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What is Equal Employment Opportunity?

Equal employment opportunity (EEO) means that everyone should have fair and equitable access to jobs, employment conditions, training and promotional opportunities. It does not assume that everyone has the same abilities but aims to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to demonstrate their abilities, to use them, improve them and benefit from them.

EEO is consistent with the principle of merit. It means that the best person is chosen for the job, promotion or training opportunity and that they are selected only on criteria which are relevant.

What is Affirmative Action?

Affirmative action strategies are put in place to provide special help for groups who have been disadvantaged in the past. For example an employer may run special training or recruitment programs for groups such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, women, people with disabilities or people of non English speaking background. Such programs help to give these groups (sometimes referred to as target groups) skills and confidence to allow them to compete on equal terms with everyone else.

What can an employee do about harassment or discrimination?

People who are harassed or discriminated against have a legal right to complain to the Anti-Discrimination Board if they can't solve the problem within the workplace and/or don't trust the workplace to solve it.

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How can the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board help?

If the harassment appears to be against the law, the Board will first investigate it confidentially and impartially. This will be achieved by listening to what everyone has to say to see if what has been complained about appears to:

• have happened; and,
• be against the law.

If an investigation reveals that the law may have been broken, the Board will try to conciliate the complaint. This means trying to help the person who made the complaint and the employer reach a private and confidential settlement.

Depending upon the circumstances, settlement could be one or more of the following:

• financial compensation
• appropriate action taken against the harasser/s
• the development of appropriate anti-harassment procedures and policies
• management and/or staff training programs to help ensure that the same thing doesn't happen again.

What happens if conciliation fails?

If the complaint can't be settled privately with the help of the Anti -Discrimination Board, the person who complained may choose to go to the Equal Opportunity Tribunal of NSW. The Tribunal is a court. It provides legal judgement that must be followed. If a complaint goes to the Tribunal it will usually become public. This means the media will be able to report it. Those involved in cases before the Tribunal will generally be responsible for meeting the cost of their own legal representation and may have to pay the legal costs of the other person as well.

Other legal avenues available include:

• state or federal industrial commissions where the person being harassed has been forced to resign because of the harassment in the context of an unfair dismissal;
• occupational health and safety laws which provide that it is the employer's responsibility to ensure that all employees work in a safe environment;
• criminal law if the harassment amounts to assault;
• defamation or other laws to take a private action.

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Where to get more information

The Anti-Discrimination Board of NSW
Level 17, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Telephone: (02) 9268 5544
Toll free: 1800 670 812

Newcastle Office:
Level 1, 414 Hunter Street
NEWCASTLE WEST 2302
Telephone: (02) 4926 4300

Wollongong Office:
84 Crown Street
WOLLONGONG NSW 2500
Telephone: (02) 4224 9960

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC)
Level 8 Picadilly Tower
133 Castlereagh Street
(PO Box 5218 Sydney 1042)
SYDNEY NSW 2000
Telephone: (02) 9284 9600
Complaints infoline: 1300 656 419