.

Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)

U.S. act that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman and permitted states to not recognize same-sex marriages recognized by other states; ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.

Gender identity

Refers to one’s internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman (or boy or girl), which may or may not be the same as one’s sexual assignment at birth.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)

2010 U.S. law that requires virtually all citizens and legal residents to have minimum health coverage and requires employers with more than 50 full-time employees to provide health coverage that meets minimum benefit specifications or pay a penalty.

Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act)

U.S act that frees employers who use third parties to conduct workplace investigations from the consent and disclosure requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act in certain cases.

Independent contractors

Self-employed individuals hired on a contract basis for specialized services.

Vesting

Process by which a retirement benefit becomes nonforfeitable.

Exempt employees

Employees who are excluded from U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage and overtime pay requirements.