"You fired me because I complained!"
That's the essence of "retaliation", one of the more common claims employees file against employers. In fact, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that retaliation filings have grown every year for the last eight.
California and Federal laws protect employees who complain about lots of things:
• Working conditions, unfair workplace rules, difficult supervisors.
• Workplace practices they believe to be illegal, sometimes even when they're not.
• Discrimination and harassment, real or perceived.
• Any violation of well-established laws designed to protect employees or the public.
The complaint may be made directly to a manager or posted on Facebook, but if the employee is fired, demoted or otherwise affected as a result, he or she may have a claim for damages.
And as you might suspect, California is one of the riskiest states for employee lawsuits.
The average U.S. business with 10 or more employees has about a 12.5 percent chance of being hit with an employee claim. But in California it's almost 18 percent, according to one insurance industry source.
Even without evidence of an underlying violation, if the employee reasonably and honestly believed that a violation existed, she may be protected.
If the employee can show that he or she was terminated for complaining about or opposing an unlawful practice, that employee could win a lawsuit for retaliation. A judgment can include lost wages, pain and suffering and even punitive damages. Defense alone runs in the tens of thousands of dollars in the smallest cases.
And employees know this, especially (of course) the ones who like to complain. That means that the employee most likely to attract negative attention, the ones you see as having a "bad attitude", may also present the greatest risk on termination.
While these situations can be challenging, there are strategies to minimize risk.
• First, make sure your policies (and your workplace culture) permit and even encourage complaints. Make sure employees know they can come to someone in authority with a perceived problem and have it addressed fairly, without fear of retaliation. What you don't know now will surely bite you later.
• Second, make sure all managers are trained to accept complaints respectfully, with an open mind. When an employee feels her concern is taken seriously, she is more likely to accept the result, even if nothing will change.
• Be sure actual retaliation is not tolerated at any level. Be sensitive to how a personnel decision will be perceived by the employee who has raised an issue, particularly in the recent past.
Sometimes an employee has already become the subject of termination discussions when he or she first raises a complaint. Whether it's self-protection, finger-pointing or just coincidence doesn't matter.
You'll want to be sure the termination is supported by solid documentation, and you'll probably want legal advice before you proceed.
Lou Storrow can be reached at 760-929-9141.
That's the essence of "retaliation", one of the more common claims employees file against employers. In fact, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that retaliation filings have grown every year for the last eight.
California and Federal laws protect employees who complain about lots of things:
• Working conditions, unfair workplace rules, difficult supervisors.
• Workplace practices they believe to be illegal, sometimes even when they're not.
• Discrimination and harassment, real or perceived.
• Any violation of well-established laws designed to protect employees or the public.
The complaint may be made directly to a manager or posted on Facebook, but if the employee is fired, demoted or otherwise affected as a result, he or she may have a claim for damages.
And as you might suspect, California is one of the riskiest states for employee lawsuits.
The average U.S. business with 10 or more employees has about a 12.5 percent chance of being hit with an employee claim. But in California it's almost 18 percent, according to one insurance industry source.
Even without evidence of an underlying violation, if the employee reasonably and honestly believed that a violation existed, she may be protected.
If the employee can show that he or she was terminated for complaining about or opposing an unlawful practice, that employee could win a lawsuit for retaliation. A judgment can include lost wages, pain and suffering and even punitive damages. Defense alone runs in the tens of thousands of dollars in the smallest cases.
And employees know this, especially (of course) the ones who like to complain. That means that the employee most likely to attract negative attention, the ones you see as having a "bad attitude", may also present the greatest risk on termination.
While these situations can be challenging, there are strategies to minimize risk.
• First, make sure your policies (and your workplace culture) permit and even encourage complaints. Make sure employees know they can come to someone in authority with a perceived problem and have it addressed fairly, without fear of retaliation. What you don't know now will surely bite you later.
• Second, make sure all managers are trained to accept complaints respectfully, with an open mind. When an employee feels her concern is taken seriously, she is more likely to accept the result, even if nothing will change.
• Be sure actual retaliation is not tolerated at any level. Be sensitive to how a personnel decision will be perceived by the employee who has raised an issue, particularly in the recent past.
Sometimes an employee has already become the subject of termination discussions when he or she first raises a complaint. Whether it's self-protection, finger-pointing or just coincidence doesn't matter.
You'll want to be sure the termination is supported by solid documentation, and you'll probably want legal advice before you proceed.
Lou Storrow can be reached at 760-929-9141.