Bay Area Employment Law Blog
How do you confront racist comments in the workplace?
Are you wondering what you can do to help stop racist comments and jokes in the workplace? Racism is a community issue and it will only end when it becomes clearly unacceptable by community standards. That will only happen when enough people decide to take a stand and...
How to avoid showing your age on your resume
Ageism and age discrimination can be a real problem when you're over 50 and trying to find a job. No matter what your qualifications and enthusiasm for a position, some employers won't seriously consider you if your resume makes you look too old. Hiding your age on a...
What do you do if you’re handed a performance improvement plan?
Performance improvement plans, or PIPs, are part of an employer's paper trail. PIPs are supposed to be tools that employers can use to address deficiencies in an employee's work. They're also supposed to be tools that help the employee understand exactly what he or...
What type of sexual harassment at work is actionable?
Sexual harassment in the workplace is a complicated issue. People are often confused about what the difference is between generally boorish behavior and something that is legally actionable. This is what everyone should know about sexual harassment in the workplace....
Supreme Court asked to hear gender discrimination case
Are sex and gender the same? Is gender immutable and fixed or subjective? These are some of the theoretical questions that have to be answered and defined into law because they have real-world implications for the nation's transgender community -- which has become...
Imminent danger and your right to refuse to work
For the most part, employers have a pretty broad prerogative to tell employees what work has to be completed at any given time -- and many jobs have an element of danger that has to be managed on a daily basis. It's impossible, for example, to work on a construction...
Culture of sexual harassment alleged in government agency
Did the former personnel chief of a federal agency treat his office as like a private hunting ground for women? Did he create a culture that treated women as mere objects -- many hired on solely because they were viewed as attractive possible partners for the...
When you’re fired after developing health problems
What happens when you've developed a serious medical condition and your employer responds to the uncertainty in your life by terminating your position? Are you simply out of luck? Not necessarily. There are a number of laws that protect employees from wrongful...
Generation X is the new face of age discrimination in tech fields
How old is "too old" in the tech field? Would you believe 36 is considered too old by many employers? For anybody born between roughly 1965 and 1984, known as "Generation X," it seems almost inconceivable that members of their generation who witnessed the birth of the...
How can you protect immigrant employees from discrimination?
Immigration issues continue to make headline news all over the country -- with some areas arguably being hit harder than others. If your workforce includes immigrants of any kind, is there anything you can do to protect those employees from discrimination based on...