How does the City of New York deal with employment discrimination?
Even in this day and age, employment discrimination is a serious problem. So much so that new laws are going into effect all over the country relating to discriminatory hiring practices. New York City is one of the local governments that has recently passed this type of law.
Mayor Bill de Blasio passed five new pieces of legislation that relate to the New York City Human Rights Commission’s powers in uncovering employment discrimination. Essentially, the Human Rights Commission will now be able to investigate and test employers in the search for discriminatory hiring practices. These investigations will be conducted using “matched pair testing”. This is where two parties who possess all of the same characteristics, except one relating to race, age, religion, sexual orientation or another protected attribute, apply for the same job with the same employer. When one of the pair is hired, the Human Rights Commission will investigate as to whether one was chosen over the other based on one of the protected characteristics. If this was the case, the employer could be prosecuted.
These investigations will start in October of this year and all employers are urged to review their hiring practices at this point, as well as to reinforce with those that do the hiring that these decisions should be made based on qualifications for the job as opposed to the protected personal characteristics of the applicants.
If you have been accused of employment discrimination and are facing consequences, Thomas M. Lancia can help. He handles all types of cases relating to employment discrimination in the New York City area. Contact him by calling (212)964-3157 today for a consultation.