How would a U.S. President who views discrimination as a
virtue reshape employment law? That is the main question posed for employment
lawyers who would advise clients during a Trump presidency. While the Trump
campaign has been light on policy specifics, it has promised to deport 11
million unlawful aliens, and bar all Muslims from entering the U.S. The
candidate has insulted women for menstruation, and raised the Ku Klux Klan from
obscurity to mainstream politics. But how, specifically, would these messages
translate into employment policies?
Immigration: If
Trump has a signature policy objective, it is to end illegal immigration
swiftly and completely. However he accomplishes this goal, employers would face
new legal duties and penalties. If Trump proceeded down a “reasonable path”
(one that has legal precedent, even if ill-advised), he would use Arizona as a
model. The Supreme Court, in Chamber of
Commerce of U.S. v. Whiting,[1] upheld a very strict
immigration law that requires all Arizona employers to use the federal
government’s E-Verify system. The U.S., by contrast, makes E-Verify optional to
verify work authorization. This is because E-Verify is not completely reliable.
But that’s just the start to the “reasonable path.” Arizona
applies the death penalty to any business that commits two willful violations
of immigration law by pulling its license (charter) to do business. This
approach is deeply flawed: it over-penalizes employers, and also encourages
employers to discriminate— against Latinos, in particular. President Trump
might take this approach, with the help of Congress or by executive order.
There is another “reasonable path” for President Trump: an executive
order to debar federal contractors—essentially, many large U.S. companies— from
doing business with the U.S. The only thing reasonable about the approach is that
presidents have used executive orders extensively to achieve social policy
objectives in the workplace. But Trump would be swimming against a stream of
Democratic and Republication executive orders that tore down discriminatory
barriers. As I explained in Presidential
Regulation of Private Employment,[2] President Roosevelt used
executive orders to end racial segregation in munitions factories. President
Kennedy initiated the concept of “affirmative action” in Exec. Order No. 10,925.[3]
The order expanded employer duties beyond refraining from discrimination to
promoting “full equality of employment opportunity.” In other words, Trump
might use executive orders in reverse, to remove employer obligations for equal
opportunity.
But Trump has a proclivity for the unreasonable. He relishes
action and boldness, and draws inspiration from Mussolini. So, he could take stronger
action by pushing Congress to enact the employment provisions of Arizona S.B.
1070, a harsh law designed to motivate unlawful immigrants to leave the state.
More dramatically, he could implement S.B. 1070’s employment provisions in an executive
order. The fact that President Obama has made extensive and often questionable use
of executive orders, especially in the immigration field, would provide ample pretext
for this constitutional usurpation.
The Supreme Court struck down the employment provisions of
S.B. 1070 in Arizona v. U.S.[4]
The Court ruled that Arizona could not criminalize
the employment of illegal aliens because this upset the careful balance that
Congress struck in the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). In that 1986 law,
Congress subjected employers and employees to fines when they violate the
verification process, and saved criminal sanctions for repeated or severe violations.
S.B. 1070’s employment provisions were struck down because
they interfered with federal law. However, nothing in Arizona v. U.S. precludes Congress from making employers criminally
liable for immigration lapses. Bad public policy? Yes, because it discourages
businesses from offering jobs by criminalizing the hiring process. Popular with
the growing Trump base? Unfortunately, yes. The solution for employers? Take
more jobs out of the country, and avoid going to jail for hiring the wrong
people.
Trump’s plan to deport 11 million people would create several
million job vacancies, especially in industries tied to agriculture,
construction, hospitality, and health care. To accomplish this goal, President Trump
would need to force employers to uproot these people.
Employers could be required—on pain of a severe penalty—to
reverify the status of every employee, from bottom to top in the organization. And
re-verify again and again, perhaps on a quarterly basis. If there is a discrepancy
between a Social Security number and the person’s name in the Social Security
database, Trump could accomplish his aim with a law that requires employers to
fire everyone with a mismatch.
Yes, you’re fired…
and you, you’re fired… and you, you’re fired, until no unlawful aliens
are employed. Trump knows how to fire people; it comes readily to him; and he
enjoys it.
The difference between firing a celebrity apprentice and a real
employee is that the Social Security database has millions of mismatched
records, where a name and number are not properly matched. This large number is
due to changes in marital names (marriages and divorces separately inject error
into the system). Hyphenated names also create mismatches. Scanning and poor handwriting
also introduce errors—and to Trump’s valid point, so does widespread fraud.
But to boil this down, Trump’s zeal to rid America of
illegal aliens would compel employers to fire many citizens and authorized
aliens, along with people who are not authorized to work. Apart from leaving
firms with gaping holes, these shot-gun terminations would get employers into
nearly certain trouble for firing workers who have an employment contract or a
collective bargaining agreement.
Religious
Discrimination: The San Bernardino massacre occurred at workplace where
a holiday party was in progress. It was a terror attack perpetrated by
supporters of ISIS. But Trump grossly overreacted to the tragedy when he said
he would bar all Muslims from entering the United States.
Let’s slow down his idea and see how it would impact
employers. Many foreign Muslims work in the U.S. lawfully under EB, H-1B,
treaty trader, and other visas. Technology companies likely employ thousands of
Muslims from India, Pakistan and other Asian nations. Muslim health care
workers ranging from exceptionally accomplished physicians to nurses are
employed here on visas. Universities almost certainly employ thousands of
Muslim faculty on visas across a wide spectrum of disciplines.
For perspective, a recent U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services report states that workers from India were granted 82,263 H-1B
“initial employment” visas in FY 2014 (see Characteristics
of H-1B Specialty Occupation Workers[5]).
About 14% of Indians are Muslims, suggesting that the U.S.
granted H-1B visas in 2014 to 11,516 Indian Muslims. Trump’s plan would
categorically bar these workers.
Even pro sports would be affected. Ersan Ilyasova is a power
forward for the Orlando Magic. He’s good, averaging 11 points and 5 rebounds
per game. He is also Turkish and Muslim. The Magic would need to keep him at
home during road trips to Toronto because Trump’s entry-bar would prevent him
from returning to play in the U.S. And the player would not be able to visit
his homeland during the off-season.
Taking Trump literally, if these workers are already in the
U.S., they would be immune from his exclusion order. But employers would be
unable to hire Muslims who are currently abroad. Muslims who are temporarily
out of the U.S.—not necessarily back home, but at an international conference
in Vancouver—would be barred re-entry to the U.S. Many Muslim visa-holders in
the U.S. would feel trapped here by an irrational policy that denies their
re-entry.
There is precedent for this type of prejudice. In the 1870s,
the U.S. was gripped by hatred for Chinese workers who came here in an “Oriental
invasion,” a term used by the Supreme Court in Chae Chan Ping v. U.S.[6]
That ruling sustained the constitutionality of Chinese Exclusion Act. Chae Chan Ping has little negative
authority. It remains good law—probably because no one has bothered to talk
about it since Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. But if
President Trump cited Chae Chan Ping as
authority to bar foreign Muslims from entering the U.S., he would not be wrong.
True to form, however, he would fail to mention that Congress eventually repealed
the law, after lawmakers concluded that exclusion of an entire people was unconscionable
at a time when Hitler’s Germany was implementing its Final Solution.
Race
Discrimination: Donald Trump is not the first public figure to dabble
in Ku Klux Klan politics. Others included Sen. Robert Byrd, Justice Hugo Black,
and to a lesser degree, Harry Truman. Trump has energized “white heritage” voters,
and has given a modicum of respectability to fringe groups that were driven
underground. Given his need to satisfy these voters, it’s not hard to think of
important race discrimination cases that could be reversed by President Trump’s
EEOC.
Under President Reagan, this agency filed a lawsuit against
a small manufacturer on the southwest side of Chicago. From 1979 until 1985, O
& G hired 87 people—but not one African-American. The reason the agency
pulled that case from a large stack of others is that no evidence—other than
statistics—indicated intent to discriminate. The EEOC retained an urban
planning expert, Dr. Pierre DeVise, who concluded that that African–American
availability in the relevant labor market ranged from 22.5% to 31%. The trial
court—finding for the EEOC— said that “the statistical probability using
standard deviation analysis of no black hires during the period 1979 through
1985 was infinitesimal.” In other words, intentional discrimination was legally
inferable from the statistics—a key ruling that has been used in many other
cases to unmask stealthy discrimination. The court ordered damages of $378,000.
E.E.O.C. v. O & G Spring and Wire
Forms Specialty Co.,[7]
is the kind of case that Trump’s EEOC might take down.
Gender
Discrimination: Since Meritor
Savings Bank v. Vinson,[8]
the Supreme Court has deferred to the EEOC’s broad definition of “hostile work
environment.” That decision was authored by Justice William Rehnquist, with no
dissenting opinion. “Hostile work environment” has been interpreted by the EEOC
and courts to prohibit demeaning words used against women. Currently, the EEOC
advises that “it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments
about women in general.” http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm.
More specifically, courts have ruled that “gender specific”
words such as “bitch” and “whore” in the workplace could support a sexual
harassment lawsuit. E.g., Reeves v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide.[9]
The crux of hostile work environment law is not a PC guide of allowable and
prohibited words—it is whether words or behaviors interfere with a woman’s
conditions of employment. With this as background, recall that Trump verbally
attacked a female Fox News reporter by making her the subject of deeply
demeaning “bleeding” insult. While uncommon, situations arise where male
managers ridicule and deny privacy to menstruating women, with resulting
litigation (e.g., Graces v. R & K Spero Co., LLC). [10]
Trump’s verbal abuse of Megyn Kelly does
not translate into a policy as much as it conveys an open disregard for the
civil treatment of women at work.
Prognosis:
President Trump would create new legal headaches for employers. His bully
pulpit would embolden more bullies to express and act on their unlawful
workplace biases. More concretely, he would force employers to choose between
cooperating with his anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim policies and paying heavily
for noncompliance. For the employment law bar, Trump’s election would likely
increase billable hours.
[1]
563 U.S. 582 (2011).
[2] 37
B.C. L. Rev. 229 (1996), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2040&context=bclr.
[3] 26
Fed. Reg. 1977 (1961).
[4]
132 S.Ct. 2492 (2012).
[6]
130 U.S. 581 (1889).
[7] 38
F.3d 872 (7th Cir. 1993).
[8] 477
U.S. 57 (1986).
[9] 594
F.3d 798 (11th Cir. 2012).
[10] 2009
WL 1814510 (Conn. 2009).
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