by Mark P. Carey | Sep 18, 2018 | Age Discrimination, Discrimination, Employment Counseling, Mark Carey, Sexual & Gender Discrimination, Sexual Harassment
No one discusses the psychology of work and the enormous role it plays in your everyday life. I have researched and watched this issue for more than twenty years, from discrimination bias to contract negotiation. I comb through client fact patterns looking for every psychological angle emanating from all the cast of characters in order to position the client to achieve success or to resolve a dispute.
Why aren’t you doing this?
The Psychology of Your Manager
I know you think you know your manager, but I doubt you really know how your manager thinks and what motivates them. Psychology plays a direct and important role in such things as how your manager makes decisions regarding what jobs or tasks to assign employees and your career advancement. Managers evaluate employee strengths and weaknesses, i.e. perceived psychology, and selectively assign tasks. Employees are also chosen to advance based on their perceived psychology about whether they will be effective in handling the responsibilities of the new position.
If you are blind to the role of psychological analysis, get your head out of the sand and in the game!
Think of your job like a chess or strategy game, you need to consider every conceivable variable that will impact your chosen goals, both positively and negatively. If you are not evaluating your opponent, i.e. your boss or coworker, you will not advance in your current position or your career. I am not asking you to confront your boss with your new found psychological intelligence, keep it to yourself and use it to guide you when making critical decisions to your benefit. Successful employees and executives do this every day.
Here is what to look for when evaluating your boss’s psychology in order to gain an advantage:
(1) Evaluate facial and body cues that may show a degree of nervousness or over aggressive micromanaging (polar opposites), facial and body cues are one of the most important signals to read when assessing your opponent.
(2) Examine the person’s prior work conduct toward yourself and other employees and the reaction those individuals had in relation to the decision being made. Was there a consistent logic flow or arbitrary selection decision making process without basis?
(3) Go beyond the email language and check if the person really intended what was stated, email can be misleading.
(4) Examine the individuals the person promotes and if they are a logical fit or the result of office favoritism and worse, discrimination.
(5) Examine the potential for personal issues being brought to the office and determine if they are playing a role in the person’s work life.
This list is by no means exhaustive of the possible variables impacting your opponent’s decision making.
The Psychology of Your Coworkers and Yourself
When you arrive at work, you walk into an office workspace filled with a multitude of personal psychologies. There is no control other than the corporate mind speak dished out by the company or what you believe the proper protocol to acting professional is. There is no discussion about how to manage yourself or others while at work. Sure, there are rules regarding behavior, but in reality, employees are thrown into the workplace and are just expected to know how to act and react moment by moment.
Short of being fired for poor misconduct, how do you navigate the psychological warfare of the office?
The solution is to become aware or mindful of your interactions with co-workers, including supervisors, especially when you are having a bad day. Take a week and just observe the behaviors of others but don’t be reactive, just observe. While you’re observing various office behavior, listen to your inner voice, you know the voice that is talking inside your head right now as you read this. The more you become aware of this inner voice, the more self-control you will have during moments you need it most. That inner voice is the reactive brain and not your conscious brain, it just keeps on talking at you over and over all day long. Listen to your conscious brain, the one you make decisions with and the one you use to learn new information. Notice that the conscious brain does not ramble on at you, it is more concise and logical, not dramatic and overblown.
Another method of handling the office psychology is to observe the expectations you set for yourself and others. Stop working from those expectations and focus on the current issue you are experiencing. Your own expectations may be causing the problem you may be experiencing but you just don’t know it. We pre-imagine how events in our work life should result, but we never really think about how we created those expectations in the first place. When the crap hits the fan and our expectations are dashed, we tend to blame ourselves or others in a knee-jerk reaction. We never stop to think about our own thought processes, we just accepted what our mind (inner voice vs. conscious mind) said to us.
As employment attorneys, we confront the end product of psychology in the workplace and are requested to find solutions.
by Mark P. Carey | Jun 27, 2018 | Discrimination, Mark Carey, Newsletter, Pregnancy Discrimination, Sexual & Gender Discrimination
Many women are passed over for promotions and raises when they become pregnant. Part 2 of this series examines the subtle sidelining of pregnant women and mothers in corporate America. Guests: Natalie Kitroeff, who covers the economy for The New York Times, and Erin Murphy, who alleges that she was denied opportunities by her employer, Glencore, once she became a mother. For more information on today’s episode.
The issue of pregnancy discrimination at work will not go away…unless you raise your voice and stop remaining silent. Erin Murphy chose to speak out. We should all speak out and end this devastating form of discrimination. We all came from someone. Would you treat your mother like Erin Murphy was treated by Glencore.
To read Erin Murphy’s June 18, 2018 federal complaint against her current employer Glencore click here Murphy Complaint As Filed 6.18.18
If you need help with your employer because you are experiencing pregnancy discrimination, contact us.
by Mark P. Carey | Jun 12, 2018 | Age Discrimination, Arbitration, Arbitration Agreements, Disability Discrimination, Discrimination, Employment Counseling, Mark Carey, Newsletter, Noncompetition & Nonsolication Agreements, Pregnancy Discrimination, Pregnancy Discrimination, Race & National Origin Discrimination, Religious Discrimination, Retaliation Discrimination, Sexual & Gender Discrimination
We all build relationships based on trust. Some relationships require more trust than others. For example, marriage, medical professionals and hiring lawyers. We all take the time to explore whether these relationships are the right fit for us. We even memorialize these important, sometimes life-changing, relationships with contractual agreements. But when it comes to the relationship with your employer, you might as well start hand feeding piranhas.
Meet Your Antagonist: Your Employer
An antagonist is someone who actively opposes or is hostile to another; an adversary. Does this describe your current or former employer? In my role as the employment attorney, I do not hear very many people say they trust their employers. In fact, the opposite is true. According to a Harvard Business Review article, “In both your personal life and your work life, you’re bound to encounter people who take advantage of you, and these painful experiences can make you cynical.”
You have several reasons to be cynical about your employment relationship. Your employer is not interested in whether you are happy at work, fulfilled in your career aspirations, concerned about your personal responsibilities at work or anything remotely realistic to a nurturing relationship. In fact many employees have a low level of trust in their employers. The 2016 Trust Barometer report from Edelman revealed that a third of employees do not trust their employers. Employees reported a lack of engagement, short term profit seeking, lack of belief in the company mission, poor product quality, unethical behavior, bad corporate reputation, invisible CEOs and lack of corporate communication to employees.
At-will Employment is Bad for You
When you are employed at-will, as most of you are, you might as well be on a first date for the next several years. You would think that after knowing your employer for three or more years, you’d just settle down and get engaged to be married. However this is not so. Unless you have a coveted and rare employment contract with a “for cause” termination provision, your employer can bounce you with little or no notice. Many of you have felt this scorned feeling from prior jobs. So where is the trust in the at-will workplace if you can never predict your future with a reasonable certainty on a day-to-day basis? There is none. Ouch!
Somehow, we have just grown accustomed to this dysfunctional at-will relationship and let employers manipulate us with unenforced corporate codes of conduct, lofty corporate double speak and fear.
Management by Fear Does Not Create Trust
The most common corporate management practice today is to maintain a consistent level of passive-aggressive practices which propagate employee fear and insecurity. From my vantage point, I see a persistent pattern by employers accusing employees of subjective performance issues while their objective performance criteria are “meets” or “exceeds expectation”. Employers use performance management techniques such as performance improvement plans and coaching to force out undesirable employees. No one ever remains long after being managed this way. I also see cases of overt ruthless conduct, where a supervisor discriminates against pregnant employees as having “baby brain.” Saying things like, “I don’t want another woman working on the desk” or “If you’re being honest with yourself, do you really think you could do this job?” And the comments get even worse. “I don’t want to hear any complaining from you, you and [spouse] did this to yourselves.” Only a supervisor with intentions to rid themselves of pregnant employees will make discriminatory statements like this to push the employee to quit out of fear of reprisal.
Discrimination Does Not Create Trust
The absence of trust becomes more noticeable when employees experience discrimination in the workplace or need to take time off due to health issues affecting themselves or a family member. For these employees, their career with their particular employer has taken an abrupt turn for the worse.
For example, you become pregnant while employed and take a maternity/paternity leave under company policy and FMLA. When you return, your job duties have changed and so has the person you reported to. Pregnancy discrimination is one of the most perverse examples of a lack of trust an employee can encounter. The employer has a maternity leave policy and you take a leave under said policy with no resistance. However, upon returning to work you face pregnancy discrimination when your employment is terminated. The employer will jump at an opportunity to replace you rather than reinstate you. We would all agree, this is not an ideal trust building experience at any company, yet pregnancy discrimination continues to persist.
If you complain to your employer about issues of discrimination or whistle blowing, you will immediately cause your employer not to trust you. You have a legal and moral right to complain about these issues, but do not expect reciprocation from your employer. You just threw yourself off or under the company bus. This equals your spouse cheating on you and then pointing the finger at you as the cause for why they had the affair. Your employer’s Human Resources Department will not help you when you are down and have complaints about coworkers or your supervisor. I am sure the folks in HR are nice people, but their “job” is to protect the employer, not you! Don’t make the mistake in confiding with human resource personnel, unless absolutely necessary to build a case for retaliation.
Arbitration and Noncompete Agreements Don’t Create Trust
Arbitration and non-competition agreements and employer trust are like oil and water with a sprinkling of gasoline for added flare. The U.S. Supreme Court’s further endorsement of employer arbitration agreements cemented in stone the future of employee litigation and the permanent role of arbitration in your career. Listen, don’t be fooled, arbitration agreements are bad for you, your rights, your claims, the economy and are only good for employers. Noncompetition agreements are even a better example of a lack of employer trust. When your employer is finished with you and terminates your employment, they sink a big fishing hook in you and reel you back in at their whim each time you land a new position. The employer cries foul, complaining you are single handedly destroying the company via working for the competitor. These two forms of employment agreements represent the worst in every company that mandates them. An arbitration agreement is a tool to conceal bad corporate acts from employment attorneys like myself and non-competition agreements are used to threaten competitive employers in the market place.
Rise Up and Demand More Trust
It is time to call an end to bad corporate practices- the deceit, the greed, the lies and the double speak. Employees should demand more from their employers. Rise up and unite together and tell your employer you would trust them only if they demonstrated trust to you first. Trust begets trust.
Have questions or think you’ve been discriminated against at work? Let our employment law attorney’s help you get justice. Get in touch today!
by Jill Halper | May 10, 2018 | Discrimination, Gender Discrimination, Jill Halper, Newsletter, Pregnancy Discrimination, Pregnancy Discrimination, Sexual & Gender Discrimination
Central to any present-day discussion of pregnancy discrimination is the issue of lactation and nursing moms in the workplace. The practice of breastfeeding has expanded in recent years and various legal issues have accompanied this development.
The law is designed to protect moms who breastfeed in almost all 50 states, Connecticut included.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148, known as the “Affordable Care Act”) amended section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) to require employers to provide, “reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for 1 year after the child’s birth each time such employee has need to express the milk.”
Employers must provide as many breaks as are needed by the employee. Employers are also required to provide, “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk.”
Therefore, the Federal statute ensures that employers provide nursing employees with a time and a space to “express milk” if there is an employee with this need and the employer is made aware of the need. Moreover, all employers covered by the FLSA must comply with the break time and private place provision for nursing mothers. Small businesses with less than 50 employees, who are not covered by the FLSA may be exempt from the FLSA provisions if they can demonstrate that compliance with the provision would impose an undue hardship.
How does all of this apply to employers and nursing employees in Connecticut?
The FLSA requirements for nursing mothers to express breast milk does not preempt state laws. And in fact, state law in Connecticut actually provides greater protections to nursing employees. The Connecticut Breastfeeding Coalition joined with the Departments of Public Health and Labor, and the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities to create the, “Guide to Connecticut Breastfeeding Nondiscrimination and Workplace Accommodation Laws.” A closer look at the guide and the law in CT will show CT to be a state that gives great deference to, and places high public importance on, the protection of breastfeeding moms in the workplace.
Michele Griswold, chairperson of the Connecticut Breastfeeding Coalition said, “Most people want mothers and infants to be healthy, but not all understand the connection between breastfeeding and improved health outcomes. Taking steps to remove barriers for breastfeeding mothers and their children is a win-win situation for everyone. Increased breastfeeding rates ultimately mean healthier communities.”
Specifically, in the state of Connecticut, ALL businesses, regardless of the size, must provide breastfeeding protection in the workplace. Conn. Gen. Stat. Section 31-40 (along with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, amending Section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act) requires employers to provide a reasonable amount of time each day to an employee who needs to breastfeed or express breast milk for her infant child and to provide accommodations where an employee can do so in private. And these CT laws apply to all businesses in CT regardless of their size or number of employees.
Sec. 31-40 entitled CT Breastfeeding in the Workplace reads as follows:
(a) Any employee may, at her discretion, express breast milk or breastfeed on site at her workplace during her meal or break period. CT case law has expanded this provision to mean, when possible this milk expressing activity should occur on your meal or other work break, but if it occurs at another time the employer is not obligated to pay you during the pumping break.
(b) An employer shall make reasonable efforts to provide a room or other location, in close proximity to the work area, other than a toilet stall, where the employee can express her milk in private.
(c) An employer shall not discriminate against, discipline or take any adverse employment action against any employee because such employee has elected to exercise her rights under subsection (a) of this section.
(d) As used in this section, “employer” means a person engaged in business who has one or more employees, including the state and any political subdivision of the state; “employee” means any person engaged in service to an employer in the business of the employer; “reasonable efforts” means any effort that would not impose an undue hardship on the operation of the employer’s business; and “undue hardship” means any action that requires significant difficulty or expense when considered in relation to factors such as the size of the business, its financial resources and the nature and structure of its operation.
This requirement in CT is a much harder standard to meet than the Federal statute as it defines undue hardship as posing a, “significant difficulty” for the employer.
It is also important to note that whereas the Federal statute defines the protected activity as “expressing milk” in the workplace, the State of CT law is unique in that it protects and allows mothers to actually breastfeed their babies in the workplace, and/or express milk/pump.
If you are a mother returning to work after pregnancy and believe that your employer is failing to provide you with the breastfeeding protection you are owed under Federal and State law, please feel free to reach out to the employment lawyers at Carey & Associates, P.C. for help in this area, or for help with any other matters involving pregnancy discrimination in the workplace.
Remember: A CT business is not permitted to discriminate against, discipline or take any adverse employment action because you’ve elected to exercise your right to breastfeed or express milk at work.
by Jill Saluck | May 8, 2018 | Discrimination, Jill Saluck, Newsletter, Pregnancy Discrimination, Sexual & Gender Discrimination
Reports have shown that pregnant women and new mothers are suffering increasing levels of unfair treatment at work, including cuts to their work hours, zero-hour contracts or even undergoing forced removal from their jobs.
Laws Protecting Pregnant Employees
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 ensures that pregnant employees or “women affected by childbirth,” are treated the same as childless workers. In addition to federal laws protecting pregnant employees from discrimination and ensuring that they receive family leave benefits, many states and localities also have passed laws giving additional protections and rights to pregnant employees.
Most states have passed laws requiring employers to provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant workers. The Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act was recently amended, making it unlawful for an employer to refuse reasonable accommodations for an employee due to her pregnancy or to limit, segregate, or classify her in a way that would deprive her of employment opportunities due to pregnancy. The law also expands the definition of “pregnancy” to include related post-pregnancy conditions, such as lactation (PA 17-118).
What is Pregnancy Discrimination
The term, “pregnancy discrimination” is deceptive. Courts are only just beginning to define the parameters of what can be considered “on the basis of pregnancy.” Although a pregnancy itself is limited in time to a discrete period, the discrimination faced by a pregnant woman often continues long after the birth of her baby.
Federal law and the antidiscrimination laws of most states consider pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions, such as lactation, to be protected. But the definition becomes more blurred, for example, in the context of a mother returning to work from maternity leave, only to find out that she has been demoted or placed in a new position.
Sometimes an employer’s discriminatory action won’t take place for months, or even years, following an employee’s pregnancy. Years after her pregnancy, a female employee will notice that she is repeatedly passed over for promotions. Despite her hard work and positive performance, her male and childless coworkers are given opportunities that she is not.
This phenomenon has been dubbed, the “motherhood penalty,” and is extremely common in today’s workplace. According to recent studies, about three quarters of working mothers say they have experienced discrimination in the workplace.
Research shows that mothers are significantly less likely than either childless women, or fathers with identical qualifications, to get interviews. In addition, regardless of whether women work less after having children, employers pay them significantly less over time, assuming they will be less committed. When mothers do cut back their work hours, their pay is disproportionately reduced.
Consider two specific examples of discrimination on the basis of motherhood responsibilities;
New Supervisor Syndrome – A working mother performs well and has no significant problems at work until her supervisor changes. The new supervisor cancels her flexible work arrangement, changes her shifts, or imposes new productivity requirements. On occasion, the new supervisors will even make comments indicating that these actions have been taken specifically to push mothers out. In other instances, a working mother may be targeted for termination under the biased belief that she is not as committed to her job or as productive as other employees who are not female and do not have childcare responsibilities.
Second Child Bias – Some mothers have reported experiencing little discrimination until they become pregnant with their second child. After informing her employer of her second pregnancy, a working mother is suddenly faced with questions about whether she intends to return to work after maternity leave and how she can continue working with two children. Some supervisors openly counsel women who are pregnant with their second child to stay at home, deny promotions or other opportunities, treat them rudely or ignore them, or make the work vs. home decision for them by terminating them. The assumption behind these actions appears to be that a mother can handle one child and work, but two is too much. www.worklifelaw.org/pubs/FRDupdate2016.pdf
Defining Motherhood Discrimination
Not neatly categorized as pregnancy or gender discrimination, motherhood discrimination occurs when an employee suffers an adverse employment action based on unexamined biases about how female workers with childcare responsibilities will or should act, without regard to her actual performance or preferences.
Discrimination based motherhood often occurs in the context of failure to hire or to promote, demotion, transfer to dead-end jobs, removal of sales territory or responsibility, increase or strict enforcement of goals for mothers but not others, discipline for actions that do not result in discipline for non-mothers, humiliation or harassment, selection for layoff despite seniority and strong performance and termination for reasons that are not accurate or legitimate.
No federal or Connecticut statute expressly prohibits employment discrimination or retaliation based on motherhood responsibilities. In many situations, a court will rely on laws regarding pregnancy discrimination in analyzing a claim more aptly categorized as, “motherhood responsibilities discrimination.” A working mother may prevail by showing, for example, that because of her pregnancy, she was treated differently from employees who had not been pregnant. Sometimes, the difference in treatment occurs after she returns from maternity leave, based on her employer’s assumption that because her childcare responsibilities will impact her work.
Gender discrimination laws have also been used in analyzing claims of motherhood discrimination. Title VII does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of family responsibilities alone, but rather “gender plus” an additional status, in this case, childcare giver.
“Sex plus” or “gender plus” discrimination, involves a policy or practice by which an employer classifies employees on the basis of sex plus another characteristic. It is actionable under Title VII, state law, and the Equal Protection Clause, which forbids sex discrimination regardless of how it is labeled, as long as there is evidence of purposefully sex-discriminatory acts. Back v. Hastings On Hudson Union Free Sch. Dist., 365 F.3d 107 (2d Cir. 2004).
The “sex plus” framework was used to analyze a female employee’s claim that her employer failed to promote her because of a sex-based stereotype that women who are mothers neglect their jobs in favor of their presumed child care responsibilities. Chadwick v. WellPoint, Inc., 561 F.3d 38 (1st Cir. 2009)
Such cases rest on the presumption that, “unlawful sex discrimination occurs when an employer takes an adverse job action on the assumption that a woman, because she is a woman, will neglect her job responsibilities in favor of her presumed childcare responsibilities.” Id at 44–45.
In accordance with Title VII, women have, “the right to prove their mettle in the work arena without the burden of stereotypes regarding whether they can fulfill their responsibilities.” Gingras v. Milwaukee County, 127 F. Supp. 3d 964, 975 (E.D. Wis. 2015).
If you feel that as a working mother, you have been the victim of discrimination by your employer, an employment attorney can help you determine what recourse may be available.
Get in touch today!
Jill Saluck is an employment attorney working in Connecticut for Carey & Associates, P.C. She can be reached at (203) 255-0380.
by Mark P. Carey | Apr 20, 2018 | Age Discrimination, Disability Discrimination, Discrimination, Employment Contracts, Employment Counseling, Sexual & Gender Discrimination, Short & Long Term Disability, Uncategorized, Wage & Hour Topics, Whistle Blower
If you work in Connecticut, there are facts you need to know about when it comes to your employment rights. In this post we’ll cover the top 10 things you need to know as an employee in CT.
1. Employers Can Give Bad References, Just Not False Ones
Employers no longer give references for former employees, so stop worrying. Employers fear being sued for defamation or claims for negligent hire. The majority if not all employers will provide prospective employers and their recruiters with your dates of employment, position, and possibly salary. The employer will not provide the reason(s) for termination. However, if you hear your former employer said they would not recommend for rehire, that is code language that you are a poor employee. The only exception I can think of is if you and your employer are FINRA registered members, i.e. brokerages and licensed employees in the financial industry. FINRA regulated employers are required to provide the reason for termination in the employee’s U-5 record.
2. Connecticut Employees Allowed 16 Weeks Unpaid FMLA Leave
Under the Connecticut Family Leave Act, employees are entitled to take up to 16 weeks of unpaid leave. Connecticut law provides for an additional 4 weeks on top of the federal FMLA (12). Employees should ask there employers if they have short term disability benefits to coincide with the 16 weeks of leave. A typical STD plan provides for six months of paid leave at 60% of the employees base pay. Nothing is guaranteed, and the employer will not volunteer the information. Employees in need of a leave of absence must self-advocate for their rights and document all their requests in writing. Remember, your job is protected during the FMLA, but if you fail to return before your leave ends, you will lose your job.
3. Connecticut Employees Have a Right to Personnel Files
Connecticut employees are entitled to a complete and accurate copy of their personnel files, including a copy of their supervisor’s version of their file. All the employee has to do is make a written request via email to the HR department and the employer must provide a copy of the file within 30 days. If the employer refuses, please contact the CT Department of Labor and register a complaint.
4. An Unfair Employment Termination is Not Necessarily Illegal
Listen, employers can be really mean and behave in very unfriendly ways. However, just because the employer is a pain in the butt and trying to make your life miserable, this does not mean the employer’s actions are illegal. Employers do not care about employees, so get over it. Your job cannot be your identity. You are an “at will” employee and you should never assume your job is secure, even if you worked for the company for 10 years. In order to determine if your employer’s action to terminate you were illegal, you would need to speak to our employment attorneys. A quick 15 minute call to our office will flesh out the legal issues and permit us to determine if you were fired unlawfully.
5. Independent Contractors Have Rights Too
You may not know it, but if you are an independent contractor you are still protected against unlawful employment actions such as discrimination. You should also investigate if your employer is correctly classifying you as an independent contractor (IRS Form 1099) or regular employee (IRS Form W-2). We see a lot of employees misclassified as independent contractors when they should be regular workers. Employees fear challenging the employer on this classification because they believe they will lose their contract. If you are in doubt, call the CT Department of Labor or call our office to speak with an employment attorney. Also search the internet in Connecticut for the “ABC Test for Independent Contractors.” You can also search the IRS.gov website for the same information.
6. The Legal Effect of Quitting Your Job
Don’t ever quit your job! You cannot collect unemployment benefits. Also, it is too difficult to prove your voluntary job termination was a “constructive discharge”. The facts must show a series of recent events that violate state and federal law and that any reasonable person would also quit. If you are in a tight bind where your employer is giving you the writing on the wall treatment to get out, speak to an employment attorney in our office first. We will deter you from quitting and will advise you to leave your job through the signing of a separation agreement which includes a severance payment for your service with the company as a result of unlawful treatment.
7. Employees with Criminal Records Are Protected
Under Connecticut law, employers cannot refuse to hire or terminate an employee because of a criminal record. Obviously, each case is different, so you will need to contact an employment attorney in our office to figure out if you are protected.
8. You May Have a Legal Right to Severance Pay
Employees employed in Connecticut may have a legal right to severance pay. If the employer maintains a severance plan governed by ERISA (federal regulation), employees working in Connecticut are considered participants and entitled to severance pay pursuant to the plan document. The one condition to receive severance pay set forth in every ERISA severance plan is that the employee must signed a general release of claims. How do you know you company has a severance plan? You can check your internal human resource portal or employee handbook. All ERISA severance plans have to be filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. Years ago I found this free website where you can research your employer. Insert the employer’s name in the site and go through the various plans listed. You are looking for a plan labeled with the word “severance” in it. The plan severance plan code is “4i”. If you find it listed, then you know a severance plan exists. Once you have identified your employer’s severance plan, make a written request to the Human Resources Department for a copy of the severance plan. The HR Department has a legal obligation to provide a copy of the severance plan within 30 days of your written request. You will find in the plan the amount of severance pay based on your years of service with the employer. Don’t leave money on the table, but chances are the employer will remind you about your benefits, as they have a fiduciary obligation to you as a plan participant. If you need a severance attorney, call our office and speak with one of our employment attorneys.
9. How to Predict When You Are Getting Fired
Hmmm, try your gut instinct. Are you getting the awful feeling that your boss and coworkers have turned on you? You may have been a satisfactory performer last year, but this year your rating sunk or needs improvement. Or, you made a complaint to your supervisor or HR about your wages or unlawful discriminatory treatment, and suddenly your once friendly work place is not so friendly. Maybe you just announced you are four months pregnant and you are getting the cold shoulder. Worse, your supervisor makes pregnancy related comments and jokes. Finally, if your coworkers and/or supervisors are openly hostile with you and use derogatory language directed at your gender, sexual orientation, race or age, then you know the crap just hit the fan and you need to speak to one of our employment attorneys.
10. Don’t Sign Anything When You Get Fired
Isn’t this obvious? You should never sign anything when you leave your job. You should also not participate in any exit interview with the HR Department. No state or federal law mandates your participation in the exit interview. What you need to do is speak with an employment attorney in our office who will figure out if the termination was lawful and whether the employer acted unlawfully prior to the termination date, i.e. demotions, discrimination, etc.
If anything mentioned above sounds like your current situation, or if you find yourself there in the future, Carey & Associates, P.C. can help! Our firm specializes in employment, wrongful termination, discrimination, whistleblowing, and more.
by Mark P. Carey | Mar 27, 2018 | Discrimination, Gender Discrimination, Sexual & Gender Discrimination
Equal employment opportunities offer protection against being discriminated due to race, color, religion or sex.
Gender Identity Discrimination
When employers fire employees because of their sex, it is illegal under state and federal laws. Now, individuals who are in the process of transitioning their sex (transgender) are also protected against employer discrimination because of their sex.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (see full opinion) that employers who fire employees because the employee has announced they are transitioning to become a man or woman, violates Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The Court specifically held that employers cannot discriminate against an employee who is gender “non-conforming” without violating their rights.
Here is an excerpt from the judgement:
“Second, discrimination against transgender persons necessarily implicates Title VII’s proscriptions against sex stereotyping. As we recognized in Smith, a transgender person is someone who “fails to act and/or identify with his or her gender”—i.e., someone who is inherently “gender non-conforming.” 378 F.3d at 575; see also id. at 568 (explaining that transgender status is characterized by the American Psychiatric Association as “a disjunction between an individual’s sexual organs and sexual identity”). Thus, an employer cannot discriminate on the basis of transgender status without imposing its stereotypical notions of how sexual organs and gender identity ought to align. There is no way to disaggregate discrimination on the basis of transgender status from discrimination on the basis of gender non-conformity, and we see no reason to try.”
If you are a transgender employee experiencing discrimination at work, please contact Mark P. Carey, PC to determine how to stop the illegal behavior.
by Mark P. Carey | Feb 1, 2018 | Discrimination, Gender Discrimination, Newsletter, Sexual & Gender Discrimination, Sexual Harassment
If public shaming is the new normal for dealing with sexual harassers, then how do we fix the ineffective sexual harassment laws currently in place? I have the quick fix and it makes perfect sense.
Make Sexual Harassers Personally Liable
Currently, when sexual harassers do their evil deeds, there is no penalty. Under federal law, only employers are liable. In a few states, offenders are held personally liable, for example, Massachusetts and Ohio. If the harasser understands that placing his hand on a woman’s breast or other body part has a $150,000 price tag for the single act, the harasser will think twice. If the harasser also understands that they could lose their job in addition to paying a huge settlement to the victim, then they would avoid groping other employees.
Remove the Caps on Damages Under Federal Law
Under federal law, damages for sexual harassment offenses are capped at $300,000 for both back pay and punitive damages. Trust me, this compromise struck between Congressional Democrats and Republicans in enacting the 1991 Civil Rights Act was far too low to make any real difference to deter sexual harassment. We need to remove the cap on damages that were promoted by the Washington D.C. K Street lobbyists whom promoted the caps in the first place.
Make All Settlements of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Public But Conceal Victim Identities
I recently wrote about making sexual harassment settlements transparent. Transparency of all sexual harassment settlements will deter both the employers and employees from engaging in unwanted sexual harassment. We would hope that companies do more to take care of the very employees who promote the employer’s products and services; the same employees who have close professional relationships with their customers and vendors. While transparency will add further deterrence, we also need to conceal the identities of the victims of sexual harassment in settlement agreements. There is no need to harm these victims any further.
All Perpetrators of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Will be Listed on the National Sex Offenders Registry
If the price tag for an occasional groping did not stop bad behavior, the next solution will. Currently, we have a nationwide sex offender registry. If you are convicted of criminal or civil sexual assault, you are automatically registered on the sex offender registry. We now need to modify current state and federal laws regarding sexual harassment at work and place all perpetrators of sexual assault and harassment on that list.
Provide a Tax Deduction to Victims of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment for Pursuing Claims of Discrimination
Prior to the 2018 tax overhaul, victims of sexual harassment could claim a tax deduction for legal fees and expenses in pursuit of sexual harassment claims. The tax act removed that benefit from both employers and employees. I propose reinstating the tax benefit only to employees who are the victims of sexual harassment. Frankly, it is morally the correct thing to do. We should not be cutting victims off at the knees.
If you have questions or would like to speak about an issue you’ve encountered in the workplace, we help clients located in New York, Manhattan, Connecticut, and nationwide. Contact us today!
by Mark P. Carey | Jan 24, 2018 | Discrimination, Sexual & Gender Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, Uncategorized
If a woman makes a sexual harassment complaint to her employer, should the claim and the resulting settlement be confidential? The short answer is “no.”
INTERNAL SEXUAL HARASMENT INVESTIGATIONS SHOULD BE TRANSPARENT
When an employee files an internal complaint of sex discrimination or sexual harassment, the company immediately begins an internal investigation. However, the complaining employee will never know the result of the internal investigation and she lacks any legal rights to demand a written or verbal finding. Employers are mandated to conduct the investigation under federal law, if the employer wants the protection of an affirmative defense that it took action to remediate the underlying cause of the sexual harassment complaint. You would think an “investigation” would have some curative effect, but it does not.
The corporate investigation should be open for all to see how terrible a male co-worker or supervisor actually behaved toward his female counterpart. We cannot bury our heads under the cover of confidentiality of corporate investigations, just because the legal department said so. The only reason why companies keep corporate investigations confidential is because the company is seeking to build a case to protect itself against the complaining employee; there is no value to the employee whatsoever.
THE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT SHOULD ALSO BE TRANSPARENT
Employers love confidentiality provisions in settlement agreements. They and their counsel claim the company is buying confidentiality in exchange for the settlement payment. In reality, the company is buying the release of legal claims. Confidentiality provisions have long been a staple of settlement agreements, in particular in employment discrimination cases, because employers demand them. Employees who complained of sexual harassment did not demand confidentiality. Employees want public disclosure in order to signal to other employees to watch out for the alleged perpetrator so he does not repeat the offense on others. In addition, public shaming of individuals who commit sexual harassment offenses is now the norm.
Today, Congress has taken one step closer to making confidentiality provisions illegal. The new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act seeks to restrain corporate tax deductions for legal fees and settlements related to sexual harassment claims. In essence, if a corporation wants a tax deduction it has to make the settlement of sexual harassment cases public and not confidential. If the company seeks the confidentiality clause in the settlement agreement, they are prohibited from taking the deduction.
See a similar discussion on the same topic at #metoo Sexual Harassment Laws Are Broken.
If you have employment law questions or need help with specific workplace issues, contact Carey & Associates, P.C. Our employment lawyers can consult with you regarding your issue and offer guidance on next steps.
by Mark P. Carey | Dec 19, 2017 | Age Discrimination, Disability Discrimination, Discrimination, Gender Discrimination, Newsletter, Pregnancy Discrimination, Race & National Origin Discrimination, Religious Discrimination, Retaliation Discrimination, Severance, Sexual & Gender Discrimination
Ugh, you got fired by a computer! Artificial Intelligence has arrived in the workplace at breakneck speed. Decisions about your performance and termination are being made by artificially intelligent machine learning computers. I enjoy sci-fi but the news of computers making decisions about performance and terminations has serious legal implications you should be concerned about.
Artificial Intelligence in Use Today
Companies such as Google and Bridgewater Associates have built powerful computers that render decisions about performance and termination. Currently, AI computers operated by Google and Facebook have been found to discriminate based on race or gender. See NYTimes Article July 9, 2015. Companies in the recruitment field have begun using AI in recruiting. For example, the new start up company Pymetrics built an AI machine to remove bias in the recruiting process.
A Very Disturbing Future For Employees in Employment Discrimination Cases
Today, employment discrimination cases are determined by direct or circumstantial proof of intentional discrimination against a variety of protected classifications of employees, i.e. sex, age, disability, race, sexual orientation etc. Employment Attorneys, courts and juries routinely examine the human interactions underlying factual evidence to determine if an employee was terminated or adversely treated because of an unlawful bias or intent to discriminate held by a supervisor, a.k.a. a decision maker. What happens when you replace the “human” decision maker with an Artificially Intelligent computer? Answer, chaos!
I predict that employers will shift the decision making to a computer and eliminate the decision making from their managers and human resource personnel. This AI HR Bot will conduct internal investigations, interview employees and witnesses and render a decision to terminate. All these functions will comply with current state and federal laws required of all employers. Most importantly, the AI HR Bot will make the “final” decision to terminate the employee, leaving employees and their attorneys, helpless to prove some human being held a discriminatory bias against them. You could expect this future to arrive in one to three years.
What can you do to prepare for the future when computers terminate you? Computers function on data, so employees should create lots of positive favorable data inputs for the AI computer to examine. For example, you should use company email to document abuse and make complaints to your manager. You should also use emails to write rebuttals to factually baseless performance reviews that are done on-line by your manager. Save all of your supporting data on your own home computer. Finally, you should hire an employment attorney to guide you through the process to develop a case to support your lawsuit or severance package.
If you have employment law questions or need help with specific workplace issues, contact Carey & Associates, P.C. Our employment lawyers can consult with you regarding your issue and offer guidance on the next steps.
