It is illegal for employers to discriminate against employees (“Colorado Employment Disputes and Discrimination Attorneys”). Colorado Employment discrimination can happen in the employing, promotion, firing, or other facets of employment. It can be based on an individual’s race, gender, national origin, religion, disability or age. Federal and state laws forbid employers from discriminating against employees and expect employers to uphold an office that is liberated from discrimination.
Colorado’s Protected Classes
In every state in the U.S., federal law illegalizes discrimination based on the following:
- Race
- Color
- National origin
- Religion
- Sex—as well as pregnancy, childbirth, and associated medical conditions
- Disability
- Age—at least forty years old
- Citizenship standing
- Genetic data
Additionally, Colorado Employment Discrimination state law also forbids based on the following:
- Race
- Color
- National origin
- Religion
- Sex—as well as pregnancy, childbirth, and associated medical conditions
- Physical, mental, or learning disability
- Age—at least forty years old
- Sexual orientation—as well as alleged sexual orientation
- AIDS/HIV
- Legal behavior outside of work
- Mental disease
- Transgender standing
- Marital standing: Employers with over twenty-five employees might not dismiss or decline to employ a person because he or she is married or intends to marry a co-worker, or become involved in a civil union with a co-worker. This safeguard is irrelevant if one employee would supervise or assess the other, or one possesses access to private data.
How Many Employees Must a Colorado Company Have to be Dependent on Antidiscrimination Laws?
Under federal law, companies with at least fifteen employees are protected by Title VII, the main law forbidding employment discrimination, the Americans with Disabilities Act, which bans discrimination the grounds of disability, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, bans discrimination based on genetic data. Companies with at least twenty employees are dependent on the Age Discrimination Employment Act (ADEA), the federal law that bans discrimination against employees who are at least forty years old. Companies with at least four employees must obey the employment discrimination stipulations of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which bans discrimination on the grounds of citizenship standing. Every company of any size must equally pay men and women for performing identical work, by benefit of the Equal Pay Act.
In Colorado, companies with at least one employee are dependent on the state’s antidiscrimination law—except, as mentioned above, for the ban on discriminating against married employees or those in a civil union.
Suing for Employment Discrimination in Colorado
To succeed in an employment discrimination claim, the employee has the duty to establish that the reason he or she was dismissed, not employed, not promoted, or if not under duress was particularly due to his or her safeguarded classification. This basically indicates that the employee was discriminated against because of race, national origin, gender, religion, disability, or age.
Filing a Discrimination Claim in Colorado
A discrimination claim can be filed either with the Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD) or the federal administrative agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (“Filing a Discrimination Claim—Colorado”). The two agencies have what is termed a “work-sharing agreement,” which indicates that the agencies merge with each other to handle claims. Filing a claim with both agencies is pointless, providing you specify to one of the agencies that you wish it to “cross-file” the claim with the other agency.
The Colorado anti-discrimination statute protects employers of any size. Thus, if your office has between one and fourteen employees, you must file with the CCRD, as the EEOC imposes federal law which protects just employers with at least fifteen employees—twenty in an age discrimination case. A few Colorado lawyers suggest that you file with the CCRD initially for every kind of discrimination claim, because of the expediency of having numerous CCRD offices in the state and the CCRD’s capacity to advance more promptly with investigations.
You might also want to ask your city or county to find out if you reside and/or work in a city or county with a local anti-discrimination law, or “ordinance.” A few Colorado cities and counties—as well as Aspen, Denver, and Boulder—have agencies that handle claims under local ordinances and could help you. Unlike federal or state law, these ordinances also include discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. These agencies are frequently indentified as the “Human Rights Commission,” “Human Relations Commission,” or the “Civil Rights Commission.”
