You might know someone who endured an unbearable or abusive situation for a long time, and you might wonder why they did not get out of the situation sooner, whether by walking away, complaining, or asking others for help. The intolerable situation might have happened at work or in an interpersonal relationship, but in general, the same principle that explains why people tolerate mistreatment for so long holds. The person might have feared that things would get worse if they complained.
It is easy to discredit the power of fear of retaliation unless you have experienced it. Many lawsuits about employment discrimination describe incidents of retaliation when the employee complained. In other words, the more the employee tried to exercise his or her legal rights, the worse the discrimination got. This is as illegal as it sounds. Employment discrimination and employer retaliation are both against the law, together or separately.
The Boulder retaliation for complaining about employment discrimination lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP can help you if your employer took an adverse action against you because you complained about discrimination in your workplace or cooperated with an investigation launched by someone else’s discrimination complaint.
What is Employment Discrimination?
Employment discrimination is when an employer takes an adverse action against an employee or job applicant because of a protected characteristic of the person. The following are examples of adverse actions:
- Refusal to hire
- Hostile work environment, such as bullying, micromanaging, or social exclusion
- Negative performance reviews
- Demotion or changing your work location, schedule, or job duties against your wishes
- Reducing your pay
- Denial of promotions and raises
- Termination of employment
Adverse actions are appropriate and justifiable when they are due to an employee’s poor performance or misconduct, an applicant’s lack of suitable qualifications, or, in some cases, the employer’s financial hardships. The adverse action is only discrimination if the employer does it because of a protected characteristic of yours. Protected characteristics include race, religion, national origin, age, sex, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and disability. The laws against employment discrimination have their basis in laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. Employment discrimination laws are always evolving, and some states, including Colorado, have stronger protections against employment discrimination than what federal law requires.
What is Employer Retaliation?
Employer retaliation also involves employers taking adverse actions against employees for legally unjustifiable reasons. Instead of protected characteristics, though, employer retaliation has to do with protected activities. Retaliation occurs if an employer takes an adverse action against you because you engaged in a protected activity. Protected activities are so-called because you have the right to do them, but your participation in these activities might be inconvenient, costly, or offensive to your employer. The following are examples of protected activities according to federal and state employment laws:
- Voting in an election, even if this means coming to work late or leaving work early so that you can vote at your designated polling place
- Filing a workers’ compensation claim if you get injured in an accident at work or receive a diagnosis of an occupational disease legally recognized as such for your occupation
- Taking a medical leave or family caregiving leave pursuant to the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) or the Colorado FAMLI Act
- Reporting safety hazards in your workplace to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
- Requesting an accommodation for a disability
- Complaining about discrimination, whether it is an internal complaint to your work supervisor or to your company’s human resources department, or a formal complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
- Reporting potentially criminal activity associated with your workplace to law enforcement
- Filing a qui tam action, in your capacity as a whistleblower, under the federal False Claims Act
- Reporting any other kind of misconduct to the relevant authorities
- Participating in an investigation into wrongdoing or crimes associated with your workplace, even when you are not the one who made the initial complaint
The fact that you engaged in a protected activity and your employer took an adverse action against you is not enough to prove that it was a case of employer retaliation. You must also prove that the adverse action and the protected activity were related, that the protected activity was the precipitating event for the adverse action.
You Cannot Go Straight to Court With a Complaint About Retaliation for Complaining About Discrimination
If your employer takes an adverse action against you in retaliation for complaining about employment discrimination, it means that there is substantial evidence that you were a target of discrimination at your workplace. There had to be some incident, involving a prior adverse action allegedly based on a protected characteristic, that caused you to complain. The employer’s retaliation is just one incident in a longer story. A discrimination case must follow the legal procedures for seeking compensation for employment discrimination, regardless of whether it also involved retaliation for your efforts to exercise your right to a discrimination-free workplace.
If your employer responded favorably to your efforts to resolve the discriminatory behavior, you are the lucky few. Most people’s cases do not resolve this way, though; it is rare for your employer to give you a raise just because you tell your supervisor why you think it was discriminatory for your employer not to give you a raise. Instead, things usually get worse.
In all discrimination cases, with or without retaliation, you must start by contacting the EEOC. The EEOC will investigate your claims and try to corroborate them by examining records at your workplace and interviewing your coworkers. You can only file your discrimination lawsuit in court after the EEOC authorizes this.
Contact HKM Employment Attorneys, LLP, About Employer Retaliation
The Boulder employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys, LLP, can counsel you about employer retaliation for complaining about employment discrimination. Contact the employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP in Boulder, Colorado, to set up a consultation.
