Oklahoma employees will now have more information about their rights and protections under Oklahoma’s Employment Discrimination Law. The Office of Civil Rights Enforcement (OCRE) has updated the state Employment Discrimination posting to include additional details about what constitutes (1) unlawful discrimination in employment, (2) unlawful harassment and (3) unlawful retaliation.
Unlawful Discrimination in Employment
The discrimination section identifies the classes protected from employment discrimination and describes actions, terms or conditions of employment that discrimination may impact. In addition, the protection from discrimination based on sex has been revised to expressly include pregnancy.
Unlawful Harassment
The harassment section explains that harassment based on any protected class is unlawful. Sexual harassment is now featured and is described to include requests for sexual favors in exchange for certain employment actions, and adverse employment actions for rejecting a request for sexual favors.
Unlawful Retaliation
The retaliation section advises that individuals are protected from adverse employment actions for opposing discriminatory activities or participating in the complaint process.
The notice also clarifies that filing a complaint with the OCRE is a perquisite to filing suit in court, but doing so does not conflict with any other rights an employee has. OCRE Complaint and contact information is also available.
Employers can update with the Oklahoma Discrimination in Employment All-On-One Peel ‘N Post™ or the revised Oklahoma All-On-One Labor Law Poster.