Employers may respond to an employee breaking the rules by taking an adverse action. This can be as simple as a verbal warning, a disciplinary write-up, or a negative comment on an annual performance review, or it could be something as financially detrimental to the employee as reducing the employee’s pay or terminating the employment relationship. If employers take adverse actions unjustly, employees have legal remedies available.
For example, if the employer took an adverse action based on a protected characteristic of the employee, such as the employee’s race or religion, this is employment discrimination, and if you experience it, your first step is to contact the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and begin an investigation into the scope of the discrimination in your workplace.
What can employees do when their employers break the rules, though? It depends on which rule the employer breaks. Complaints to the EEOC are an appropriate response to workplace discrimination, but what about other kinds of wrongdoing? The law recognizes many kinds of whistleblower actions and protects the rights of employees to report employer misconduct. The Boulder whistleblower claims lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP can help you prepare to report misconduct that you have witnessed at your place of employment and protect yourself against employer retaliation.
What Should You Do if You See Your Employer Breaking the Law?
Employers are not above the law. Every industry is subject to laws regulating safety standards and fair business practices. Breaking these laws often involves defrauding customers or endangering workers or the public. If you see your employer or someone at your workplace breaking these rules, you should speak up. In the simplest cases, when you are the one who notices, for example, that safety equipment is broken or out of date and needs to be replaced, all you have to do is notify your supervisor, and your supervisor will contact the relevant department to order new safety equipment. When all goes well, supervisors are glad that you noticed a mistake or a hazard and said something about it before something bad could happen. Sometimes, though, employers want to cover their mistakes because doing a sloppy job is less expensive in the short term or because they want to avoid getting caught in major misconduct, which could cause the company to incur fines.
The following are common types of misconduct that you should report if you see them happening in your workplace:
- Using equipment that does not meet personal or environmental safety standards
- Failure to provide protective gear for employees involved in hazardous tasks such as welding, climbing, or working with high voltage electricity or sharp blades
- Keeping inaccurate records or falsifying records
- Intimidating employees out of reporting misconduct
- Discrimination against employees or job candidates based on protected characteristics such as race or age
- Retaliating against employees for engaging in protected activities such as labor union participation or filing workers’ compensation claims
- Filing false claims with insurance companies
- Wage theft
- Deceptive business practices that cause customers preventable financial losses
The first step is to report the misconduct to your direct supervisor, the human resources department, or the compliance document in your organization. If your contacts in your own organization react negatively, you can and should report the misconduct to the relevant regulators or, if applicable, to law enforcement. This is called a whistleblower action.
Protected Activities and Employer Retaliation
Whistleblower actions are protected activities. This means that it is against the law for employers to retaliate against employees who engage in them. It is considered retaliation if an employer takes an adverse action against you after you engage in a protected activity, and you have evidence that your participation in the protected activity was what motivated the employer to take the adverse action. The following are examples of adverse actions:
- Negative performance reviews
- Disciplinary writeups
- Increased scrutiny of your work
- Bullying or harassment, also known as a hostile work environment
- Changing the time, location, or duties of your work when you did not request this
- Denial of promotions or raises for which you are eligible
- Demotion or reduction of pay
- Termination of employment
Adverse actions, except the ones involving bullying and harassment, are appropriate responses to misconduct by employees. It is retaliation if the adverse action is a response to a protected activity, including but not limited to whistleblower actions. The following are protected activities, and you might have been a target of retaliation if your employer took an adverse action against you after one or more of them:
- Filing a workers’ compensation claim
- Joining a labor union
- Taking a FAMLI leave
- Requesting accommodations for a disability
- Reporting a workplace safety violation to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
- Filing a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
- Cooperating with a civil or criminal investigation into alleged misconduct at your place of employment
Boulder Whistleblower Claims Lawyer
The path to justice when reporting misconduct varies according to the kind of misconduct you are reporting and a variety of other circumstances. If you are worried that your employer will retaliate against you or other employees, then you should contact a Boulder employment lawyer even before you begin the whistleblower action. Your lawyer can help you document the misconduct and any retaliatory activities in response to the whistleblower action. It may be appropriate to file an employer retaliation lawsuit if your employer fires you or takes another adverse action against you. If this happened while you were employed under an employment contract, then breach of contract claims might be part of your complaint. There are special processes for filing complaints about employment discrimination and about fraud against federal government agencies by private companies, so it is important to talk about the whole picture with an employment lawyer before you take any legal actions.
Contact HKM Employment Attorneys, LLP, About Whistleblower Actions
The Boulder employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys, LLP, can counsel you about whistleblower actions. Call the employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP in Boulder, Colorado, to set up a consultation.
