Employment discrimination in America is restricted by a collection of state and federal anti-discrimination laws and there are some types of discrimination that are based on protected categories which are classified as illegal. However, despite the knowledge of discrimination laws, it's still not easy to establishing an employment discrimination case. In a federal law, discrimination in some organizations like hiring, training, appraisals, compensation, and punitive action are greatly restricted. In State laws extended protection is frequently given to additional categories or workers.
The employment discrimination laws do not apply to workers who are self employed or independent contractors. Essentially they are not employed on a certain job base on the labor laws. But, if the employer has wrongly categorized an employee for independent contractors, then the employment discrimination laws can be applied. One of the most common law is the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which states the restriction of employment age discrimination for persons who are not more than sixty-five years old and at least forty years old. Another is the Equal Pay Act of 1963 which states that it is prohibited to have a salary discrimination among men and women who has the same job requiring the same skills, obligations and effort, in the same organization and belonging to the same working condition. There are also some Federal laws, which are not enforced by the EEOC but prohibit "discriminatory" reprisal. A common example for this is the Bankruptcy Act which says that an employer cannot refuse the employment or a work promotion of an employer just because of the bad debts he/she has before claiming a bankruptcy.