The laws in California are clearly stated on what can and cannot be put into consideration as employments discrimination. There are certain groups of people that are considered as vulnerable to employment discrimination in California. The protected classes include those that can be discriminated on the basis of:

• Religion
• Marital Status
• Sexual identity and Orientation
• Disability
• Citizenship status
• Age
• Race
• Political orientation
• National Origin and
• HIV status.

For this reason, the federal laws and the state laws are protective of the individuals who fall under these categories of protected classes.

The Law

The Fair Employment and Housing Act is a key player in the labor laws that protect against employment discrimination in California. In addition to this, several federal laws are applicable in favor of the laborers in California. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Americans with Disability Act are some of the federal laws that protect against employment discrimination. Although the federal laws are favorable to all, the Fair Employment and Housing Act in California gives employees more leverage when it comes to getting justice for violations of their rights. For example, under the federal laws, one gets only 180 days to file a case in the event of discrimination while the state laws allow a time of up to 1 year for an employee to file a court case.

What to do when you face Employment Discrimination in California

It is important to fight for your rights, and it is even better when you have professionals on your side. If you experience discrimination at work such as wage violation, unfair dismissals or discrimination because of being a member of a protected class, employment attorneys are there to come to your aid.

United Employees Law Group, is your right-hand companion when it comes to battling employment discrimination in California. You can be sure that when you have the gurus on your side, justice will be served. Through a simple phone call or email, it is possible to get legal representation when filing your case in court. The best part is that consultation is free. With vast experience in the field of labor laws, results are assured, and you will get the very best legal representation there is.

United Employees Law Group ensures that the law is enforced with due diligence so that every employee in California should be accorded the fairness and respect they deserve.

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The UELG (United Employees Law Group) is a California based employment law firm that is devoted to helping employees who have been subject to discrimination in the workplace. The organization provides assistance to employees through class action in recovering damages and addressing unfair treatment by employers (wrongful termination, harassment, etc.).
Over the years, UELG has incessantly grown in popularity as many of their clients come through referrals from other satisfied clients. They are reported to have handled more than 1500 employment cases, with their clients having been awarded about $250 million dollars.
UELG justly is an authority on California labor law and other California employment law issues. The organization is ever ready to go the extra mile to provide employees with the right resources, so that they may find the help they need. As an employee, you can seek their support if you have a claim under California’s or Federal Discrimination laws. Let’s have a look at cases that are protected under the workplace discrimination laws.
DISCRIMINATION BY REASON OF DISABILITY-
This includes discrimination in hiring, termination, pay rate and raises, promotions, fringe benefits, job assignment, layoffs and training requirements. Federal and state labor laws prohibit any type of harassment of disabled persons (defined under the ADA and the Rehabilitations Act.) in the workplace. This can include undue teasing and offensive comments that are persistent enough to create an unfriendly environment.
DISCRIMINATION BY REASON OF AGE-
This can be a complicated area, so make sure you can prove that the discrimination was done based on age and not just to save money. It is clear prejudice to hire people under a specific age on the pretext of “old people being slower”.
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION-
This kind of unequal treatment can have numerous features. You could be ignored for a less qualified individual of a particular race or consigned to specific employments taking into account your race. This sort of stereotyping IS DISCRIMINATION! Keeping in mind the end goal to have a case for race separation you should demonstrate the valid proofs. In any case, evidence is key.
SEXUAL DISCRIMINATION-
These cases might be brought under the two unique categories. A disparate treatment case includes an association’s arrangement which treats comparatively arranged workers in an unexpected way, in light of their sex or sexual introduction. In disparate impact cases, an individual must demonstrate that the association’s approach, has an unbalanced antagonistic effect on persons of one’s own sex or sexual introduction.

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Racial harassment is simply a kind of behavior that occurs when an individual or a group uses discriminatory remarks or practices in a repetitive manner. Basically, the remarks or practices are supposed to discriminate a person basing on his/her color, culture, religion, language or decent so that the behavior can be considered racial harassment.

Some of the Examples of Racial Harassment Include:

• Showing a co-worker comic strips, images or pictures which are racially degrading.
• Trying to stop or hinder a person from being promoted simply because he or she belongs to a particular culture or religion.
• Making jokes, humiliating comments, racially oriented remarks or insinuations to a person or co-worker.

What are Some of the Consequences Associated with Racial Harassment?

1. How it Affects the Victim

An individual who turns out to be a victim of racial harassment will most likely feel hurt, humiliated and outraged. He/she will feel rejected in the long run and often fail to carry out his or her daily chores in a professional manner. This is simply because there are invisible barriers trying to hinder his or her performance.

2. How the Witnesses Inside the Workplace are Affected

Racial harassment can be rampant, and it can end up deteriorating the work environment as a whole. Generally, the colleagues of the victim of racial harassment may end up feeling uneasy and eventually lose interest in certain tasks they are entitled to handle in the organization.

When this form of discrimination is caused by a group of people that intend to make life unbearable to a particular person, racial harassment can lead to confrontation, hate, or even physical violence.

3. How Does It Impact the Organization?

If the organization fails to handle harassment cases in due time, it might end up suffering losses of employees as people may end up resigning or losing interest in their jobs. It may make the organization incur huge losses if not corrected immediately.

What are Some of the Measures to Put into Action to Stop Racial Harassment in an Organization?

• Written or oral reprimand or warning
• Reassignment or transfer
• Demotion
• Reduction of wages
• Discharge
• Suspension

What are Legal Consequences of Racial Discrimination?

Prosecution processes and fines are applied when workplace discrimination occurs. Normally, this may happen when discrimination fails to be addressed properly by the company officials. When an employer is found guilty of causing discriminatory remarks, he/she may be required to pay fines or even face a jail term.

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In most workplaces, there are many different types of workplace discrimination but as a norm, they are often difficult to discern and quite hard to prove.

In most cases, you might have a feeling that something is not right. You might be routinely targeted unfairly but at a loss on what to do next since the workplace environment is already hostile for you. So how do you know that you are being unfairly targeted at your work place or the work ethics are not as they should be? The following is an overview of signs of employment discrimination that should alert you to this.

Pass overs during promotion

Have you ever felt that you have the right skill set backed by the necessary experience to be next in line for a vacant post? But unfortunately you are consistently overlooked when it comes to filling up the post? What you are facing is workplace discrimination.

Bad reviews

Do you carry out duties assigned diligently and routinely go over and above the set targets but for some strange reason you are always given a poor review during the annual assessment? If so, you are most likely being subjected to workplace discrimination.

Alienation

Alienation is also features prominently in the list of signs of employment discrimination. Alienation can take many forms. For instance, you might always find yourself being assigned less savory office duties or in some instances, you might be consistently withheld from performing duties that give you room to shine: all these are considered as alienation.

Role stereotyping

If in an organization women are stereotyped as being fit for clerical tasks while the men get promotions for management roles, you might be facing workplace discrimination

What to do?

If you find that you have fallen victim to any of the above mentioned practices, you have the legal right under law to sue your employer for workplace discrimination. However, it is important to note that, most organizations usually fight tooth and nail to rubbish such claims and as such, it would be in your best interest to acquire the services of a law firm that specifically deals with such cases so as to prove your claim and get the right compensation

The United Employee Law Firm is one such firm. At United Employee Law Firm, we specifically deal with cases relating to workplace discrimination. Our results oriented approach will ensure you get the best compensation package for your workplace discrimination claim. Contact us today and let’s get started.

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In the workplace environment, different types of harassment take place and racial harassment has become rampant. Racial harassment is defined as any unwelcome behavior that occurs to a person because of their race, color, or creed, place of origin or citizenship. When someone treats you unfairly based on their perception of the stated factors, racial harassment has occurred. Racial harassment at the place of work always results in a hostile environment where the victim finds it hard to operate.

Although most laws don’t openly declare racial harassment as illegal, courts always classify it as a form of race discrimination that violates the law that prohibits discrimination in the place of work.

Employees get protected under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 1964. The act protects people from any discrimination based on race. Under the Act, an employer can’t discriminate against a person based on their race when it comes to hiring, firing, promotions, and other job opportunities in an organization.

The above Act protects all employees in the private sector, state and local government as well as in educational institutions with fifteen or more employees. Employees in labor organizations and agencies also get covered under the Act.

Examples of racial harassment can be broad and includes many kinds of the conduct of a racial nature, of which the behavior is unwelcome and also pervasive or severe. Some of the behaviors that might be said to be forms of racial harassment include the following:

Nonverbal conduct-They include derogatory gestures as well as facial expressions that are of a racial nature like stalking or following you.

Verbal or written conduct-These are any comments that relate to clothing, someone’s body, personal behavior that are racial or making race-based jokes. Others that fall here include telling rumors about someone’s personal life about their race and organized hate activity aimed at employees.

Visual displays-The exhibits include making posters, pictures, e-mails, drawings or screensavers of any racial nature; making of epithets scrawled on your employer’s property or other items known to carry some racial significance.

Physical conduct-It will be any physical assault done on someone based on their race. It includes rape or assault, blocking one’s movements or inappropriately touching of someone’s body.

If you, or someone you know, are facing legal issues in the workplace, United Employees Law Group has the answers. Call Today for your free and confidential case review. Please feel free to CONTACT US with any questions about this blog or your exact situation.

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Employees in California are protected from racial harassment by the Federal Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and the federal law, although the FEHA applies more broadly than the federal laws do. For example, the FEHA applies to all employers with one or more employees, and the provisions apply to independent contractors. Unlike federal law, supervisors may be held personally liable for racial harassment.

What Constitutes Racial Harassment?
Racial harassment occurs when the harassment is sufficiently severe or pervasive enough that it creates a hostile, intimidating, or offensive work environment, and it interferes with an individual’s work performance or it raises concerns for their safety. The scope of the kinds of workplace behavior that may constitute illegal harassment is much broader under the FEHA than under federal law.

This form of harassment can take many different forms. Among these are race-based derogatory comments, racial jokes, cartoons depicting a racial bias, and disparate treatment of employees of different races. This is especially evidenced when different races are treated more favorably than others. A key to determining if an act is racial harassment is whether the person engaging in it did so with “racial animus” meaning the person is motivated by racial hatred and hostility. A clear racial bias can also result in racial harassment if the bias causes a person to commit illegal acts against a person of another race.

Conduct Must Be Shown To Be Sufficiently Severe Or Pervasive
Certainly acts of racial harassment are serious even if only committed one time, but one time will likely not be actionable. However, numerous acts of less serious racial harassment may be viewed as pervasive if these acts are frequently committed. If a pattern of racial harassment exists regardless of how serious it is, then this may be actionable.

What Actions Can An Employee Take?
The racially harassed employee must make their management aware of the harassment, and allow the management to take the necessary steps to prevent and correct the harassment. An employee must avail their self of the employer’s policies against racial harassment. Failure to do so will result in the failure of legal action. California law requires that an employer take reasonable steps to prevent racial harassment. The FEHA also provides penalties for retaliation against an employee who makes a racial harassment claim. An employee should want to take every action possible to solve the problem short of taking legal action, because legal action carries burdens and it may not result in any gains. However, do what is needed to solve the problem and mitigate damages.

What If Your Employer Neglects To Solve The Problem?
While an employer would be unwise to neglect their responsibility under the law, it does happen. The employee must then assess the seriousness of the harassment and document it to the greatest extent possible. Then, and only then, an employee can consult with an attorney experienced in handling racial harassment cases.

If you, or someone you know, are facing legal issues in the workplace United Employees Law Group has answers, Call Today for your free and confidential case review. Please feel free to CONTACT US with any questions about this blog or your exact situation.

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