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Scuba

(53,475 posts)
Sat Nov 16, 2013, 08:43 AM Nov 2013

Wisconsin's 30 Year Experience with ENDA Proves Boehner's Claims are Frivolous

http://www.uppitywis.org/blogarticle/wisconsins-30-year-experience-enda-proves-boehners-claims-are-fr


The U.S. Senate recently passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would make discrimination based on sexual orientation illegal, but Speaker John Boehner has signaled that it won't pass the U.S. House, claiming that such a law would “increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs.” One need only look to Wisconsin, a state that outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1982, when it was signed into law by Republican governor Lee Dreyfus, to see that Boehner's claim is absurd.

According to figures provided by the Labor Standards Bureau at the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, the average number of sexual orientation employment discrimination cases filed is only 61 per year. Considering Wisconsin has 2.9 million jobs, that comes out to a 1 in 48,000 chance of an employee filing a claim for sexual orientation discrimination in any given year. Those are struck-by-lightening-rare odds. In fact, a Wisconsin business owner has a 16 times greater chance of getting struck by lightning at some point in their life than any given employee, in any given year, charging them with sexual orientation discrimination.

Considering that the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act (WFEA) applies to all employers, regardless of size, while ENDA exempts employers with 15 or fewer employees—nearly 90% of small business owners—it is clear that the chances of being affected by the national law will be considerably smaller than in Wisconsin.

In other words, the odds of ENDA affecting any given small business owner is about the same as getting struck by lightening while simultaneously being struck by a 1967 pink Cadillac, which swerved to avoid hitting a flying squirrel. Plus, there's a huge bonus: In almost all cases this will not be left up to chance-- an employer can avoid facing litigation by treating their employees fairly.
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