San Francisco Bay Area Employment Law
For more information about an employment law issue, click on the heading.
Discrimination Claims
Employment discrimination occurs when you lose your job or suffer a work detriment because of your race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, pregnancy or family responsibilities. Being fired and/or not hired because an employer thinks you are too old for the job is a classic example of unlawful employment discrimination.
Sexual Harassment
You can be unlawfully harassed even if you have not yet lost your job. Harassment occurs when you are treated differently because of a protected criteria (e.g., your sex, race, religion, nation origin, etc.) and the disparate treatment is so bad that it effectively changes your work environment. This is called "hostile environment" harassment. Sex harassment can also occur if an employer conditions an employment benefit on submission to sexual demands, such as when a boss says that he will not promote a subordinate unless she agrees to go out with him. This is called "quid pro quo" sex harassment.
Retaliation and Wrongful Termination
Retaliation is when an employee is punished for engaging in a protected right, such as complaining about safety violations or demanding compensation for overtime or meal and rest breaks. Wrongful termination is when employees are fired in any way that violates California public policy. Our state's most fundamental public policies include the policies to be free from unlawful discrimination, harassment or retaliation.
Pregnancy and Family Responsibilities
It is illegal to fire someone, demote them or deny them an employment opportunity because they are pregnant or planning to exercise any pregnancy-related rights (e.g., maternity leave). It is likewise unlawful to discriminate against employees because of their responsibilities to their families, either real or assumed (e.g., a person will not be able to work overtime because he/she has children).
Disability Discrimination and Failure to Accommodate
Disability discrimination generally occurs when employees are fired or suffer other employment detriment because of a disability, either real or perceived. However, it can also occur when employers deny reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and/or when employers fail or refuse to engage in an interactive dialogue with disabled employees to attempt to devise reasonable accommodations for them.
Overtime and Unpaid Wages
Employers frequently misclassify employees as exempt from overtime requirements − which means that the employees are paid set salaries, rather than wages and overtime. If an employer misclassifies a group of employees as salaried, it can be held responsible for paying those employees for all of the past overtime they were entitled to, plus additional fees and penalties. Employers also sometimes pay employees less than the minimum amount required for white collar overtime exemptions, wrongfully withhold accrued wages and/or vacation benefits at the time employees quit or get terminated, and wrongfully deduct amounts from employee paychecks. All these practices can run afoul of California wage-and-hour law.
Employment Agreements
Although California is an at-will state, many employers require their employees to sign written employment agreements, as well as non-disclosure agreements and agreements to arbitrate potential employment disputes. Having an attorney review and/or negotiate your employment contracts can help protect your rights.
Handbooks, Policies, Training and Advice & Counseling
Employee handbooks establish, in writing, the basic parameters of employment relationships, such as what sorts of benefits employees will receive and what standards of conduct employers will expect. Keeping your employee handbook accurate and current can help minimize litigation. This is especially important in a state with such rapidly changing employment laws as California.
Severance Agreements
Employers sometimes offer severance benefits to employees who are terminated. There are no laws requiring that severance be paid; employers generally only pay severance when they have previously agreed to (e.g., in an employment contract), when the terminated employees have worked for a long time, and/or to get written releases of potential legal disputes. Whether and to what extent employees can negotiate severance benefits depends on a number of factors, including who first suggests severance (employees' bargaining power diminishes substantially when they receive a severance offer, rather than suggesting one first).
Free Consultation with San Francisco Bay Area Employment Lawyer
I offer a free case evaluation by telephone. Call 650-557-4746 (1-866-290-0424 toll-free) or fill out the contact form on this site to talk to me about your case. My law office is located in San Bruno in San Mateo County, just south of San Francisco.
