Examples of Potentially Illegal Behavior in the Workplace
Discrimination, harassment, and retaliation are illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Below are examples of workplace situations that may indicate a race-based issue at work.
Examples of situations that may indicate discrimination are:
-- a company that doesn’t post job openings and routinely fills positions with Whites from both inside and outside the company—without African Americans and other minorities having first cracks at the job as an internal hire;
-- unequal pay for African Americans performing the same work as Whites (with similar education and work experience);
-- segregating African American employees to only work on African American projects and contracts;
-- isolating and segregating African Americans by assigning them to work only in specific locations;
-- reclassifying jobs at a lower level and assigning African Americans to perform the work;
-- routinely denying African Americans promotions;
-- laying off African American employees, while White counterparts maintain their jobs; and
-- asking potential employees to identify their race on an employment application, which might indicate that race may be a factor in hiring decisions.
Examples of harassment/a hostile work environment might include:
-- being subjected to heightened scrutiny and observation from coworkers, supervisors, etc.;
-- personal attacks based on stereotypes and racist assumptions;
-- a supervisor that regularly screams directly into the face of subordinate, in private or in front of coworkers;
-- physical threats of violence or actual physical abuse (e.g., shoving or bumping);
-- verbal abuse/put-downs, name calling or the use of racial epithets or slang;
-- job threats/intimidation;
-- intentionally malicious and false gossip;
-- stare down contests; or
-- intentional humiliation.
Examples of retaliation (for complaining of mistreatment, opposing discriminatory practices, etc.) might include:
-- stripping an employee of their staff;
-- an unjustified salary cuts;
-- the denial of standard employee benefits (e.g., use of leave, etc.);
-- a demotion;
-- a transfer to a hard-to-reach office;
-- stripping an employee of their workload/assignments; or
-- an intentionally negative and malicious performance evaluation; or
-- the denial of an anticipated promotion.
Please keep in mind that the list is not exhaustive and only represents examples of potentially illegal behavior. These are the types of incidences and situations that you should be documenting. Should you decide to make complaints, these types of situations should convey to the authority that there is a situation that demands attention and remedy.
Examples of situations that may indicate discrimination are:
-- a company that doesn’t post job openings and routinely fills positions with Whites from both inside and outside the company—without African Americans and other minorities having first cracks at the job as an internal hire;
-- unequal pay for African Americans performing the same work as Whites (with similar education and work experience);
-- segregating African American employees to only work on African American projects and contracts;
-- isolating and segregating African Americans by assigning them to work only in specific locations;
-- reclassifying jobs at a lower level and assigning African Americans to perform the work;
-- routinely denying African Americans promotions;
-- laying off African American employees, while White counterparts maintain their jobs; and
-- asking potential employees to identify their race on an employment application, which might indicate that race may be a factor in hiring decisions.
Examples of harassment/a hostile work environment might include:
-- being subjected to heightened scrutiny and observation from coworkers, supervisors, etc.;
-- personal attacks based on stereotypes and racist assumptions;
-- a supervisor that regularly screams directly into the face of subordinate, in private or in front of coworkers;
-- physical threats of violence or actual physical abuse (e.g., shoving or bumping);
-- verbal abuse/put-downs, name calling or the use of racial epithets or slang;
-- job threats/intimidation;
-- intentionally malicious and false gossip;
-- stare down contests; or
-- intentional humiliation.
Examples of retaliation (for complaining of mistreatment, opposing discriminatory practices, etc.) might include:
-- stripping an employee of their staff;
-- an unjustified salary cuts;
-- the denial of standard employee benefits (e.g., use of leave, etc.);
-- a demotion;
-- a transfer to a hard-to-reach office;
-- stripping an employee of their workload/assignments; or
-- an intentionally negative and malicious performance evaluation; or
-- the denial of an anticipated promotion.
Please keep in mind that the list is not exhaustive and only represents examples of potentially illegal behavior. These are the types of incidences and situations that you should be documenting. Should you decide to make complaints, these types of situations should convey to the authority that there is a situation that demands attention and remedy.
5 Comments:
-- a supervisor that regularly screams directly into the face of subordinate, in private or in front of coworkers;
-- physical threats of violence or actual physical abuse (e.g., shoving or bumping);
-- verbal abuse/put-downs, name calling or the use of racial epithets or slang;
-- job threats/intimidation;
As the owner of several anger management education center in Los Angeles I have recieved many clients who have been involved in the behaviors you have described above. The majority of the clients who are referred by employers or Human Resources department are non-black. Court ordered clients have a tendency to be African American or Hispanic. Which may lead one to think that minorities or being prosecuted more for the same behavior as there collegues.
Shannon Munford
www.daybreakservices.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/angryinla
http://angerarchive.blogspot.com
In my case I filed complaints with the EEOC for discrimination, harassment and retaliation but the EEOC investigator was incompetent and uninterested in what I had to say. I complained to him over and over over the 6 year period of the investigation but he still managed to conduct a incompetent investigation and he refused to substantiate and verify the validity of sworn affidavits made against me by the employer and its witnesses. I complained and complained that the affidavits were false and perjured statements yet he never bothered to
weigh the validity or truthfulness of the sworn affidavits submitted against me. I asked him to refer the false and perjured statements against me to the authorities or the Department of Justice for prosecution but he willfully neglected to do so.
IN 2000 he closed the case by telling me that the EEOC was over loaded with cases and understaffed to continue investigating my case and handed me a letter of right to sue. THe investigator was malicious and colluded with the employer to deny me my due process. He you have a EEOC investigator who willfully and intentionally refused to question the validity of the sworn statements made against me. He did not care if they were false and perjured. I have all the evidence and witnesses necessary to prove and substantiate the employer and its managers were all committing perjury, fraud and obstructing justice.
This EEOC investigator also willingly and intentionally refused to contact my most crucial witness who supported my charges of perjury and fraud by the employer.
what can you do when the very agency established to preservea nd protect your civil rights is colluding with the employer and violating your civil rights all over. In fact by colluding with the employer the investigator met the threshold of conspiracy. He aided and abetted the employer by refusing the substantiate the authenticity of the sworn false and refused to consider or investigate my disputes of the statements.
The EECO investigator was negligent, and malicious by refusing to refer the crimes of perjury, fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice by the employer and its witnesses.
I recommend that when you are involved in an investigation and the employer and their witnesses submit false and perjured statements you yourself take it upon yourself to file a complaint with the Department of Justice and inform the investigator that you are doing so because he or she has failed to address the matter. Remember lying to a federal officer is a crime. Committing perjury, fraud, conspiracy and obstructing justice in your racial discrimination case to the investigator by the employer and their witnesses are all illegal and are punishable by jail and fines.
It is best that you monitor your investigator to make sure he or she is performing at a high standard by making sure they contact each and every witness who supports your charge. Make sure he obtains each and every evidence that supports your claim. Do not leave it up to the investigator to collect and consider all the evidence and contact each witness because they often don't care.
While your investigation is being conducted make sure the investigator is paying attention and investigating "all" the evidence and contacts every witness. Don't count on them to do it. You have to follow up and make sure they are doing their job.
When it comes to the investigator unwilling to consider and weigh your complaint of perjury, fraud and obstruction of justice the investigator often feels the know what they are doing and do not want to be told by you what to do. Having said that you must remember investigators can be and often are incompetent, bias and ignorant. They can conduct an incompetent investigation and end up violating you all over by ignorance, incompetence failing to provide you the due process you are guaranteed by the constitution.
I recommend you also consider suing the investigator for failure, aiding and abetting the employer if he refuses to do anything you feel he should have done.
Just like there are criminal cops and judges so are criminal investigators in the EEOC.
I am even considering filing a charges of racial discrimination and violation of my civil rights against the EEEOC and the officer with the EEOC. I would like to see if they will accept a charge of racial discrimination and harassment and denial of civil rights under the color of law by aiding and abetting the employer by refusing to use the subpoena to obtain electronic evidence crucial to my claim of proving and substantiating the crimes of perjury and fraud and obstruction of justice.
What we must do as minorities is to force changes in the enforcement of civil rights. We must unite to abolish statute of limitations in civil rights case because often when the investigation takes a long time and toher crimes are committed by the employer and their witnesses the statute of limitations run out. The statute of limitations are restrictions and obstacles for minorities and their civil rights.
Once a case is filed whether in State or Federal venue the statute of limitations on anything new that arises during the investigation should all be tolled and not run out.
Current statute of limitations are obstacles that get in the way of out civil rights and in the process of fighting for our civil rights.
Statute of limitations ar designed to further harm the victims of racial discrimination. Statue of limitations are morally wrong and discriminatory. Often employers will use time against you by stretching out the investigation as long as they can causing your rights to address any new charges, crimes stemming out of the the investigation and or fighting through the legal venue to erode and dissipate. This is a tactic used by defense and their lawyers.
We as minorities must unite to vote for a change of discriminatory and harmful policies and statute of limitations.
I hope I am able to file a complaint with the eeoc against the eeoc investigator. I want to see if they will investigate their own or not.
I experienced the same thing with filing a claim of race discrimination with the Texas CRD and EEOC. I expected they would contact me about my claim that the alleged complaints had not been disclosed to me and that they would question why an employee who just three months prior to the start of the discrimination I faced in the office, all performance appraisals indicated just the opposite of what the Director was indicating as performance problems. I even submitted customer complaints against some of my white coworkers and explained that these coworkers were not being suspended and harassed like I was. The investigator never contacted me instead I received a letter stating that they deemed it more employee policy than a legal matter and that she could not pursue it. I pursued my claim with the EEOC and received no contact from them either. I received a rights to sue letter and two days later, I was terminated. I hope the EEOC does better by me while pursuing my claim of retaliation.I am angry. I feel that this was not a big enough deal to get the investigator any recognition so the matter was insignificant to her.
Do you have any references or citations for your examples?
This is a very good article, but I anticipate someone replying to me, "Oh, that is just a blog...".
My discrimination case involves discrimination in hiring against Jim Taylor and his secretary Roberta of local union 725 in Opalocka,Florida. Basically Jim calls me on April 14, 2011 offering me a pre-apprentice position in Miami Beach paying 12.50 per hr. He said that he needed an apprentice by Monday. I accepted the position and Jim directed me to bring $20 and report to the union hall the following morning for processing.
I reported promptly the following morning and Jim and his secretary hand me a piece of paper with the address of a mechanical contractor stating that I'm to report to his office for a background check. Jim tells me to call the contractor to let him know that I'm on my way. I called the contractor's office his secretary answers and I tell her that I'm on my way in for the background check. She replies,WHAT BACKGROUND CHECK AND THAT I'M NOT FAMILIAR WITH YOUR NAME. I further explain to her that I'm a pre-apprentice from local union 725 coming in for a background check for the job in Miami Beach. She replies, WHAT JOB IN MIAMI BEACH. She further states that WE ARE INTERVIEWING PEOPLE WITH CONTROLS EXPERIENCE, NOT APPRENTICES. This is when it occurred to me that Jim Taylor and his secretary Roberta had given the job in Miami Beach in which they hired me for to somebody else, probably a younger hispanic man.
In an effort to cover this up they devised a scheme to divert my attention away from the job in Miami Beach thus sending me for a bogus background check. I’m a black man age 52 and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out. Jim Taylor and Roberta are real devils who could give a rat’s azz about fair hiring practices. Just as in other cases expressed in this forum the EEOC has been very incompetent in the intake and investigation of my complaint. The EEOC’s procedures and policies are geared towards helping the employer dislodge a complainant’s case. The average employer has a big advantage over the complainant in that they can afford to hire lawyers who are experts at providing perjured statements to the EEOC. I can destroy the credibility of such perjured statements via telephonic records but the EEOC states that they can’t utilize or access such telephonic records. The intake and investigative staff of the EEOC are very incompetent, untimely and unfocussed in the processing of a complainant’s complaint. The intake department paraphrases the complainant’s complaint from its original content and hands it to the investigative department thus, the investigative department is provided with a paraphrased copy of the complainant’s complaint which often is missing facts needed to prove the complainant’s case. In some cases the EEOC will offer mediation to the complainant and employer. Both the complainant and employer have to agree to the mediation process for it to take place. The problem is most employers will not mediate. Even though mediation doesn’t render the employer liable some employers interpret mediation as an admission of guilt. Therefore, mediation is usually insignificant in solving a complaint.
What’s more, is that the EEOC will often find the complainant’s allegations unfounded or conclude that they can’t determine if discrimination occurred. This is very bad news for the complainant, even if the EEOC offers a right to sue. Most complainants are inexperienced at pursuing their case as a pro se litigant in federal court. The complainant will often file in forma pauperis and these federal court judges will usually dismiss the case in the initial stage of process, not to mention how corrupt these federal judges are, especially here in South Florida. It seems that the judges have a disregard for forma pauperis litigants. Some federal judges are disgruntled because complainants are electing to have their cases decided by jury rather than a judge. Record has it that employment discrimination litigants are more successful with a jury rather than a judge.
In conclusion, there really isn’t any justice for victims of employment discrimination.
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