Human Resource Blog

Title VII in Iowa

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Is it a Title VII violation if one of our employees in Iowa has complained about a female manager not promoting female employees to labor-intensive positions within our factory?

It may be. Title VII exists in order to ensure that employees are all treated fairly in the workplace by the employer. Because of Title VII, employers are prohibited from discriminating against employees for reasons that are based solely on race, gender, ethnicity, and national origin. Title VII is a federal document and an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Because it is a federal document, it applies to employees in all states across the country and not just to employees that work in the state of Iowa.

When an employer makes an employment related decision having to do with hiring, staffing, promoting, compensating, training, terminating, or otherwise, the employer should not take a covered Title VII characteristic into account. Thus, when an employer makes promotions, the employer should not take gender into consideration.

Along with actual characteristics having to do with race, gender, ethnicity and other covered factors, employers may not make decisions based on stereotypes associated with covered factors. For example, in this case, it may be argued by some employees that the manager is not promoting females to labor intensive positions because of a stereotype that women employees may be weaker and less capable of labor intensive work.

When an employee wishes to file a formal complaint about a Title VII violation, the employee should file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which oversees the proper use of Title VII in the workplace. Employers should provide proof relating to their employment-related decisions. Therefore, an employer should be able to prove that an employee was less qualified for a position than a hired employee if the employee is denied a position at all.

Title VII applies to job applicants and current employees, but not to clients or customers of an employer. CB