At Will Employment Sparks Wrongful Termination

At will employment policy works in almost all states in the country. As defined, it is the privilege given to employers to lay-off, to discharge, or to terminate their employees for any reason at any time, provided that the reason is not discriminatory, retaliatory, or illegal. Also, such policy gives employees the right to leave the company for any reason at any time.

Lawyers for wrongful termination must be consulted in the event that you feel you were terminated wrongfully. The following are the acts in which wrongful termination can be considered.

Discrimination. It is stated in the federal law that it is unlawful for employers to fire an employee because of his or her gender, disability, race, color, age, ethnic group, or national origin. Additionally, the federal law also calls it illegal for employers to terminate an employee because of her pregnancy-related medical condition.

Alien Status. An employer has to know that as long as the employee is lawfully qualified for employment within a state, he or she is not allowed to fire that employee only on the basis of citizenship status. Also, the federal law Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) bars employers from terminating employees on the basis of such status.

Retaliation. It is unlawful for employers to fire employees for affirming their rights under federal or state anti-discrimination laws. Moreover, an employee has a strong claim if and when an employer fires him or her because the latter opts to cooperate and participate in the investigation of an alleged wrongful conduct done within the workplace.

OSHA Violations Complaints. Employers are not allowed to terminate employees because they complained about the employer’s violation of the Occupation Safety and Health Act (OSHA). Such complaints are generally made about an employer who does not abide with the standards of the state or federal health.

Violations of Public Policy. The following are considered as violations of public policy.

a) Terminating an employee because he or she refused to do an illicit act that was ordered of him or her by a person of authority, or someone in a high-ranking position within the company.

b) Terminating an employee because he or she complained about his or her employer’s unlawful conducts. It may constitute firing an employee that made a complaint to the federal government about a particular illegal act. Such laws are called whistleblower statutes.

c) Terminating an employee because he or she makes use of his or her legal right. The most common is taking family leave.

Category: Employment Law /

Stop Harassment With Employment or Labor Lawyers

The federal civil rights act has laws to protect workers from being harassed by their boss, coworker or customers of the business that they are employed at. These federal laws also afford protection to people of different race and religion or sex. Harassment still exists even now and is far from over but you do have the ability to fight back with every legal means that is necessary. You have every right to work in a safe work environment unencumbered from harassment. If you are having issues and you have tried to solve the problem by reporting the harassment and nothing has been done to correct the situation, then you need to check on different employment lawyers to rectify the injustices that you are enduring. These types of claims are enforced by the employment discrimination laws. You will need to look at all of your local employment law lawyers and see which attorney that offers a free consultation. If you have a copy of the complaint that you made you should take this with you when you meet with your list of employment lawyers.

Harassment comes in many forms such as verbally with slurs, physical as in unwarranted touching and visual acts like drawing slang words or demeaning pictures. These types of things are what are considered to be a hostile working environment. Examples of harassment:

• Fear tactics
• Offensive or sexually explicit jokes
• Intimidation by threatening
• Name calling or racial remarks
• Explicit pictures

The above examples are not a complete list of the many types of harassment at your place of employment, if you have questions you will need to contact employment lawyers and they can shed light on what you need to do. If you are in a continuous pattern of harassment you will need to keep documentation on each individual occurrence. This will help your lawyer to prove that you are working in an unsafe or hostile work place.

It is your employer’s duty to make your work environment a healthy and safe work environment. This is the reasoning behind the many work force classes and evaluations. Once you have your claim in place your employer is required to investigate your claim and find a way to cease the harassment. If there has been no repercussion and the harassment is still going on your employment and labor law lawyers will step in and take your claim to the next level.

Category: Employment Law /

Employment Law Help With the Use of Social Media

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube are only some of the social networking sites that link millions of people across the world every day and have become a key tool for people to connect, network and communicate with each other. As technology develops, the use of social media has become integral to the way we live our lives and it has impacted the way we interact.

Many organisations use social media to advertise, promote and market their business and services, or to attract new candidates to vacancies. However the impact social media has had on organisations has not always been a positive one and an employee’s use of sites such as these could expose employers to serious legal liabilities.

Debate in this area is significant and so much more so due to a recent case for constructive dismissal that reached Employment Tribunal. A HR professional has been disciplined for information he posted on his CV about his employer which was uploaded to his LinkedIn profile. The company was also allegedly unhappy that the HR professional in question had ticked a box indicating that he was interested in ‘career opportunities’. This was deemed to be an inappropriate use of social media and following disciplinary action, the employee resigned and has subsequently claimed constructive dismissal.

Although the case was adjourned until May, opinion on the subject rages. Many believe that keeping abreast of opportunities broadens knowledge of the market and promoting the firms initiatives to reduce turnover shares best practice and puts the firm in a positive light. Others are considering what the boundaries are in terms of commercial confidentiality and whether the fact that LinkedIn is essentially a business and careers networking site impacted on the decision to take disciplinary action.

Category: Employment Law /
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