When applying for a job, you probably expect that the employer will pay attention only to skills and experience, that only the desire to work in this position, enthusiasm and energy will give you an advantage. But no one is immune from leaving the interview morally humiliated, crushed and insulted. If you are hired and continue to show this attitude, then you should not just tolerate it.
In our article we will talk about discrimination, which is now quite common. And it doesn’t matter on what grounds it is used – first of all, it is an insult and humiliation of another person. So what to do if there is discrimination at work in your life, where to complain and what to do? More on this later.
What is discrimination in the world of work?
ILO Convention No. 111 of June 25, 1958 and the Labor Code of the Russian Federation in Art. 3 establish equal opportunities for all citizens in the implementation of their labor functions. Healthy competition in the labor market should be based on the advantage of experience, knowledge and a high level of professional training. The employer's requirements for the following factors may be discriminatory:
- employee's race;
- skin color;
- gender of the employee;
- religious and political beliefs;
- origin;
- language of communication;
- age;
- property status;
- place of residence;
- marital status.
If, during an interview, a potential employer, as conditions for obtaining a position, puts forward requirements for compliance with certain items from the list above, this can be regarded as labor discrimination. Another form of infringement of the rights of employees is the establishment of a lower salary for them compared to other team members for biased reasons (frequent issuance of sick leave due to children’s illnesses, religious beliefs, refusal to attend corporate entertainment events, etc.).
REFERENCE! A common form of labor discrimination is denial of employment to HIV-infected people.
The diagnosis does not affect a person’s business qualities, but it frightens employers. A legislative ban has been introduced on the dismissal of such employees or refusal to hire them due to an identified illness (Law No. 38-FZ of March 30, 1995).
How can you tell if an ad discriminates against someone?
Discrimination is a prejudicial attitude towards an employee on any basis that is not related to business qualities: gender, race, religion or age. In a vacancy, you cannot indicate that you are looking for a “married woman without children,” those who are registered in Moscow or the Moscow Region, with “RF citizenship,” or persons “without bad habits.”
The vacancy announcement should be made as neutral as possible. Indicate only the professional and business qualities of employees - education, profession, work experience, qualifications and specialty.
In rare cases, an employer may impose special requirements on applicants, but only those that are legalized in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. For example, teachers, transport workers and people hired for underground work may be required to provide a certificate of legal capacity and no criminal record.
Prohibition of discrimination
In Art. 2 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the prohibition of discrimination in the field of labor relations is formulated in several provisions:
- Forced labor is considered unacceptable if the influence is determined by race, social or property status, or religious beliefs. The criterion of coercion is assessed by the presence of a threat to the life or health of the employee and his relatives, a promise to apply punitive measures to him if certain instructions are not fulfilled.
- Elimination of labor discrimination.
- Compliance with the principle of equality of specialists when promoting them up the career ladder. The likelihood of a promotion can only be influenced by indicators of labor productivity, the effectiveness of initiatives introduced, the level of qualifications, and the availability of appropriate education.
✅ How can an older person increase their chances of finding a job?
After 45 years of age, a person has to increase his attractiveness in the labor market if he wants to be competitive. In this case you can:
- Constantly monitor the development of digital technologies. You need to be aware of new products, be able to use gadgets, popular applications, and explore new software products. It is worth remembering that digital technologies are not limited to the search engines Yandex and Google.
- Maintain a professional level. In any field, you will have to monitor new practices, tools or theories that appear in the industry where a person is employed. The employer will appreciate the desire to acquire new knowledge, and an older employee will be able to easily compete with a younger one due to professionalism.
- Pay attention to communication. Even if a person is older, he should not think that because of his age he is the ultimate truth. You need to be ready for dialogue with young people, understand and accept someone else’s point of view, and be able to fit into a group of different ages.
Unfortunately, age discrimination is still very common in the domestic labor market, and legislation regarding the protection of the rights of older employees is poorly developed.
Signs of discrimination and its examples
Discrimination in the labor sphere can be:
- Straight type. It appears when creating a list of requirements for potential employees, indicating the age range of candidates, giving preference to employees of the same sex and excluding the possibility of cooperation with women of childbearing age.
- Indirect type. A striking example is the payment of wages to homeworkers in a smaller amount compared to office staff, based on the ability to personally control the presence of employees in the office.
- Gender type. The reluctance of employers to hire women with small children and those girls who will want to have children in the near future.
When hiring, signs of discrimination will include refusal to pregnant women or young mothers (Article 64 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation), reluctance to consider candidates from among persons with an expunged or suspended criminal record. The law prohibits refusing admission to people with disabilities because of their limited legal capacity if they can cope with the expected job responsibilities on an equal basis with able-bodied people.
An example of an employer's discriminatory attitude in hiring. A vacancy for the position of hotel administrator was published in the newspaper. Citizen P, who has a higher education in the specialty “Tourism and Hotel Management” with a confirmed work experience in the profession of 5 years, submitted a resume for consideration as a candidate for the specified position.
The employer rejected the applicant due to an expunged criminal record discovered during the check. The motivation for the refusal was the impossibility of entrusting a responsible matter to a person who had problems with the law in the past.
Pay discrimination manifests itself in:
- understatement of salaries, incentives and bonuses;
- establishing lower wages for employees working on a probationary period.
EXAMPLE. An accountant was hired at the company with a probationary period of 3 months. For the first quarter, his salary was set at 15,000 rubles; after the end of the probationary period, the level of earnings should increase to 25,000 rubles. The job description did not change the scope of work throughout the entire period (including the first months) and corresponded to the workload of experienced specialists in this company.
The discriminatory nature of such conditions of remuneration is manifested in violation of Art. 22 part 2 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, which states that payment for the implementation of a labor function should be of equal value for different employees if the volume and nature of the work are identical.
Upon dismissal, signs of discrimination on the part of the employer will be:
- unilateral initiation of dismissal procedures for persons of retirement age and workers with children under 3 years of age;
- insistence on voluntary dismissal of women in the early stages of pregnancy;
- deliberately bringing about the termination of an employment contract through moral pressure on the employee;
- imposition of disciplinary sanctions without corpus delicti followed by dismissal.
EXAMPLE. When staffing was reduced, two employees were laid off: pregnant P., who held the position of economist, and plumber G. of retirement age. This fact in relation to both employees can be considered discrimination. They were not offered the opportunity to transfer to other positions, which is provided for by labor legislation. And pregnant employees are prohibited from being dismissed at the initiative of the employer on a general basis.
IMPORTANT! Women who have confirmed their pregnancy can be fired without their consent only if the company is liquidated.
In the process of work, the following discrimination measures may be applied to employees of different categories and specialties:
- deliberate exclusion from advanced training courses;
- obstruction in career growth if the employee has all the professional skills and business qualities required;
- refusal to be considered for a higher-paid position due to personal hostility;
- expanding the list of responsibilities for one employee without changing the amount of work in other similar positions while maintaining the same level of earnings.
What grounds for refusing employment do not constitute discrimination?
The only grounds on which managers can reasonably refuse employment to citizens and not be suspected of discrimination is a discrepancy in personal or business qualities.
Business qualities are the applicant’s ability to perform certain functions in accordance with his education and qualifications, confirmed by documents. If they do not meet the requirements for the position, the employer may refuse to issue an employment contract.
Examples of non-compliance:
- A citizen has a degree in economics, but wants to become a lawyer.
- The applicant has received a legal education and wants to work as a lawyer without having two years of work experience (to acquire lawyer status, 2 years of work in a legal specialty are required, Article 9 of the Federal Law “On Advocacy...”).
Personal qualities should be understood as the state of psychological and physical health, as well as endurance, communication skills, stress resistance, creativity, and responsibility. In fact, they can be noticed in an employee only during the probationary period, but if he claims that he does not have stress resistance, and the position implies the presence of such a trait, the employer has the right to refuse employment.
Liability for discrimination in the world of work
If you are confident that discrimination exists, an employee or applicant for a vacant position may file a written complaint with:
- judiciary;
- the prosecutor's office;
- labor inspection.
The application must be accompanied by evidence that the actions of the head of the enterprise are discriminatory in nature and caused by subjective reasons. A voice recording of a conversation or a written explanation of a refusal to hire, containing signs of gender-based, direct or indirect infringement of rights, can be used as an argument.
If you are denied employment, you can count on compensation for moral damages in court. Forced recruitment to a position cannot be carried out, since the selection of candidates for work in a company is the prerogative of the organizations themselves and belongs to the category of employers’ rights, not obligations.
Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation in Art. 5.62 establishes the amount of the fine for legal entities and individuals in case of proven fact of labor discrimination:
- Citizens will be punished by a fine of 1-3 thousand rubles.
- Legal entities will be forced to pay from 50 to 100 thousand rubles.
FAQ
Question No. 1. What to do if the employer refuses to provide a written refusal?
It will be problematic to prove violations on his part, but it is possible if you record a conversation with him on a voice recorder and go to court about it. Previously, audio recordings were not included in direct evidence, but now they are used to prove guilt or innocence.
Question No. 2. The head of one of the departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs refuses to employ a woman when there are vacant positions for women. Explanation: “We don’t hire girls.” What to do?
There is only one way out - to file a complaint against the actions of the head of the unit to the head of the city or regional police department.
Controversial issues
Restrictions on hiring based on qualities not related to business characteristics are not classified as labor discrimination if:
- the measure is dictated by the characteristics of work in a particular position;
- when performing the designated range of responsibilities, the employer will not be able, for objective reasons, to provide increased social protection (if this is required in a particular case);
- national security interests are affected.
A striking example of a controversial situation in identifying the composition of discriminatory actions can be the employment of a woman as a doctor in a company engaged in mining activities in underground mines. The employer refused to hire a woman for a vacant position as a medical employee, citing the Labor Code of the Russian Federation (Article 253) and Resolution No. 162 of February 25, 2000, which imply a ban on engaging women in hard work with harmful and dangerous working conditions.
The employer is confident that he is right. A dispute may arise if we pay attention to the exception for women, whose work will not be associated with constant physical labor, but will be aimed at sanitary and domestic services. That is, women can be employed as doctors at enterprises carrying out underground work - the refusal in court will be considered unmotivated and discriminatory.
Are there exceptions to discrimination at work?
Not all restrictions constitute discrimination on a particular basis. According to Part 3 of Art. 3 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, it is not discrimination to restrict rights, establish privileges, exceptions and preferences that are characteristic of this type of work.
In addition to the type of work, all this may be regulated by federal law or be a way of supporting individuals who need it. Special legal and social protection may be assigned due to deprivation of full working capacity or another situation that falls under a category prescribed by law.
However, you should not assume that certain working conditions and lack of privileges may be a reason for a violation of your rights. If a conflict or belittlement on the part of the employer arises, be sure to study a copy of the employment or collective agreement. It should indicate possible restrictions on the position. In addition to them, study the responsibilities of both parties to the contract.
