Employment Law Paper

Employment Law Paper

Riordan Manufacturing is a Fortune 1000 company that employees 550 people and operates plants in Albany, Georgia, Pontiac, Michigan and Hangzou, China. In a company of Riordan’s size many different types of discrimination can occur. Discrimination is “the act, practice or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually” (Webster’s Dictionary). Discrimination can be in the form of age, race, gender or disability. Laws have been prepared to discourage discrimination from occurring. When evaluating Riordan’s human resource page age discrimination, gender discrimination and disability discrimination could be possible problems for the company. Age discrimination occurs when someone of a certain age or age group is denied hiring or a promotion because of their age. “The age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) prohibits employers of 20 or more people from refusing to hire, paying less to, discharging, or otherwise discriminating, against employees because of their age” (Barnes, Dworkin, Richards, 2003, p 374). There are only 16 employees in the age range of 50-59 and 5 employees in the 60 and over category. There are also only 27 employees in the age range of 18-29 with none of these employees being executives. The other categories 30-39 and 40-49 have the most number of employees with 41 and 36 respectively. As a manager the ethical and legal obligation to the employee is to offer equal jobs for everyone in the work place who is capable of doing the job. At the same time, management should not force employees who are older to retire if the employee is not ready to retire. While employers cannot force an employee to retire if they are capable of completing the job, they can expect an employee to retire early for inability to perform the job.

Gender discrimination occurs when an employer offers less pay or does not promote a woman or man because of gender. Gender discrimination is generally common with females. The manager as an ethical and legal obligation to promote and pay a woman equally to what a man makes if they are equally qualified for the job. For example, if a man and a woman are applying for the same job, have the same credentials and are able to complete the job as needed but the manager who is hiring only likes working with men and hires the man this is gender discrimination. If the woman finds out these details she can take action against the company for gender discrimination. The Riordan Company only has 45 woman of its 125 employees. This is only 36% of the work force and only 2 of these are in executive positions.

The Riordan Company has mandatory medical examinations for certain positions in the company. They do not require examinations for every employee of the company. The Americans with Disabilities Act protects individuals with a physical or mental disability from being discriminated against. Under the Riordan Company Policy in the employee handbook, medical examines may be required to ensure that the employee being hired is