Retaliation in the Workplace: Know Your Rights

What does retaliation in the workplace entail exactly? If you’re in this situation, it’s crucial to fully understand your rights and take action, if necessary.

Here’s everything you need to know.

Introduction

As an employee, you spend a lot of time at work – usually at least forty hours each week. This time is spent with co-workers doing your job, whether you love it or not. When you walk through the doors each day, you may not jump for joy to be there, but you still want it to be a comfortable and welcoming work environment.

When faced with a situation that makes you feel discriminated against or one of harassment, you often worry whether you should speak up or let it go.

If you report the action and stay true to your feelings, what will happen? How will your superiors treat you? Retaliation in the workplace is real – so know your rights.

Workplace Retaliation: Defined

When an employee files a complaint with the company about discrimination or harassment (sexual in nature or not) and an employer engages in a negative action against that employee – you have workplace retaliation.

According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), “laws prohibit punishing job applicants or employees for asserting their rights to be free from employment discrimination including harassment.” The laws they are referring to are the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws.

Ruther, the EEO law states that “it is unlawful to retaliate against applicants or employees for:

• filing or being a witness in an EEO charge, complaint, investigation, or lawsuit
• communicating with a supervisor or manager about employment discrimination, including harassment
• answering questions during an employer investigation of alleged harassment
• refusing to follow orders that would result in discrimination
• resisting sexual advances, or intervening to protect others
• requesting accommodation of a disability or for a religious practice
• asking managers or co-workers about salary information to uncover potentially discriminatory wages.”

Prohibited Retaliation

Federal law prohibits retaliation and protects employees who report it to the right person within their organization or even to an outside source like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Retaliation, then, is prohibited when the employee truly believes he or she was subject to discrimination or harassment. For instance, if employee A feels she has been turned down for a promotion because of the color of her skin, she may make a report. Even though another candidate had greater qualifications, Employee A truly feels wronged. She reports this to the EEOC. As a result, the tone from management changes in how they act toward Employee A. They give her a heavier workload and make negative comments.

Regardless of whether or not she was really discriminated against, she felt she was and reported the same. The retaliation she experienced was illegal.

When Your Employer Retaliates Against You

Retaliation can look like many different things. Below are a few examples:

• Getting demoted to lower position. Or being denied a promotion.
• Spreading rumors that are not true.
• A sudden change to an undesirable shift.
• Trying to cause harm or pain to you by hurting those you care about, such as increased workload or canceled contracts.
• Being verbally or physically abusive. Bullying.
• Reduced salary.
• Making threats to report to authorities, immigration, or even confidential information to family.

In general, intentionally taking actions to make work uncomfortable or more difficult could be viewed as a punishment or retaliation.

If you have experienced any of these things, you may very well have experienced retaliation and should take steps to protect your rights.

What to Do if You Feel Retaliation

Your company can have a policy in place that retaliation is not allowed, but it does not stop it from happening. Sometimes keeping the doors of communication open can reduce a lot of confusion and miscommunication. It can even keep an incident from having to be reported in the first place. Unfortunately, though, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation are all very real.

If you feel like you are being retaliated against, here’s what you need to do:

• Talk to your supervisor, manager, or human resources personnel about the feelings you have and the actions that have been taken by others. Maybe there is a reason for them, maybe not. But talking about it can allow you to confirm whether you are the recipient of retaliation and it’s not just an odd coincidence.
• If you don’t get the response you are looking for, you may want to voice your concern about retaliation. Suer, they will likely deny it. But, sometimes negative actions of retaliation can happen without someone being truly conscious of it. Make it known and ask for it to stop.
• After these steps are taken, retaliation should end. If it does not or you feel like you are still being targeted, it is time to take action. Contact the EEOC or speak to a lawyer to determine your rights. 

Building Your Case with a Lawyer

If you find that talking with the right people within your organization has not cleared up the issue at hand, it is time to consider building your case and contacting a lawyer. To do so, you will want to be able to show that there is a relationship between the complaint and the retaliation.

Gather up all the evidence you have to be able to link the two actions. And always document everything. This may mean going back to the initial complaint and documenting what happened and what made you determine you should report it.

Be specific with peoples’ names, actions, dates, and so forth. The more information you can gather as evidence to support your retaliation case, the better.

Present your information in detail to an attorney. He or she will be able to help you determine how strong of a case you have and if you will be able to receive the compensation you deserve. This is an especially crucial step if you have lost wages or have been fired from your position.

Your work is your livelihood, but it does not mean you should have to take retaliation for a complaint you made due to feeling as though you were harassed or discriminated against. Stand up for yourself and hire an attorney to fight on your behalf. You – and your family – are worth it.