https://hkm.com/bozeman/employment-contracts/You know you are in an economically depressed area when a disproportionate share of the billboards speak to people’s financial desperation. In the poorest parts of the country, billboards advertise lotteries, casinos, and multilevel marketing business opportunities, because people who are healthy enough to work have presumably exhausted all their options for work. On these same desolate roads, you will also see billboards advertising the services of personal injury lawyers. You can tell that, in these parts, many of the people who would love to be working cannot because a preventable accident caused them to suffer serious injuries.
These billboards, with their larger-than-life pictures of stern-faced lawyers, give you the impression that all lawyers do is sue people and argue about their lawsuits in front of a judge, but this is only a small part of the picture. In employment law, as in practice areas where most litigants are not in the workforce, most of the ways that lawyers help clients involve resolving the matter before a judge must issue a decision. The Bozeman employee counseling lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP can help you resolve conflicts with your employer with or without going to court.
How Employment Lawyers in Montana Can Help Employees Exercise Their Rights
The law requires employers to post certain notices in the workplace, notifying employees of their rights. These involve notices about anti-discrimination laws, workplace safety, and workers’ compensation. Despite this, and even when employers comply with the law and post these notices, they do not always make it easy for employees to exercise their rights. For example, the law recognizes certain protected activities which, even though they are sometimes costly and inconvenient for employers, are not a reason to penalize an employee. If an employer takes an adverse action against an employee in response to the employee engaging in one of these protected activities, it is employer retaliation, and the employee has the right to sue the employer because of it. These are some of the protected activities that can cause conflict between employees and their employers:
- Demanding fair pay, including but not limited to pay in excess of the minimum wage, overtime pay, and pay for work completed during the pay period in which the employee quit the job or was fired
- Asking the employer to classify the worker as a W-2 employee instead of a 1099 independent contractor if the employee’s duties are consistent with this
- Notifying the Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA) about safety hazards in the workplace
- Filing a workers’ compensation claim about a work injury or occupational disease
- Requesting an unpaid leave of absence from work for health reasons or family caregiving reasons, pursuant to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
- Requesting reasonable accommodations for a disability, pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
- Complaining about discrimination, whether to the human resources office at your workplace or externally, with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or the Montana Human Rights Bureau
- Cooperating with an investigation into misconduct or legal infractions at your place of employment
Engaging in these protected activities should be simple, but employers sometimes put up unnecessary obstacles in front of their employees or even try to intimidate them out of exercising their legal rights.
How Do You Know if Your Employer’s Actions are Legal?
Reading a brief summary of the laws on a poster at your workplace or online is one thing, but seeing how they apply to your case is complicated. Do you fall into any of the exemptions to the laws about minimum wage or overtime pay? Montana law does not recognize sexual orientation as a protected characteristic, but local ordinances in Bozeman do, so which set of laws applies to your workplace?
It is possible that your employer is blatantly infringing on your rights and then using its power to gaslight you or intimidate you out of exercising them. In plenty of cases, though, there are at least two plausible sides to the story. Yes, your employer refused to make the accommodation you requested when you disclosed your need for disability accommodations, but the accommodation that your employer offered to make instead was the best it could afford. Yes, you and the coworkers with whom you have an ongoing conflict are of different races, but the antagonistic relationship is mutual. If you file a lawsuit, the judge will decide whether your claims are sufficiently persuasive to warrant awarding you damages.
Talking to an Employment Lawyer is Your First Step Toward Getting Justice
By strategizing with an employment lawyer before you bring your complaint to any outside parties, you can maximize your chances of getting fair compensation. For example, if you and your employer disagree about the interpretation of your employment contract, and your contract requires you to settle your disputes arising from it through arbitration instead of going to court, your employment lawyer can represent you in the arbitration sessions, so that you have less of an underdog disadvantage.
Likewise, if you file a complaint about employment discrimination, it must start with you initiating an investigation by contacting the EEOC or the Human Rights Bureau. One of these bodies will investigate your claims, and if it is able to corroborate them, it will authorize you to file your lawsuit in court. Without this written authorization from the Bureau or the EEOC, the court will not consider your lawsuit. If the Bureau of EEOC does not find sufficient evidence to support your claims, your lawsuit is over before it even begins. Therefore, by contacting an employment lawyer before you communicate with the Bureau or the EEOC, you can present the strongest claims in the clearest terms, so that the EEOC or the Bureau can do justice to your investigation.
Contact HKM Employment Attorneys About Employee Counseling
The Bozeman employment lawyers at HKM can counsel you on workplace conflicts such as contract disputes, employment discrimination, and employer retaliation. Contact the employment lawyers at HKM Employment Attorneys LLP in Bozeman, Montana, to set up a consultation.
