Equal employment opportunity
Equal employment opportunity is equal opportunity in employment. Examples of legislation to foster it or to protect it from eroding include the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to assist in the protection of United States employees from discrimination. The law was the first federal law designed to protect most US employees from employment discrimination based upon that employee's (or applicant's) race, color, religion, sex, or national origin (Public Law 88-352, July 2, 1964, 78 Stat. 253, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et. seq.). Employment discrimination entails areas such as firing, hiring, promotions, transfer or wage practices and it is also illegal to discriminate in advertising, referral of job applicants, or classification. The Title is pertinent in companies affecting commerce that have fifteen or more employees. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is section 705 of the title.
Communications Workers of America v. Beck
In the United States, unions established the closed shop, union shop, and agency shop since at least the 1880s. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the primary federal law governing labor relations in the United States, was enacted in 1935 and formally legalized the closed shop, union shop, or agency shop. In 1947, however, Congress enacted the Taft-Hartley Act, which amended the NLRA. Title I, Section 101 of the Taft-Hartley Act added a new Section 14 to the NLRA, part (b) of which banned the closed shop:
Nothing in this Act shall be construed as authorizing the execution or application of agreements requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment in any State or Territory in which such execution or application is prohibited by State or Territorial law.
The Taft-Haftley Act did not, however, outlaw the union shop or agency shop (although it did place some procedural restrictions on their establishment and use).