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For US employment, collection of gender and race information is implied necessary by the Civil Rights Act (because if someone files a discrimination / wrongful

For US employment, collection of gender and race information is implied necessary by the Civil Rights Act (because if someone files a discrimination / wrongful termination suit, one of the first questions that will come up is "Well, what are the demographics of the organization in the first place" and if the organization doesn't know, that's an automatic bad sign.) Some federal contracting also places requirements on a company's demographics.

nostromo 4y ago
No, the Civil Rights Act does not compel collection of this data. It's not an "automatic bad sign" if a company doesn't collect it. In fact, it can work against you in the case of a lawsuit. You are correct that the government has started asking contractors and large employers for some of this data. But it is only a requirement for the business itself, not for their customers.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Compel, no [edit: correction: compel yes for over 100 employees]. Heavily incentivize, yes. "Your honor, my client was paid less than half what her male peers were paid." "Does the defense have a counter-argument?" "Well, uh, your honor, we, uh, don't actually know the gender of our employees, so we don't, uh, have that data at our fingertips. We probably don't, we think, but we don't have the numbers to know one way or the other, and..." ETA: More importantly, I had forgotten about the EEO-1 report. Any company with over 100 employees is required to track and report this demographic data. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/shouldemployerscollectdemodataonappsandemployees.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-...
  - nostromo 4y ago
    In court it's better to not know since it's harder to prove intent.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      Well, depending; several types of not-knowing are negligence or gross negligence.
    - red-iron-pine 4y ago
      Collecting employee EEO data is pretty standard, practically universal, esp. since there are things like veteran status or disabilities that have very real implications. You basically just add a checkbox. Pretty much SOP for any org over a certain size.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    The counterargument is to ask the plaintiff to explain why she thinks her gender was used as a factor in setting pay. There are all kinds of reasons why a disparity between two employees would exist: a more in demand subfield, different hours, better negotiating, etc. The burden of proof is on the accuser. A really good defense would be to build a totally race and gender anonymized system of hiring. How could we have discriminated against your race and gender when your name was obfuscated, your voice was modulated, and we took very strict precautions to ensure nobody involved in interviewing or setting compensation even knew your gender? This was not feasible before remote interviewing became normalized during COVID, but I'm interested in seeing if it gains traction.
    - bee_rider 4y ago
      How will promotion decisions be made? At some point I think information from people who’ve worked with the employee (co-workers, managers) will be relevant to their promotion, right?
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        Promotions would be harder - probably impossible - to anonymize, but at least you're working with a much, much smaller set of potential plaintiffs as compared to everyone who applied to the company. Anonymizing interviews is more feasible than ever, and it provides a very resilient defense claims of hiring discrimination. A straightforward way eliminate bias in orchestra auditions non-biased is to put a veil between the performer and evaluator. It's interesting to see proposals to do the same in tech getting downvoted.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      > The counterargument is to ask the plaintiff to explain why she thinks her gender was used as a factor in setting pay The evidence the plaintiff brings can be as simple as "I polled ten people with my job title in the company." If the company hasn't tracked this data at all and can't produce it in its defense, then in a civil case the plaintiff would have the preponderance of evidence on their side and the resulting resolution to make them whole could be all the back-pay they are owed between what they made and what their peers made. So even outside of the need to file EEOC-1, companies are heavily incentivized to track this data (as any competent employment lawyer would indicate); you don't want to be scrambling to satisfy evidentiary burden in a lawsuit.
  - 31337Logic 4y ago
    > Compel, no. Heavily incentivize, yes. > "Your honor, my client was paid less than half what her male peers were paid." > "Does the defense have a counter-argument?" No. It should be more along the lines of "Prove it". To come forth with such a claim carries with it the implication that one actually has /evidence/ for it, however (in)substantial. The response is NOT to automatically deflect to the defense in order to prove innocence. > "Well, uh, your honor, we, uh, don't actually know the gender of our employees, so we don't, uh, have that data at our fingertips. We probably don't, we think, but we don't have the numbers to know one way or the other, and..." Nothing wrong with that. Evidence can be procured on demand by court order. And even if it were discovered that this one individual female client were paid less than her male counterparts, you'd have to prove that it was because she was female. That means gathering evidence on what her female peers were paid, as well. This particular client could have been an anomaly (e.g. less hours worked, less responsibility, not exactly a peer to her counterparts, the lower pay was only temporary and/or due to some previous agreement, etc.) leading the courts to find nothing systemically wrong with this employer. Don't be so quick to judge, without evidence or context.
    - escapedmoose 4y ago
      Except your own comment highlighted exactly what’s wrong with that: without the data the court won’t know how to rule. If you insist that the complainant is the one who has to investigate the salaries and work performance of all her coworkers, you’re immediately setting her up for failure. Requiring the company itself to record this information can provide evidence that they’re abusing employees—evidence that the employees themselves may never be able to produce.
      - mikrotikker 4y ago
        Yea I like it when criminals post their criminal activity online. It's funny cos it shows the low IQ of the criminal and when they are charged for the crime it's also funny.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        > Except your own comment highlighted exactly what’s wrong with that: without the data the court won’t know how to rule. And the burden of proof is on the accuser. The court doesn't just say "we don't have the data, so we must assume it's what the accuser says". > If you insist that the complainant is the one who has to investigate the salaries and work performance of all her coworkers, you’re immediately setting her up for failure. Yes! And that's exactly how the court works: the burden of proof is on the accuser. > Requiring the company itself to record this information can provide evidence that they’re abusing employees And why on earth would the company want to do this, when it could potentially harm them?
  - chrismcb 4y ago
    You could link to a government site that Clarks it is required. https://www.eeoc.gov/data/eeo-data-collections https://www.eeoc.gov/data/eeo-data-collections But you as an individual are not required to give that information to your employer
rakkhi 4y ago
Another great government regulation that has a great intent (stop discrimination) but leads this terrible unintended outcome: all applicants asked for this highly sensitive information. It is so ridiculous that it gives the information to allow the company, manager, HR to discriminate (even unconsciously), exactly the opposite of what the legislation is trying to achieve. What is worse from a cyber security perspective is that this information is now proliferated increasing the chances that it will be breached. Golf clap US government...
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  None of those concerns were relevant in the era when the Civil Rights Act was passed and people were hired via face-to-face interviews. It's real hard to hide your demographics when you're talking to the interviewer, which is a much larger concern than whatever you put down on a piece of paper. For all the talk about it in this thread, we aren't moving to some kind of double-blind anonymous voice muffled 60 Minutes interview screening processes anytime soon. It's a goofy idea because once you hire somebody, people are going to work face-to-face with them anyway.

nostromo 4y ago

No, the Civil Rights Act does not compel collection of this data. It's not an "automatic bad sign" if a company doesn't collect it. In fact, it can work against you in the case of a lawsuit. You are correct that the government has started asking contractors and large employers for some of this data. But it is only a requirement for the business itself, not for their customers.

shadowgovt 4y ago
Compel, no [edit: correction: compel yes for over 100 employees]. Heavily incentivize, yes. "Your honor, my client was paid less than half what her male peers were paid." "Does the defense have a counter-argument?" "Well, uh, your honor, we, uh, don't actually know the gender of our employees, so we don't, uh, have that data at our fingertips. We probably don't, we think, but we don't have the numbers to know one way or the other, and..." ETA: More importantly, I had forgotten about the EEO-1 report. Any company with over 100 employees is required to track and report this demographic data. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/shouldemployerscollectdemodataonappsandemployees.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-...
- nostromo 4y ago
  In court it's better to not know since it's harder to prove intent.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    Well, depending; several types of not-knowing are negligence or gross negligence.
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    Collecting employee EEO data is pretty standard, practically universal, esp. since there are things like veteran status or disabilities that have very real implications. You basically just add a checkbox. Pretty much SOP for any org over a certain size.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  The counterargument is to ask the plaintiff to explain why she thinks her gender was used as a factor in setting pay. There are all kinds of reasons why a disparity between two employees would exist: a more in demand subfield, different hours, better negotiating, etc. The burden of proof is on the accuser. A really good defense would be to build a totally race and gender anonymized system of hiring. How could we have discriminated against your race and gender when your name was obfuscated, your voice was modulated, and we took very strict precautions to ensure nobody involved in interviewing or setting compensation even knew your gender? This was not feasible before remote interviewing became normalized during COVID, but I'm interested in seeing if it gains traction.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    How will promotion decisions be made? At some point I think information from people who’ve worked with the employee (co-workers, managers) will be relevant to their promotion, right?
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Promotions would be harder - probably impossible - to anonymize, but at least you're working with a much, much smaller set of potential plaintiffs as compared to everyone who applied to the company. Anonymizing interviews is more feasible than ever, and it provides a very resilient defense claims of hiring discrimination. A straightforward way eliminate bias in orchestra auditions non-biased is to put a veil between the performer and evaluator. It's interesting to see proposals to do the same in tech getting downvoted.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    > The counterargument is to ask the plaintiff to explain why she thinks her gender was used as a factor in setting pay The evidence the plaintiff brings can be as simple as "I polled ten people with my job title in the company." If the company hasn't tracked this data at all and can't produce it in its defense, then in a civil case the plaintiff would have the preponderance of evidence on their side and the resulting resolution to make them whole could be all the back-pay they are owed between what they made and what their peers made. So even outside of the need to file EEOC-1, companies are heavily incentivized to track this data (as any competent employment lawyer would indicate); you don't want to be scrambling to satisfy evidentiary burden in a lawsuit.
- 31337Logic 4y ago
  > Compel, no. Heavily incentivize, yes. > "Your honor, my client was paid less than half what her male peers were paid." > "Does the defense have a counter-argument?" No. It should be more along the lines of "Prove it". To come forth with such a claim carries with it the implication that one actually has /evidence/ for it, however (in)substantial. The response is NOT to automatically deflect to the defense in order to prove innocence. > "Well, uh, your honor, we, uh, don't actually know the gender of our employees, so we don't, uh, have that data at our fingertips. We probably don't, we think, but we don't have the numbers to know one way or the other, and..." Nothing wrong with that. Evidence can be procured on demand by court order. And even if it were discovered that this one individual female client were paid less than her male counterparts, you'd have to prove that it was because she was female. That means gathering evidence on what her female peers were paid, as well. This particular client could have been an anomaly (e.g. less hours worked, less responsibility, not exactly a peer to her counterparts, the lower pay was only temporary and/or due to some previous agreement, etc.) leading the courts to find nothing systemically wrong with this employer. Don't be so quick to judge, without evidence or context.
  - escapedmoose 4y ago
    Except your own comment highlighted exactly what’s wrong with that: without the data the court won’t know how to rule. If you insist that the complainant is the one who has to investigate the salaries and work performance of all her coworkers, you’re immediately setting her up for failure. Requiring the company itself to record this information can provide evidence that they’re abusing employees—evidence that the employees themselves may never be able to produce.
    - mikrotikker 4y ago
      Yea I like it when criminals post their criminal activity online. It's funny cos it shows the low IQ of the criminal and when they are charged for the crime it's also funny.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      > Except your own comment highlighted exactly what’s wrong with that: without the data the court won’t know how to rule. And the burden of proof is on the accuser. The court doesn't just say "we don't have the data, so we must assume it's what the accuser says". > If you insist that the complainant is the one who has to investigate the salaries and work performance of all her coworkers, you’re immediately setting her up for failure. Yes! And that's exactly how the court works: the burden of proof is on the accuser. > Requiring the company itself to record this information can provide evidence that they’re abusing employees And why on earth would the company want to do this, when it could potentially harm them?
- chrismcb 4y ago
  You could link to a government site that Clarks it is required. https://www.eeoc.gov/data/eeo-data-collections https://www.eeoc.gov/data/eeo-data-collections But you as an individual are not required to give that information to your employer

rakkhi 4y ago

Another great government regulation that has a great intent (stop discrimination) but leads this terrible unintended outcome: all applicants asked for this highly sensitive information. It is so ridiculous that it gives the information to allow the company, manager, HR to discriminate (even unconsciously), exactly the opposite of what the legislation is trying to achieve. What is worse from a cyber security perspective is that this information is now proliferated increasing the chances that it will be breached. Golf clap US government...

shadowgovt 4y ago
None of those concerns were relevant in the era when the Civil Rights Act was passed and people were hired via face-to-face interviews. It's real hard to hide your demographics when you're talking to the interviewer, which is a much larger concern than whatever you put down on a piece of paper. For all the talk about it in this thread, we aren't moving to some kind of double-blind anonymous voice muffled 60 Minutes interview screening processes anytime soon. It's a goofy idea because once you hire somebody, people are going to work face-to-face with them anyway.