Retaliation in the Workplace
Your employer may not retaliate against you for complaining about discrimination, harassment, or other violations of your rights in the workplace. The law also protects from retaliation employees who participate in investigations into their employer’s alleged discrimination, harassment, or other unlawful actions.
Your employer violates the law if it negatively or adversely impacts your employment as a result of your registering a complaint even if your complaint ends up being unfounded. As long as you have a genuine and reasonable basis for believing your complaint is legitimate, your employer may not retaliate against you for voicing your complaint.
Examples of retaliatory conduct include, but are not limited to:
- Discipline
- Written and/or Verbal Warnings
- Negative Evaluations
- Demotion
- Salary Reduction
- Changes in Hours, Job Duties, and/or Job Assignment
- Termination
- Hostility
A few examples of possible retaliation include, but are not limited to:
- You complain to your employer’s Human Resources department about sexual harassment. Shortly thereafter, your employer issues you a written warning based on poor performance despite the fact that you always received positive performance reviews prior to your complaint.
- You are interviewed by your employer’s Human Resources representative during the course of an investigation into another employee’s complaint of race discrimination. The next week your employer terminates you after learning that you confirmed some of the employee’s allegations.
The law encourages employees to come forward when they believe their employment rights are being violated by making it illegal for your employer to punish you for voicing your concerns.
Call Sidney L. Gold & Associates, P.C., today for a free assessment of your retaliation claim.
