“Privilege is when you contribute to the oppression of others and then claim that you are the one being discriminated against.”
— DaShanne Stokes
The Labor Laws in the Philippines give emphasis to equal opportunity, fairness, and inclusivity. Discriminatory practices & biases based on age, gender, disability, health status, or other protected categories is prohibited. Employees have legal avenues to seek redress if they experience such treatment.
Anti-discrimination laws are highlighted in the Labor Code of the Philippines. Employees have the right to a just & humane working environment. It prohibits discrimination or biases in terms of employment conditions & any form of opportunities.
Republic Act No. 10911 (Anti-Age Discrimination in Employment Act) prohibits discrimination based on age in hiring, promotion, training, and other employment practices. Employers must evaluate workers based on skills, qualifications, and merit, not age or looks.
Republic Act No. 7277 (Magna Carta for Disabled Persons) meantime ensures equal employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. It prohibits having limited chances in hiring, compensation, and career advancement.
Republic Act No. 9710 (Magna Carta of Women) protects women against discrimination in employment. It mandates equal pay for work of equal value and safeguards maternity rights.
These are some of the more known laws that attempt to prevent any form of unfair disadvantage both for job seekers or employees.
Through the years, some companies have also evolved into setting up remedies & preventive measure as part of the company policy & procedures. Employees have been highly encouraged to raise issues related to unfair treatment through company grievance mechanisms.
Employees can also file complaints with Department of Labor & Employment (DOLE) for investigation and mediation. At times, such can also be escalated to National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) cases for adjudication if complaint is unresolved or unsatisfactorily addressed.
However, while most modern workplaces like to brand themselves as rational and meritocratic and be tagged as “Best Place to Work”, being compliant to labor laws & internal procedures, is not a guarantee that there is no unfair treatment. There could still be some degree of discrimination, unwittingly happening, worst, sometimes perpetuated by hiring managers & immediate supervisors, either during selection process and in the workplace itself.
While policies showcase diversity, decision makers may show alignment by being visible during learning sessions on how to act against biases & discriminatory practices. In reality, sometimes it cannot be helped. Even companies with great culture, history & values, because are led by individual leaders, coming from different walks of life with differing outlooks in life. Because of this, discrimination will happen either blatantly or implicitly.
Blatant discrimination, is overt and intentional. It occurs when someone is treated unfairly explicitly because of race, gender, age, religion, disability, or sexual orientation. Refusing to hire someone because of their sexual orientation or ethnicity is an uncomfortable situation to address. Paying employees differently for the same role based solely on gender or recommendation is very unethical.
Blatant discrimination do our violate laws. As the intent is clear, the harm is more visible & felt. Practices such as open preferences for a certain gender, or alumni from a certain educational institution, academic degree or work experience, a certain height or even specific religion etc. Only through the combination of laws, practices, company procedures & training plus the consistent adherence & example set by leaders can carry a lot of weight.
Meantime, another form of discrimination is unconscious bias. It refers to the automatic judgments and stereotypes people carry without realizing it.
In the workplace, there is the perception is women are more reliable, more meticulous & detail oriented while men, though “all weather” are better off in jobs that require constant generalizations. This somehow impacts promotion chances of men if job requires patience, diligence & attention to detail.
Aging are slow, single managers are moody & tend to be boring, while male bosses are happy go lucky and supervisors nearing their not only slow, but quite quick to turn grumpy. Married female employees much more single parents, cannot give their 100% and are prone for absenteeism & sick leave due to their huge responsibilities & obligations that they are burdened with solo. This impacts chances of being selected for a coveted role.
Filipino workers noisy and not serious enough while others silently tag them as being “low level”.
Such unconscious biases might have been brought about by culture, upbringing, social media and life experiences that can influence decisions like promotion, re assignment, etc. Culture fit, being too aggressive or being nonchalant, cannot be scientifically measured to the point of accurate characterization, research show mental short cuts are deeply embedded when making a conclusion.
Hiring managers, including me, though I consciously value fairness, may have unknowingly favored certain candidates in hiring, promotions, or performance evaluations at one time or another.
Unconscious bias often shows up subtly. I once kept interrupting a colleague of certain nationality during meetings. Not realizing that I was already intrusive because I had this unconsciously, I was trying to help because my bias was that their nationality is known to have difficulty in speaking & comprehending English. There is difficulty in articulating with clarity. Turns out my constant interjections might have caused the disconnect more than my unconscious bias.
As a recruiter, there might have been a time that I have gravitated toward candidates from familiar schools, from a particular ethnic group or worked with a company. At times, as a supervisor, I might have assumed that a married employee is less committed to a progressive career.
Though my actions in my early career did not stem from malice, regrettably, the cumulative impact might have significantly denied opportunities or affected career progression of some.
Through the years, though difficult to address and handle, I realized that blatant discrimination can be prevented as it can be easily detected and is out in the open. What requires greater effort is unconscious bias.
Because many workplace decisions are subjective such as performance appraisals/reviews, promotion assessments and evaluations are influenced by perception. When a pattern emerges, as an HR person, the question that should always be answered is it unconscious bias at work, or something more deliberate because intent does not erase impact.
For the employee experiencing stalled progression or being excluded, the distinction between unconscious bias and blatant discrimination may feel irrelevant but the career consequences are real at any instance.
Companies should not only address individual prejudice yet overlook systemic patterns. If what is practiced is consistently a disadvantage to certain groups such as informal promotion processes that rely on strong endorsements from senior leaders, or supervisors who tend to mentor only those that are similar to themselves, it is a bigger problem. Failing to correct such moves the problem to intentional neglect which is a form of discrimination at the least.
Legally, intent can determine liability. Ethically, however, both unconscious bias and blatant discrimination undermine fairness and morale. Understanding the distinction matters not to excuse behavior, but to tailor solutions.
Unconscious bias calls for awareness training, structured decision-making processes, standardized evaluation criteria or audit checks while blatant discrimination requires clear disciplinary action, policy enforcement, and sometimes legal intervention.
Minimizing harm by accepting it is happening, unintentional or intended. Leaders must be willing to question their own assumptions, look at patterns & not dismiss these as isolated incidents because ultimately, the thin line between unconscious bias and blatant discrimination is crossed when organizations ignore it.
Truth of the matter is, unconscious bias and blatant discrimination, though far between in terms of visibility and perception, they carry the same consequences
In the pursuit of a fair workplace, though intent matters, outcome matter more. HR being always caught in the middle, as an added responsibility, must navigate through such difficult situation, with the hope that we do not end up either justifying such unconscious biases or simply accept discriminatory practices as unintentional.
The thin line between unconscious bias & blatant discrimination in the workplace is actually you and how you handle it.
GOOD MORNING HARDWORKING PEOPLE!
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