Although workplace diversity seems to be making progress in many of the nation’s employers, current statistics compiled by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) indicate that workplace discrimination is on the rise. However, as is usually the case with many violations of the law, there are more actual occurrences than reported occurrences.

In some situations an employee who feels that he has been discriminated against might endure, rather than report, the incidences of discrimination because he is unfamiliar with the procedures for filing workplace discrimination claims, or he may not fully understand the actual anti-discrimination laws.

While state and local anti discrimination laws may vary, there are several federal laws that prohibit employment discrimination that apply to all state and local government employers and to private employers with 15 or more employees. On the federal level, complaints of employment discrimination are handled by the EEOC. Here are some of the key bits of information that any employee who feels he or she has been a victim of discrimination should know:

• Any individual who believes he has been discriminated against or that his or her employment rights have been violated may file a charge of discrimination. To protect the discrimination victim’s identity, an organization, individual or agency may file a discrimination claim on that person’s behalf.
  
  
  
• When filing a discrimination claim with the EEOC, aggrieved individuals must provide the EEOC with the following information:
  
  
  1. The date(s) the discrimination occurred and a description of each separate discriminatory action occurred, and

  2. The names, addresses, telephone numbers of both the victim of the discrimination and the organization that is alleged to have discriminated as well as the number of employees in the organization

The EEOC has strict time limits under which employment discrimination charges must be filed. If a victim of discrimination does not adhere to these time limits, she may not be able to receive any redress for the alleged discrimination, and her efforts to file a private lawsuit against the organization liable for the alleged discriminatory act may be thrown out. A good rule of thumb when discrimination is suspected is to contact the EEOC promptly so that the victim’s legal rights will be protected. The time limits within which charges must be filed are as follows:

• Any discrimination charge must be filed with EEOC within 180 days from the date of the alleged violation; failure to do so will risk the redress rights of the victim of the alleged discrimination.
  

• The 180-day filing deadline can be extended to 300 days if the charge also is covered by a state or local anti-discrimination law.

Though most employment discrimination claims are bound by these time limits, claims made under the Equal Pay Act are not subject to these limits. Find out more about Equal Pay Act discrimination claims, click here.

This basic overview of the initial steps to filing an initial employment discrimination claim should be enough to get the ball rolling on any employment discrimination claim. It is important that any victim of employment discrimination understand that they should exhaust all company remedies before filing a complaint with the EEOC, and that they may not be able to file a private lawsuit against the offending company without filing an EEOC complaint first. For a complete description of how to file an employment discrimination claim, it is best to visit the EEOC’s website.