What Smart Business Owners and Entrepreneurs need to know about EEOC notices
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) just increased the penalty for failing to post the EEOC notice from $545 to $559.
That begs the questions:
What is the EEO notice?
Who has to post it?
Where do you get it?
Federal employment law requires an employer to post a notice describing the Federal laws prohibiting job discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, equal pay, disability or genetic information.
Employers with 15 employees are covered by laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, disability and genetic information (including family medical history). You are also covered by the law that requires employers to provide equal pay for equal work.
The "EEO is the Law" poster, prepared by the EEOC, summarizes these laws and explains how an employee or applicant can file a complaint if she or he believes that she or he has been the victim of discrimination. EEOC's poster is available in English, Arabic, Chinese and Spanish.
These posters should be placed in a conspicuous location in the workplace where notices to applicants and employees are customarily posted. In addition to posting the poster, employers are encouraged to post the electronic notice on their internal websites in a conspicuous location. In most cases, electronic posting supplements physical posting but does not itself fulfill the employer's basic obligation to physically post the required information in its workplaces. In some situations (e.g., for employees who telework and do not visit the employer's workplace on a regular basis), it may be required in addition to physical posting. The notices must be accessible by disabled employees as well.
Although you have probably been bombarded with offers to buy these notices for hundreds of dollars, you can download them here in English and here in Spanish.
You can order free NC posters here.
