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.
Joseph D. Beck
Beck, along with John R. Commons of the University of Wisconsin, wrote and helped to pass Wisconsin's workers' compensation law, the first law of its type in the United States. (New York had passed a first Worker's Compensation Law, but that was nullified by the courts.) The aim of the law was to protect business corporations from tort suits. Workers who had sustained a work injury that rendered them unemployable could be awarded permanent and total disability payments, but were not allowed to sue their employers.