The Law on Race Discrimination Has Undergone Transformation over the Essay

The Law on Race Discrimination Has Undergone Transformation over the Last 15 Years due to a Number of Significant Issues - Essay Example Thousands of people report cases of workplace discrimination by personal characteristics. Some of them are decisive enough to go to the court. Reasons why anti-discrimination laws appear to be ineffective are numerous and diverse. Basically, contemporary anti-discrimination laws are limited to negative torts against workplace discrimination; as such, they do not promote positive attitudinal changes in private business and do not provide conditions required to protect workers from unlawful discrimination. Discrimination: The current state of law Understanding why discrimination continues to persist is impossible without looking at the current state of anti-discrimination laws in Europe and America. For many years, the developed world had been concerned with the issue of workplace discrimination and possible ways to deal with it. As of today, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States run whole systems of anti-discrimination laws which, nevertheless, do not bring the desired effect. In the United States, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the central component of the country’s anti-discrimination legislation that applies widely across private and public organizations. The discussed law is followed and complemented by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The latter goes beyond the problem of racial discrimination and prohibits discrimination on grounds that are not recognized by the U.S. Constitution (Rutherglen 1995). In the United Kingdom, the Race Relations Act (1975), the Sex Discrimination Act (1975), as well as the Disability Discrimination Act (1975) create the basic trio of laws, followed by numerous amendments that currently govern the issues of workplace discrimination in the country. It should be noted, that the past decade witnessed an unprecedented rise in the number of anti-discrimination amendments passed by the British government (Fredman 2002). Nevertheless, the issue of workplace discrimination remai ns extremely relevant for Britain. Even in light of the Treaty of Rome and the Treaty establishing the European Union, Great Britain and other countries of Europe have been consistently unable to fight discrimination in the workplace. Given the growing extent of globalization and unification within the European Union, it comes as no surprise that the prevailing majority of EU anti-discrimination laws apply to the issue of free movement of migrant workers across EU member-states. According to the European Court of Justice, â€Å"a provision of national law must be regarded as indirectly discriminatory if it is intrinsically liable to affect migrant workers more than national workers and if there is a consequent risk that it will place the former at a particular disadvantage† (Commission v. Greece 1998). As such there is still no consistency in how the issue of discrimination is being managed. The situation in Australia is no better: as of today, Australia’s anti-discrim ination laws include Age Discrimination Act 2004, Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986, Disability Discrimination Act 1975, Racial Discrimination Act 1975, and Sex Discrimination Act 1984. It is no wonder that these laws and numerous amendments create a great deal of confusion and make it difficult for public and, especially, private enterprises to avoid legal complexities and protect their employees from abuse. Discrimination in the workplace: Still an issue? With so many laws governing the issue of work