Wrongful Termination
While an employer can easily terminate an employee in an at-will employment relationship, there are some circumstances when a termination for an improper reason can give rise to a legal claim against the employer for wrongful termination. Examples of wrongful termination include terminating an employee for discriminatory reasons based on age, race or gender. Other types of wrongful termination include terminating an employee for refusing to engage in unethical or illegal behavior or terminating an employee because of complaints the employer is engaged in improper activities, such as not providing meal and rest breaks or paying overtime. Discrimination, harassment, and retaliation are explained in more detail below.
Discrimination & Harassment
Workplace discrimination can occur under a range of categories in accordance with employment law; however, there are some discriminatory acts that are not legally actionable or do not fall under outlined protected categories. Protected categories include racial discrimination, age discrimination, religious discrimination, disability discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, gender discrimination, and discrimination based on national origin.
The law provides strong protection for everyone against discrimination based on these and other categories; however, proving job discrimination can be difficult. A company’s refusal to hire a person based on certain physical characteristics, or discretion used in their decision to promote one employee over another may not constitute the type of discrimination that warrants legal protection.
Work related age discrimination also typically does not pertain to cases in which an employee is not hired because they are too young. Taking legal action to protect one’s rights against job discrimination can be a complicated matter. In some instances, in which habitual or widespread discriminatory practices within a company are alleged, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) may choose to initiate their own investigation to find out if there is sufficient evidence to support allegations of discrimination. Items taken into consideration for proving or disproving discrimination in the workplace may include statistics, disparate treatment, or whether one’s policies unnecessarily exclude certain groups from qualifying for a position.
Retaliation
Retaliation in the workplace is growing at a record pace. Reports of workplace retaliation have grown to be greater in number than race discrimination claims. Unlawful retaliation includes employees being demoted or fired, or denied promotions as a result of raising concerns about unlawful or unethical behavior such as race, gender and other discriminatory practices. Retaliation can include any negative action taken by an employer for an employee engaging in legally protective conduct, like reporting illegal activity by the employer. Some of these negative actions may be subtle. The circumstances of the employee has to be taken in to consideration, but as long as the negative activity would influence a reasonable person from making a complaint, the activity constitutes retaliation.