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.
Fairness Campaign
In early January 1999, the Fairness Campaign proposed three separate ordinances—one addressing employment discrimination, the second addressing housing discrimination, and the third addressing public accommodations discrimination. The Board of Aldermen took up the employment ordinance first, separate from the other two ordinances and against the backdrop of the Pedreira incident. When Alderman President Steve Magre switched his no-vote after hearing citizen's accounts of workplace discrimination, passage was all but assured. The employment discrimination ordinance passed the Board of Aldermen on January 26, 1999, making it the first piece of legislation to protect people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity to be passed in Kentucky.