Whether it may be in an open or silent fashion, it is a legal issue that must be corrected. .
All business owners strive to own a profitable business with a positive operating cash flow. Their primary object in achieving this goal is minimizing costs in all departments or areas of their company. Often they will choose to switch telephone companies, lower expense budgets, buy cheaper office supplies, etc. A serious business owner trying to accomplish this goal will carefully reflect on all decisions. One slight overview can burden their goal. .
A decision that can burden their goal is exercising unethical hiring practices. Most unethical hiring practices occur when a company decides to hire an employee based on his or her race, color, religion, appearance, sex or national origin. While companies view hiring as a decision that can be made to benefit their company, they are forgetting that certain polices and laws apply when making these decisions.
A recent article published in 1999, "The Devil Is In Discrimination" by Sal F. Marino, provides its readers with results on the most popular complaints that are reported to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Marino states that race discrimination is the most reported discrimination complaint that is filed with the EEOC (1). In 1998, the EEOC received 28,820 race discrimination complaints alone (1). Companies who were a victim of these race discrimination cases have learned an expensive lesson. $169.2 million dollars was paid out in 1998 for those who filed a race discrimination complaint (2). .
How can choosing an employee based on race benefit a company? "Usually whites are a little bit more focused, a little friendlier, and the ones I've had here probably a little more dependable. Blacks probably overall make better workers. They"re faster, they have more dexterity", stated an Atlanta fast food restaurant owner in the book Stories Employers Tell by Phillip Moss and Chris Tilly (85).