They may have been created but they are not enforced.

@fanofmad: I wholeheartedly agree. Thanks for saying it. I always enjoy your comments.

i gotta really funny joke for ya.................................................................................................................................................................................................................womens rights.

I have posted this before, but here goes...

The courage and wisdom of the people involved in the Civil Rights movement inspired the anti war movement and the womens movement.

I do agree that some of the workplace laws established to protect workers are not enforced the way they should be today.
It's better than it was in 1963, but there are still issues in 2009.

The biggest issues I have seen and heard about in today's workplace environment involve bullying.
Bullying of employees primarily by employers.

I read recently that yesterdays playground bullies are todays workplace bullies.
There are no laws I know of currently to protect against bullying in the workplace.

Carla and anyone else can sue for anything they want, but winning and collecting money is a another can of worms. Many states now have enacted laws that state if you bring a lawsuit against someone and you dont win, you will have to pay the defendents attornyes and other fees. Of course you can always go to Judge Judy and others.

No laws to protect against bullying? How about the laws of economics, free trade and profit-margins? In other words, Capitalism!
If a workplace bully hurts the profit margin, the bully should be reprimanded or fired! If the bully actually makes the company profit then give him a raise because of his awesome managerial skills.
If an employee does not like the bully, then find a new job! Free trade baby!
I have been bullied at work before. In one instance I quit, in the other instance I sucked it up and kept cashing those sweet pay checks!
Of course if you really want some anti-bully regulations, now is the time to do it, while the Commucrats are in charge.

Here’s something to get you posters all riled up. Where has the women’s movement been lately? It seems that if the issue isn’t Abortion on Demand, or Lesbian Rights, they can’t be bothered. Where is the outrage from NOW or other women’s groups over the Roman Polanski story? Instead, some “enlightened” women in the entertainment industry are actually signing petitions that he be “left alone”. What kind of message does that send to young women. @Monte – although your post was somewhat abrasive, a lot of what you say is true. Younger women (college age) are going back to more traditional values.

@fanomad: First, let me say that I don't subscribe to Monte's POV. But this area of the law is what I do for a living, so I feel compelled to comment.

There are many kinds of laws aimed at "worker protection," but I presume you are focusing only on anti-discrimination laws. Employment anti-discrimination laws have not "always been there;" they were really only created in 1964 as part of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They protect against discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin and religion. More recent laws have added age and disability to the areas of protection.

There has never been a federal law providing employment protection for gays and lesbians. That is likely linked to the fact that there is no protection against disparate treatment on that basis provided in the Constitution. That said, many states have enacted their own civil rights laws and employment protections for gays and lesbians. California laws alone protect 1/8 of the national population. I presume there are also such protections in NY, CT, RI, MA, VT, WA, NH, ME, OR, IL and other more liberal states.

If you think that these laws are not being "enforced," let me tell you otherwise. There are, IMHO, too many of these lawsuits that lack any merit whatsoever. Everyone feels aggrieved and wants revenge against an employer they believe has treated them "unfairly." They also want to win the lotto and never have to work again. These bogus lawsuits, however, diminish the importance of these laws and dilute justice for those who really have suffered discrimination.

"Unfairness" is not a basis for a lawsuit against your employer. To employ a Kennedyism, life is unfair; why should your job deviate from that norm? The fact is that more men have been adversely affected in their employment by the current recession than women. But they have no basis to claim discrimination.

As for Sal, I posted on the main thread that Sal was not terminated for being gay. Roger fired him for interfering with a client relationship, regardless of the reason. Roger has no information that Sal is gay or why Lee Jr. wants him out; frankly, he doesn't care. An important part of the dynamic of this economy is that people are free to leave a job anytime they wish to take another that pays more or better suits their needs; likewise, employers are free to cut employees for any reason at any time, with or without cause so long as it is not unlawful. It is what gives employers flexibility to hire and expand their businesses as needed, employ more people, and give more people the advantage of higher earnings.

If SC keeps Sal on as an employee, Lucky Strike pulls its $25M account, and EVERYONE loses their jobs. Now how would that be "fair" to the rest of SC's employees? This was a matter of economic necessity. Sal is more a victim of Lee Jr. than Don or Roger or any "bullying" by an employer.

The state of the law is this: it is not against the law to be an asshole. And it shouldn't be against the law either. If we start legislating what every workplace must look like, there will be no differences among employers. There will be no incentive for good employers to provide a terrific place to come to work, to attract the best workers, and to set a standard for other employers to match. I, for one, certainly hope they never do that.

dondraperesq...since you posted directly to me---too many words to read everything you posted but, I was not commenting at all about Sal's sexual orientation, never mentioned gay. He experienced sexual harassment; he lost his job (hopefully temporarily) because he refused to have sex with a client (ethical). Don loses a huge account and keeps his job. (he has sex with clients (unethical). Actually, in other words, it is against the law to "be an asshole". And federal laws may not protect sexual orientation but state laws do.
All I said in my thread post was how Mad Men SHOWS THE NEED, nothing exhaustively or precisely detailed.

Laurie, I guess your point is to demean? I can only imagine that you have issues with "the women's movement", or lesbianism? women in general? a woman's right to choose?---- but your point is like saying where is the civil rights movement when every black person isn't fully, 100% supported by blacks. Ridiculous. There are many, many women and supporters of NOW and women's rights who are against Polanski's being freed, so yeah, they can "be bothered", as they are with many issues concerning women.
Also, "the movement" is not an ongoing event. It was a "movement" such as an earlier women's movement that fought and gained the right for women to vote, as well as securing other protective laws that modern women take for granted. Way too many younger women have no appreciation for feminism or what past feminism did for them. In fact feminism is like a dirty word to most people because of propaganda (especially the lesbian and abortion angle) to squash empowerment of women.

NeverNotTasty, thank you for the compliment and I think you're the only one who got what I meant! A simple observation of issues of mistreatment and the need to create certain laws.

Say it Sister! Remember, there are actually men today (including the editor of the National Review and Ann Coulter, lol) who advocate for taking away a woman's right to vote--they say we are too nurturing and so don't vote "with our heads." I'm not kidding.

I am a proud feminist, and I don't even wear Birkenstocks! I am an uber hetero, relatively stylish, Sex in the City loving feminist, whose (republican) father raised us three girls to believe we could be president of the United States. I am on the board of the local woman's club, whose founders include the head of the Christian Woman's Temperance Union (which was a feminist suffrage related movement--and now we gals all drink like fishes!), and our first speakers included Susan B. Anthony and Jane Addams. We are on the National Register of Historic Places as a place of Social Relevance in the Progressive Reform and Suffrage Movements of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

There are plenty of women leaders who inspire us to continue to work quietly to ensure we have access to all the same opportunities as men and to protect our rights to control our own bodies, our reproductive health, our sexuality, our choices in all arenas. We can be vigilant without constantly sounding the clarion call.

Lily--clean up in aisle 3, please...

@Betty Crocker, that cleanup on aisle 3 turned out to a decaying jar of sauerkraut from the 1950s - absolutely putrid!

LOL!

Did Don actually lose the Hilton account? Or is Connie just moping? I know he walked out over the moon thing, but I didn't get the impression he had fired Don.
I just can't think of anything bad enough to call Don right now after the Sal incident. He should have stormed after Roger and put him in his place. Oh well...birds of a feather. Don is sleep deprived and getting very twisted. Rolled by teenagers...bullying his "team"....boinking the teacher...and acting the pimp. Whatever happened to "my life is on FORWARD"??

(@monte: check your calendar, dear. This is the 21st century....2009 A.D. Not "B.C." Time to stop watching your old, scratched VHS tape of "Quest For Fire"...)

You're right.... Sal is a victim of sexual harassment, pure and simple. And sexual harassment should be the code by which ALL sex problems are handles in the work environment, period. In a perfect world.

Yet.... do you suppose things are 100% (better) now? I wonder if the Sal/Garner incident still could not happen today, verbatim. Especially in America's hinterlandishe cities...

I actually think Don, in his own way, was trying to help Sal by badgering him a bit to get him to "open up". Don said, "Just who do you think you're talking to??"

I took that to mean, "Look, we're both men. I'm not gay but I know where you're coming from. You should open up to me so I can be on your side."

As a libertarian lesbian I don't believe there should be any laws forcing employers to hire someone they really don't want. If a company wants to be all straight white men then they have the right to do so and people can decide on their own if they want to do business with them. They actually do have the right to discriminate anyway if it is a non publically held company, as do private clubs, or small property owners who live on the property themselves.
If you're of any value to a business and the salary is the right level (determined by the business) you will get the job.The reason that so many females and minorities work in government jobs is that the private sector doesn't find them efficient workers for the money they're paying them. There are 50m illegal aliens in the US mostly from south of the border and they find jobs at the level of pay they can demand based on their worth and the fact that there is a glut of workers that can do the same job. And when you consider it's tax free and they get all the perks the US has to offer they're doing a lot better than in their home country where most of them are just poor peasants.
And Jolie: I have no idea what some 100 year old French fiction has to do with anything. You have no idea how people lived 50k years ago and we have not changed physically, mentally or emotionally from that time anyway. A female from 50k years ago is identical to one in 2009 in her thinking pattern and in fact the Cro Magnum even had larger brains than people today.
And change your name to something more suitable like Roseanne because you're no Jolie.

@dondraperesq: Since you specialize in this type of law I have a bunch of questions that have always moved my curious, inquisitive side and I would be grateful if you would indulge me. Regarding discrimination lawsuits: of those that have passed your desk what percentage would you say:

1) were frivolous?
2) were legitimate?
3) of those that were legitimate, what percentage resulted in a "win"?
4) of those legitimate that resulted in a "win", what percentage resulted in the plaintiff ever finding another job in his/her field?

I have never personally been discriminated against, but have often wondered just how aggrieved a person would have to be to risk a lawsuit and further risk the inevitable pariah status associated with bringing one. I apologize that this is so off-topic, but I am one of those crazy people always asking questions because I'm just curious about all kinds of things and this is something I've wondered about for a long time. Thanks for indulging me.

@Jolie. You asked did Don actually lose the Hilton account? I didn't think so but everyone else seems to say so. I thought I must have missed something. I know Roger said something to him about 2 accounts, but was that really the case?

Remember to IGNORE the trolls.

Thank you Betty Crocker for your post.

I think it's interesting that Bertha, a libertarian lesbian asks us to read her blog, where the "about" section claims

Over the last few years, it has become increasingly obvious that American men — particularly those of the post-boomer generations — have fallen into a cultural gap. Our voice is barely a whisper in the traditional media, we are consistently portrayed as worthless buffoons and advertisers ignore us.

So which is it Bertha? Are you a libertarian lesbian MAN? "Your" blog states you are.

And I love the comments policy, since all Bertha does is violate his own policy on this forum:

Comments will be largely unrestricted and unmoderated, but there are a few things we don’t want to deal with because we have little time or patience for flame wars. So, for the benefit of readers, here is a preliminary list of things to avoid when commenting:

1. Unprovoked personal attacks
2. Attacks based on religion
3. Race-baiting
4. Excessive profanity
5. All caps
6. Nonsense
7. Bullshit

@oswald:The meanest people I have ever worked with have been the politically correct. They are the worst bullies and they have an elevated sense of their own worth. They truly need someone over them to make them stop bullying people. Their tactics should not be tolerated. They cause all kinds of problems in the workplace and good employees leave because of them.

IGNORE THE TROLLS.
it's pretty easy to spot the asses who go to boards (and they make the rounds, this would only be one of many); they waste time typing inciting hateful nonsense hoping to clog sites and get people off topic. Just glaze over them and ignore, ignore.

Zabadu, don't waste time or energy on crap posts like that guy's---it's bait, bait, bait. From your posts it's clear that you have many better things to focus on. The trolls want to know the rules so they can specifically break them (can't fight irrational with rational).

Someone mentioned that Don may not have been the one to lose the account. I got the impression that it was Don's presentation that Hilton was reacting to. He had Don clear the room after the presentation and then he let Don know that he had asked for the moon and didn't get it. He was clearly disappointed.
A client has a perfect right to leave a company when they either are or they perceive that they are not getting the service they want. In sales you sometimes never know what it is that went wrong, but Hilton saw the Don as the failure---and the bottom line is Hilton walked out after he told Don he didn't get what he wanted or expected (Don wasn't living up to his reputation).
It sure seemed like Roger was thinking along the same lines because he was pretty pissed at Don--it almost seemed like he was giving Don a warning to shape up.
Poor Sal did a good job but refusing to have sex with the client, and he lost his job.

@fanofmad: Thanks for the advice, but as long as people continue to have conversations with known trolls, I'll continue to blow holes in the troll covers.

I said this elsewhere, but there are so many new fans here that I can't always keep up with who the new trolls are, or particularly the new incarnations of old trolls. So sometimes I just think it's a prickly poster who sometimes after getting acquainted calms down. But after a few exchanges, it becomes apparent that they are trolls and then they are on permanent ignore. I will definitely try harder to refrain from engaging after the first idiotic post.

I have never understood the mentality of a troll--how would a 13 year old boy even FIND these boards?!

Try clicking on their name and reading their comments before commenting....

Betty Crocker: If the post is "prickly", a nasty prickly, yeah that's them.... And their posts get move erratic as time goes on. Wait and watch. And take Zabadu's advise too.

It is so apparent that when somebody has to spew their venom like JeanM & the rest of the boyz, they are lacking it in two departments...their wallets & their zippers! I've always felt bad for men like that, who are probably ugly to boot, and with no personality & the above, they are destroyed. It's truly sad.

LAURIE B, to respond to your question
(Quoting Laurie B: "... Where is the outrage from NOW or other women’s groups over the Roman Polanski story?)----
I am posting part of a news article I read today. It's just that it is more specific than I had said:

"Elected as NOW's leader in June, [Terry]O'Neill had plenty on her plate already - notably trying to gauge the impact on women, for good or ill, in the multiple proposals for health care overhaul. Then along came the Roman Polanski and David Letterman controversies, and she charged briskly onto a new front.
"Polanski "is a convicted criminal pedophile" and making excuses for him is "dangerous talk," O'Neill declared earlier this month ...:"
Oct. 16, 2009 AP National Writer

Fanofmad...many thanks for that bit from the NOW article it surely clarifies the point.

Zabadu.... thanks for unmasking "Bertha" and backing it up with quotes from "her" blog. For whatever reasons, not all of us will go to the blog for ourselves - and your taking the time to read and post it really helps the conversation- as above, by clarifying.

And indeed, thanks to all.... a very interesting thread, (apart from the juvenile garbage)

I'm already thinking of Sunday night.... anticipation!

Somewhere on one of the articles that Zab directs us to - or was it here on the forum? - someone said that this show, shows us why the changes that happened during the mid to late sixties were so necessary. The years 1960 to '63 or '64 were more like the fifties and the the change in the years that followed was like an explosion. I was very young then but I do recall music and fashions, politics and social trends that just seemed so out there - so weird at the time - but were in retrospect, just a harbinger of the future.

Laurie B: I agree. Roman Polanski raped that young woman and he should face the consequences. If some actresses have come out in support of him, it's because they know him personally and choose not to judge him, but I'm sure they know in their hearts that Polanski, like Pete, is Gill -Tee!

I know somone who knows Polanski well, and even he said to me he thought it was just plain wrong.

I do think some young women today take their rights for granted, but many others see what advantages they have that their mothers and grandmothers did not. But they do have to deal with the backlash of the movement. It's always a few steps forward and another step back, but the need for equality never stops until there is true equality. And yes, it is still a ways off, but we're getting there.

My view is that many more people are feminists even if they don't categorize themselves as that. Just think of all the rights we didn't have a century ago that we have now. All these changes just in the past century. In my view, if a woman votes - she's a feminist. If a woman gets a divorce - she's a feminist. If a woman gets a college education, works outside the home, uses bith control of any sort, starts a business, gets a loan of any sort, buys a house, if she believes a woman has the right to equitable property or the right to her children after a divorce - yep, she's a feminist.

Of all the women on this board - those who consider themselves feminist and those who don't, we all have more things in common than the things we disagree on. One thing for sure that Betty Crocker and Laurie B. have in common: Ladies you both have terrible troll-dar! I think we can all agree on that.

LOL, true-nuff! I keep thinking people are actually who they say they are. Imagine that? For a New Yorker, that's rather naive, no?

But my Gay-dar is very good!

@Betty: I'm so envious of you to be going (in your case back) to NY. Pardon me for saying so, but you and your DH must be doing well to be able to move TO NYC during this economic "downturn."
Let me guess: you're going to be on the upper West Side? Are you buying or renting? Do tell.

@Bertha: Had you read Monte's comments about how women should not be allowed to vote, you would have understood my caveman reference. But, it appears "Monte" has been cast out. What a loss...boo hoo.

And since you brought it up, "Jolie" was the name of a dear cat....not referring to "Angelina Jolie".

(We definitely need a list of the mean trolls. Thank goodness most of the posters on this site are well-mannered.)

TROLL ALERT...................

Jolie, let's just refer to all of them as Sybil. They are mostly the same person anyway. I think he gets a twisted sense of satisfaction at seeing his names in print. Having others respond is sexually arousing for this poor, impotent creature. ewww.

The word feminist is bandied a lot an awful lot on this blog. I'm not sure if we have the same defintions. Or even remember. I'm not sure how far apart we are on this but I would truly like to know. This could be interesting (civil) discussion before our favorite (we can all agree on that I think) show airs tomorrow night.

p.s. Sybil, take your meds and go to bed. This discussion is for the sane and respectful.

Hi Deep Dish...I'm not sure about "definitions" either. In my life (I'm 66) I've not styled or referred to myself as a feminist, yet I know that I've supported NOW since inception, and all the positions they take - so I guess I am... de facto. NNT makes the point that all women have benefited from the efforts of some women to better the lot of us all... going back to suffrage and beyond.

Laws protecting gays make no sense because no one would know if you're gay or not. It's not like being black. And if someone just suspected you were gay and didn't want to hire you they were just give another reason you didn't get the job.

And also, discrimination in things like housing is not illegal in NY under certain conditions. If you owned a 4 unit apt building and lived there you can choose whoever you want for the other 3 apts.Besides, if people want to discriminate in other housing there are ways to do it because discrimination is hard to prove. Most minorities either have bad or no credit and you can reject them based on that or a lack of references.