California and federal law protect you from discrimination at work. Regardless of the type of discrimination you have faced, Long Beach employment discrimination lawyers at King & Siegel LLP can help you get compensation. We handle all types of employment discrimination claims.
What Is Equal Employment Opportunity?
Equal employment opportunity means that your employer cannot discriminate in hiring, firing, or your treatment at work based on certain protected characteristics. You are guaranteed the right to equal employment opportunity in California, which means the law protects you from discrimination at work. You must show an adverse employment action based on your protected status to prove discrimination.
What Types of Discrimination Cases Do You Handle?
Long Beach employment discrimination lawyers at King & Siegel LLP handle the entire spectrum of employment discrimination cases relating to all protected statuses under California and federal law, including:
- Age discrimination. The law protects you against discrimination based on your age. Note that this applies only to workers who are 40 or older.
- Racial discrimination. An employer cannot discriminate against you at work based on your race.
- Pregnancy discrimination. In California, you cannot be discriminated against because you are pregnant. You cannot be treated differently because you are pregnant, intend to become pregnant, or recently had a child.
- Religious discrimination. Your religion or your religious beliefs are unacceptable grounds for treating you differently than other workers. Additionally, employers must take reasonable steps to accommodate your religious worship, like allowing you time off to observe a religious holiday.
- Sexual orientation discrimination. You are protected against discrimination at work based on your sexual orientation.
- Disability discrimination. An employer cannot discriminate against you because you have a disability and must reasonably accommodate your disability. Federal law defines disability as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.
- Gender discrimination. The law ensures you cannot be discriminated against because of gender. Gender discrimination can happen to women, men, and non-binary individuals.
If you believe you have been discriminated against for one of the above reasons, please contact us today to discuss your situation.
If you believe you are being discriminated against in the workplace, King & Siegel LLP welcomes you to call our legal team today at (213) 465-4802 for a free review of your case.
What Actions Constitute Discrimination?
Three common situations can lead to a discrimination claim. These are adverse employment actions, a hostile work environment, and failure to provide reasonable accommodation.
Adverse Employment Actions
An employer cannot take adverse employment actions against you because of your membership in a protected class. No employer can consider a protected status in:
- Hiring,
- Promotion,
- Benefits,
- Salary and wage, or
- Termination.
If the employer’s consideration of a protected status does affect these types of decisions, it may very well rise to the level of an employment discrimination claim.
Hostile Work Environment
A hostile work environment is another situation where you can recover from employment discrimination. A hostile work environment involves a situation where supervisors or fellow employees engage in conduct that creates an intimidating or hostile environment for other workers. The conduct must be discriminatory in nature and must be serious enough that it impacts your ability to do your work. For example, someone in your office may make frequent derogatory comments to certain workers because of their gender or gender identity. Or there may be employees in your office who regularly make inappropriate jokes about a particular religion or use offensive racial slurs.
Failure To Provide Reasonable Accommodation
An employer is required to provide reasonable accommodation to allow someone who is qualified for a job to have equal employment opportunity. Examples include things like:
- Allowing a disabled worker to sit rather than stand while working,
- Allowing someone to wear a religious head covering,
- Giving a nursing mother a break to pump breast milk, or
- Providing special equipment for a visually or hearing impaired worker.
Whether an accommodation is reasonable may depend on the company and the job. An accommodation is not reasonable if it causes undue hardship for the company.
How To Prove Discrimination
Proving discrimination can be a complex process, and most people will benefit from the help of an experienced Long Beach employment discrimination attorney.
There are two primary ways to prove employment discrimination. The first is to show that the employer intentionally discriminated. The second is to show that the employer’s actions, while not intentionally discriminatory, had a disparate impact on a protected class.
Intentional Discrimination
There are two types of evidence used to show intentional discrimination: direct and circumstantial. Direct evidence can be statements, emails, or documents showing that the discrimination occurred and was intended. An employer’s intent is demonstrated without any need for inferences. For example, a hiring manager may have written an email explicitly stating that they did not want to hire older workers.
However, direct evidence in employment discrimination cases can be challenging to find. Employers can be subtle in their bias. For example, they might use words like “culture,” “fit,” and “energy” to justify discrimination.
Thus, most cases rely on circumstantial evidence. For example, you might show that workers of a particular race are hired or promoted at much lower rates than other individuals. Or you might present evidence that individuals in a protected class were treated differently than others in a similar situation. For example, if two individuals of different races both violated the same company policy and one was fired while the other was disciplined, that could be evidence of discrimination.
Gathering circumstantial evidence requires a skilled attorney who knows what to look for with employment discrimination.
Disparate Impact
The law does not require that discrimination be intentional. Showing that an employer’s actions have resulted in unequal treatment, known as a disparate impact, is typically sufficient to prove discrimination. Disparate impact discrimination occurs when an employer’s apparently neutral policy results in people in a protected class being discriminated against in practice. For example, requiring workers to be a certain height may indirectly discriminate against female candidates.
What Should I Do Next?
Employment discrimination is a serious matter. There are several situations where you can bring employment discrimination claims. King & Siegel LLP fights for your best interests in a wide range of employment discrimination matters. Our Long Beach employment discrimination attorneys handle all cases with compassion, competence, and honesty. We have received numerous five-star reviews from clients, and our attorneys have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for plaintiffs over the course of their careers. Contact us to discuss your options regarding recovery for discrimination at work.
King Siegel LLP represents employees in a wide variety of legal matters in Long Beach, such as workplace harassment, whistleblower retaliation, workplace retaliation, wage & hour disputes, wrongful termination, stock disputes, and more. Contact us today!