The federal law and the various federal laws that govern employment practices.Title VII which covers discrimination and retaliation claims in the workplace. Based on national origin religion gender which includes sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination. The employer must have 15 or more employees in a twenty week calendar period to be subject to Title VII claims.
The Americans with Disabilities Act similarly to Title VII requires an employer to have 15 or more employees in a 20 week calendar period and the Americans with Disabilities Act, protects employees based on claims of discrimination based on disability, failure to accommodate based on disability and also retaliation claims based on disability.
Another federal law, Age Discrimination Act which is called ADEA the employer must have 20 or more employees in a year to be able to be subjected to the age discrimination law under federal law.
Race claims under federal law do not provide for a minimum number of employees section 1981 governs race claims. If an employee complains of race discrimination you could have as a business one employee on your payroll and you would be subject and possibly liable for race discrimination under Section 1981.
The various local and state laws that govern our similar workplace practices. The Ohio human rights law protects employees.
Employers are governed by Ohio state and Columbus city human rights law who have four or more employees and the protections by both state and city human rights law, are discrimination based on race religion gender disability national origin. And the City human rights law also protects sexual orientation discrimination which is not yet covered under federal law.
Wage and hour claims which are claims by employees based on failure to pay proper wages or overtime employers, are governed by those laws federal and state Ohio labor law. And there is no minimum requirement for the number of employees.
Those are the various laws and as a business you need to know the number of employees you employ you may be subject to liability based on those various laws.