Chapter Three
The Legal Environment
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Chapter Outline
• The Legal Context of Human Resource
Management
• Equal Employment Opportunity
• Legal Issues in Compensation
• Legal Issues in Labor Relations
• Legislation and Employee Rights
• Evaluating Legal Compliance
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The Regulatory Environment of
Human Resource Management
• Regulation can come in the form of new
laws or statutes passed by national,
state, or local government bodies.
• Most regulations start at the national
level.
• State and local regulations are more
likely to extend or modify national
regulations than create new ones.
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Steps in the Regulation Process
Creation of
new
regulations
Enforcemen
t of
regulations
Practice and
implementation
of regulations in
organizations
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Legal Regulation of Human
Resource Management
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Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
(人權法案第七條)
• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
– It is illegal for an employer to fail or refuse
to hire or to discharge any individual or to
discriminate in any other way against any
individual with respect to any aspect of the
employment relationship on the basis of
that individual’s race, color, religious beliefs,
sex, or national origin
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Definitions of Discrimination
• Illegal discrimination
– What results from behaviors or actions by an
organization or managers within an organization
that cause members of a protected class to be
unfairly differentiated from others
• Disparate treatment
– When individuals in similar situations are treated
differently and when the differential treatment is
based on the individual’s race, color, religion, sex,
national origin, age, or disability status
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Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
(人權法案第七條)
• Subsequent court decisions relating to
Title VII have defined the meanings of
disparate impact, job relatedness, bona
fide occupational qualification, sexual
harassment, and other factors.
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歧視的認定
• Disparate impact
– Occurs when an apparently neutral
employment practice disproportionately
excludes a protected group from
employment opportunities
• Four-fifths rule(百分八十的規則 )
– Disparate impact exists if a selection
criterion (such as a test score) results in a
selection rate for a protected class that is
less than four-fifths (80 percent) of that for
the majority group
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歧視的認定
• Geographical comparisons
– A method to determine disparate impact. In
this case, the presence of protected class
employees in a company’s workforce is
compared with the presence of qualified
members of that protected class in the
geographical area from which the company
draws applicants.
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Affirmative Action and
Reverse Discrimination
• Affirmative action(平權行動/積極優惠行
動)
– A set of steps taken by an organization to
seek qualified applicants from groups
underrepresented in the workforce
– 1.Utilization analysis
• A comparison of the race, sex, and ethnic
composition of the employer’s workforce
compared to that of the available labor supply
– 2.設定目標
– 3.執行
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What Is Reverse Discrimination?
• Any practice that has disparate impact
on members of nonprotected classes
• Quota systems where an organization
would be required to hire a certain
number of black females would be
considered reverse discrimination
relative to white males, unless the
system was dictated by a court order.
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Sexual Harassment at Work
• Quid pro quo harassment(交換性的性騷
擾)
– Sexual harassment in which the harasser
offers to exchange something of value for
sexual favors
• Hostile work environment
– A more subtle form of sexual harassment
that results from a climate or culture that is
punitive toward people of a different
gender
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Enforcing Equal Employment
Opportunity
• EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission)
• Major functions of the EEOC
– Investigating and resolving complaints
about alleged discrimination
– Gathering information regarding
employment patterns and trends in U.S.
businesses
– Issuing information about new employment
guidelines as they become relevant
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Investigating
and Resolving a
Discrimination
Complaint
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Investigating
and Resolving a
Discrimination
Complaint
(cont’d)
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Enforcing Equal Employment
Opportunity
• OFCCP (Office of Federal Contract
Compliance Procedures)
• Major functions of the OFCCP
– OFCCP conducts yearly audits of
government contractors to ensure that they
have actively pursuing their affirmative
action goals.
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Ethics and Human Resource
Management
• Ethics
– An individual’s beliefs about what is right
and wrong and what is good and bad
• Ethics and law don’t always coincide
• Managers must take steps to ensure
their behavior is both ethical and legal.
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Evaluating Legal Compliance
• 1.Ensure that managers have a clear
understanding of the laws that govern
every aspect of HRM.
• 2.Managers should rely on their own
legal human resource staff to answer
questions and review procedures.
• 3.Engage in external legal audits of
human resource management
procedures.
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