Racial and gender discrimination used to be a much bigger problem than it is today. While we still see discrimination today, there are laws that protect people from being discriminated against in the workplace. These laws are put in place so people feel comfortable in their work environment and so that there is no discrimination when hiring, firing, and with promotions. This is great that most people have this law protecting them, but what if there is no discrimination law that protects you from this?
Recently it was brought to my attention that there is no law that protects weight discrimination. In fact, there is only one state that has a law for weight discrimination, Michigan (Morabito, 2020). According to the video there are a number of stereotypes towards people who are overweight, these include that they are lazy, lack discipline, or less intelligent (Morabito, 2020). This discrimination against weight is much more serious than I ever knew. The video mentions that when an overweight person is hired they are payed much less than other people, a study showed that overweight males were payed 3.4% lower and overweight females were paid 6.1% lower than their colleagues (Morabito, 2020). This is a problem that needs to be addressed, so why is there no law that protects this discrimination?
According to the video there is a lot of support to pass a law that prohibits employers from discriminating against weight; from studies they have conducted, roughly 80% of people support this (Morabito, 2020). Even though there seems to be a lot of support there is still no law for weight discrimination. Why is that? In the video they mention that there are concerns about passing the law. These concerns are that lawsuits will start because of the past experiences (Morabito, 2020). To me this just sounds like an excuse, they can easily address this concern. One example I can think of is writing the law that states that there will be no legal action taking place before May 1st 2020.
While there is no law in place experts recommend that employers should take action and try to prevent this discrimination anyway (Morabito, 2020). This is a good idea, but I would like to see in the future a law that protects people from this type of discrimination in the workplace. I think that judging anyone based on the way they look is ridiculous, especially in the workplace. If someone is qualified to work a certain position and they are reliable, then they should be hired.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/01/24/weight-discrimination-in-the-american-workplace.html
References
Morabito, C. (2020, January 24). Studies show weight discrimination permeates the US workplace – but it’s legal in 49 states. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/24/why-weight-discrimination-permeates-the-us-workplace.html