Every worker in the United States deserves to work in an environment that is free from harassment and discrimination. In fact, workers are protected by powerful anti-discrimination laws.
Unfortunately, these laws do not always prevent employers from treating employees unfairly.
California law provides protection against workplace discrimination of various kinds. Protected classes include race, gender, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and military or veteran status. Another major protected class, and the subject of this blog post, is religion. This blog post will describe the prohibition against religious discrimination in a little more detail.
Under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, California employers may not discriminate against employees, unpaid interns and job applicants on the basis of religion. Employers are prohibited from discriminating in hiring, assignments, promotions, or termination. They may not use religious discrimination to affect any term, condition or privilege of employment. Unions and employment agencies also may not discriminate on the basis of religion.
Expecting a child should be a time of joy. However, most families are can’t afford for the expecting mother to stop working until after the child is born and rely on one income for months. The need for steady income is why many women work as long as they are physically able to before their child is born.
While employers are legally bound to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant women, these accommodations aren’t always made.
One of the most disheartening things about sexual harassment is the fact that many perpetrators seem to face few consequences. For example, there have been many reports from the tech industry of alleged perpetrators continuing to advance in their careers while their alleged victims feel unsafe at work and eventually leave the industry.
This may be changing. Recently, one executive left his job at California job website company ZipRecruiter after media reports surfaced of his alleged conduct while working for a previous employer. While the man was employed at ride-hailing provider Uber, the reports said he allegedly grabbed a female subordinate's hair and groped her at a holiday party. The man was reportedly terminated shortly thereafter but was soon hired by another tech industry company and was working at a third company in an executive role when the story broke.
Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), eligible employees can take extended, unpaid time off for a variety of family and health-related reasons:
Life happens, and sometime unforeseen events can get in the way of your career. Often, the most challenging part about taking time away from work is the specter of losing your health care or not having a job to return to.
The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is a federal labor law which requires certain employers to provide employees job-protected unpaid leave while still providing health insurance during certain life events.
When an employer and employee sign an employment contract, the terms of employment must follow the terms of the employment contract. If the employer terminates the employee contrary to the terms of the contract, the employee may be able to sue the employer for wrongful termination.
But what if the employer and employee have not signed a contract? Usually in this case, the employment relationship is governed by the employment-at-will rule. This rule gives broad discretion to each party to terminate the employment relationship. Employers can discharge employees for any reason not specifically prohibited by law under California's employment-at-will rule.
Exposing discrimination in the workplace takes courage. It is not easy to finally make that move, after you have suspected it and witnessed it more than once. You should feel proud of yourself for speaking out. However, once you have contacted authorities, and made either formal or informal complaints, now what?
Many employees fear speaking out, and the anticipated drawbacks of doing so. Understandably, it is not easy to call attention to a situation when you are still employed for that business or company.
Sexual harassment has been in the news lately since the rise of the #MeToo movement about a year and a half ago. Many people, including men and women, have been the target of sexual harassment. Everyone has heard the awful stories, but what exactly is the legal definition of sexual harassment? This blog post will delve into this question in a little more detail.
According to the federal government, sexual harassment can take the form of unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other physical or verbal conduct of a sexual nature. Courts have ruled that not every instance of these behaviors is sexual harassment. If the victim's response to the behavior affects their employment, if the behavior unreasonably interferes with the victim's work performance or if the behavior creates a hostile or offensive work environment, the federal government says that sexual harassment may exist.
California employers have broad discretion to fire employees under the employment-at-will rule. Still, if an employer discharges an employee for a reason that is specifically prohibited, the employee may have a wrongful termination case against the employer. One specifically prohibited reason is retaliation for filing a whistleblower claim.
We discussed an alleged whistleblower retaliation case not long ago. The case involves an auto executive at a California car manufacturer. The executive claimed he was terminated because he blew the whistle on unsafe working conditions and improper handling of worker injuries. The car manufacturer, on the other hand, claimed that the executive was fired for unrelated reasons. The manufacturer claimed that the executive had inappropriate interactions with other employees.
