Legal Question in Employment Law in California
Retaliation for reporting inappropriate behavior and Stand by pay concerns
I work for a grocery chain with 24-hour facilities. Support staff is required to carry a pager and cell phone after hours and respond if we are contacted. The employer doesn’t feel they need to compensate for carrying a pager.
Employees complained - I lead the charge. I’ve been the victim of subtle hostility – nothing I could document - as a result.
Recently things escalated, a manager threaten an employee via e-mail and copied most of the people in the department, including the director of the department. The e-mail is unrelated to the on-call issues. When the director took no action - I sent the e-mail to HR.
Since then I have been the target of a termination campaign by the director. In the last 2 weeks I’ve been given 2 verbal warnings – one a public reprimand. The other resulted from an attempt to I defend myself – from being reprimanded for missing a meeting on a day I called in sick. You really have to read the e-mail trail to see what I’m up against. What can I do?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Retaliation for reporting inappropriate behavior and Stand by pay concerns
There are some activities that are protected by law and some that are not. Simply put, if the motive for retaliation is in response to making a good faith complaint about what you believe is unlawful labor practices, the employer's conduct may be illegal. If the employer is simply being unreasonable, even hostile, due to some unidentifiable reason, you probably do not have a case.
Bottom line: You must be able to prove that the employer is engaged in tangble adverse action against you that is motivated by unlawful reasons.
This is not always easy to do. You should write down all of your facts in some organized fashion and have an experienced employment attorney review your case. Bear in mind there are strict statutes of limitation that apply.
If you belong to a union, you should also talk to your union Rep to see what their position is on the employer's conduct.
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