“It is easy to fool yourself. It is possible to fool the people you work for. It is more difficult to fool the people you work with. But it is almost impossible to fool the people who work under you.” — Harry B. Thayer
Quote Re Employees Fooling Themselves and Others
Posted in Uncategorized on October 6, 2009 by employeerightswisconsinThings to Consider for Defamation Action Based on What a Wisconsin Employer Said
Posted in Employee Tip - Considering a Legal Action, Employee Tip - Problems at Job with tags Wisconsin Defamation, Wisconsin Employment Defamation on September 14, 2009 by employeerightswisconsin
- Image by Joits via Flickr
Commonly, I get calls from workers who are interested in a defamation action, based on false statements an employer made. Defamation is a State-law claim, and I have represented persons for defamation claims under Wisconsin law.
If you are contemplating a defamation action against an employer, consider the things below. (Please note this post does not provide legal advice; if you want legal advice, you must consult about your specific situation with an attorney who is licensed in the State in which the allegedly defamatory statements were made). Read more »
The 5 Biggest Mistakes Employees Make In Employment Disputes
Posted in Employee Tip - Considering a Legal Action, Employee Tip - Problems at Job with tags 5 Biggest Mistakes Employees Make In Employment Disputes, Employee Rights Wisconsin, Employment Attorney Wisconsin, Wisconsin Employment Law on August 8, 2009 by employeerightswisconsin
- Image by Observe The Banana via Flickr
Below are the top 5 mistakes I see employees make in employment disputes. And, I should note, in my own work experience, dating back to the junior high paper route, I personally have made several of these mistakes several times.
Please know these are general opinions, and do not give legal advice for any particular situation. If you find yourself in an employment dispute and want legal advice, you should contact an employment attorney.
Having encountered thousands of employment disputes, here are the top 5 employee mistakes that I observe.
About to Complain to Management? Think Big Picture.
Posted in Employee Tip - Considering a Legal Action, Employee Tip - Problems at Job with tags Complaining to Management, Employment Retaliation, Wisconsin Employee Rights, Wisconsin Employment Law Retaliation on August 2, 2009 by employeerightswisconsinIf you are gearing up to give management an earful tomorrow about all the wrongs they have been committing, please give some thought to the big picture before you head off to give your speech. Especially if you are right, and you have stacks of documents proving you are right.
Being right is not enough. If your employer thinks the sky is green, and fires you because you insist it is blue, you may be right but you are still fired. And if you intend on proving (to the point of a legal judgment) that the sky is in fact blue, you have at least a few years of litigation, and a few years of significant expense, to look forward to.
Most companies know this. They know they hold your cards– they hold your job and income, and they can take it away. Abruptly. If they fire you, they know you will have no income, and that you’ll probably need income if you wish to enforce your legal rights. They know litigation takes years to complete, and they know they will likely have much more money to pay toward litigation than an individual like you does.
Are you thinking about all these dynamics when you’re planning to confront your manager?
Now, it’s true that if you complain about your employer’s wrongdoing, there are laws that protect against retaliation. There are also laws that prohibit speeding and Bernie Madoff-ing, and you can see how effective those laws are as applied to reality. Sometimes those laws are effective– sometimes wrongdoers get caught and don’t squirm out of a significant legal penalty, but too often the real-life penalties do not turn out like the wronged person would like to think.
Before you give your manager an earful, make sure you have a back-up plan if they fire you. A real back-up plan. A new job lined up. A large nest egg saved up. Advice from a competent and value-conscious attorney, telling you what potential legal claims and options you have.
But if you believe that simply being right is enough, you are rolling the dice.
Article About Biblical Illiteracy
Posted in Political with tags Biblical Illiteracy, Scientific Illiteracy on June 24, 2009 by employeerightswisconsinThere are a lot of articles claiming the public is scientifically illiterate, but this article is the first I’ve seen making assertions about biblical illiteracy. (I am pretty bible-illiterate, I must confess, and I do not post this to judge).
As a general matter, I believe that most of us don’t know much about most of what we talk about.
WI Employee Discrimination Complainants and Go-With-Your-Gut Settlement Offers
Posted in Employee Tip - Considering a Legal Action, Employee Tip - Severance & Settlement with tags Equal Rights Division Settlement, Wisconsin Discrimination Damages, Wisconsin Discrimination Settlement, Wisconsin Employee Rights on June 15, 2009 by employeerightswisconsinOf those workers in Wisconsin who file discrimination complaints without an attorney, most have no idea how much a fair settlement value would be for their case. And how should they? For nearly every employee complainant, this is their first legal complaint, and they have no familiarity with the legal process, with what sorts of awards can be won, or with what typical settlement ranges are.
So I can’t blame any employee for not knowing what their case could be “worth”- that’s a very difficult thing for a non-attorney to get experience with or solid information about.
However, an employee who does not have an idea of his or her case’s value will often make mistakes that cause their case not to be settled, and litigation to be prolonged (and the case possibly lost).
In my experience, employees who do not have an accurate idea of what their case is worth will tend to highly overassess the worth. This overassessment is not usually based on the law, but rather based on the employees’ ”gut” feeling of how much the employer should pay, based on how unfair the employer’s conduct was.
It is not uncommon for an employee complainant to assume that his case could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, or several years’ worth of severance pay, when in fact his specific case has legal and practical limitations that make his case worth far, far less than what he thinks. (Now, there are a few employment discrimination cases out there that are in fact worth hundreds of dollars in damages, but those are the vast minority of cases).
Often, as a result, employees who have these wrong assumptions will: (1) make settlement offers that are way too high, often higher than legal damages/award maximums; (2) cause the employer to feel the employee is completely unreasonable, and stop engaging in any further settlement talks.
You don’t want to block yourself out of a reasonable settlement offer because you are asking for the moon and don’t know it.
On the other hand (although less common), some employees will significantly underassess the value of their case. For example, an employee may focus on the value of a discrimination claim and not know that she in fact has a potential claim for unpaid overtime wages that has strongly supportive evidence and is worth far more in damages/monies than the discrimination claim being pursued.
This is where attorneys can help. Employment law attorneys who have worked on and evaluated many discrimination claims can provide a thorough legal analysis of what your specific case may be worth, and whether your analysis may be missing any important factors. The attorney’s assessed value may be much lower than what you want to hear- or maybe higher, to your pleasant surprise- but either way, it’s best to get all surprises removed from the equation as early as possible.
Here is a post that discusses “Things to Consider Before Filing a Discrimination Complaint at the Wisconsin ERD or EEOC,” including information about valuing an employee’s Wisconsin discrimination case. That post, and this one, are for general information only. Again, if you want a specific evaluation of your own discrimination case’s value, you should consult with an employment attorney to get a complete assessment.
DISCLAIMER: The information in this blog is not legal advice, nor does it establish an attorney-client relationship between you and Employee Rights Attorney Michael Brown or the law firm of Peterson, Berk & Cross. Legal advice often varies between situations. If you want legal advice for your specific circumstances, you must consult with an attorney (and an employment attorney for employment matters).
For more information about Wisconsin employment attorney Michael F. Brown and Peterson, Berk & Cross, S.C., please visit here.
Progessive on Progessives’ Hate Talk
Posted in Conservative, Political, Progressive with tags Cleansing the Hatred From Within, Huffington Post, Progressive on Progressives' Hate Talk, Russell Simmons on June 11, 2009 by employeerightswisconsinWhen will those who are “liberals” and “progressives” (which includes me) realize that we are just as responsible as “conservatives” for the epidemic of negative and hateful communication inflicting public discourse nowadays?
Conservatives—particularly extreme-side-of-the-party folks like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich— are often criticized by progressive folks for communicating in a hateful way.
I agree any negative or hateful communications by Limbaugh and Gingrich should be open to criticism. But what is more disconcerting to me are those progressives who do not recognize when similarly negative or hateful tones inflict our own demeanor (as they easily and instinctively can) when we encounter people holding beliefs (like extreme-end-political beliefs) with which we disagree.
I should mention that I have my own body of unfortunate literature—dating back to my grade school days—where I have written things that were very negative and disparaging toward others with whom I disagreed. Heck, this post probably goes too far. So I am not putting myself on the high horse here by any means. Rather, I’m asking others to consider joining me on the big bus called work-in-progress.
It is one thing for a progressive to politely—and strongly— dispute an opposing viewpoint or policy, especially if it is important, empirically incorrect, or both. But it is quite another thing to needlessly make the disagreement personal, and question the other person’s motives or character.
And it is another thing still to completely avoid self-reflection on our own communication style, as if the fact that we are right on the merits (we think) provides a ticket to not only describe the merits, but to further elaborate in a righteous, condescending and/or hypocritical tone about why our opponent is deserving of condemnation, name-calling, and in some cases, violence.
Consider these excerpts of progressive authors’ communications, which are all from today’s (6-11-09) Huffington Post, a progressive blog:
(from a blog header by a progressive blog author): Death at the Holocaust Museum and the Degradation of the American Dialogue… There is no Environmental Protection Agency to measure hate pollution in national dialogue, and no mechanism in place to warn us when the poisonous rage spewed into the national consciousness by shock-jocks, poisonous television pundits, megachurch leaders, and oh-so-subtle politicians, has reached dangerously toxic levels. No, there is only the result: widows, orphans, collective grief, and an absolute refusal on the part of our loudest, coarsest voices to take any responsibility for their part in the carnage. Click here to read more….
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(blog header by another progressive blog author): The Health Insurance Mafia Deserves a Good Screwing …
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(blog header by another progressive blog author): Sexism Against Conservative Women Is Still Sexism
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When progressive readers of a hugely-read and influential blog need a reminder that conservative women are just as entitled to human dignities as progressive women, it’s high time for progressives to get off our high horses real fast.
The Huffington Post, to its credit, also has a blog post today by Russell Simmons- which couldn’t be timelier- titled “Cleansing the Hatred From Within.”
Job-Hunt Discrimination & Defeatist Thinking
Posted in Employee Tip - Job Application Discrimination with tags Defeatist Thinking, Employee Rights, Job Hiring Discrimination, Job Hiring Discrimination in Wisconsin, Wisconsin on June 10, 2009 by employeerightswisconsinI have heard many unemployed workers who are in protected classes under discrimination law (e.g. workers with disabilities, workers over 40 years old) express frustration that employers will not hire them for jobs they are qualified for, and the workers feel this is for discriminatory reasons based on their protected class (e.g. hiring employer does not want to hire workers who have disabilities, who are over 40).
There are times when these workers’ beliefs are in fact supported by evidence, such as discriminatory statements made by the employer during a job interview, the employer having hired a far less-qualified worker who was not in the protected class, etc. So I will acknowledge, as Kurt Cobain once said, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” And hey, my job is representing workers who – in my view of the evidence- the employer was “after.”
However, job applicants should know there are many times when hiring employers are not “after” you. There are many, many non-discriminatory reasons (fair and unfair) that an employer may have for not hiring someone. There may be 100 more qualified applicants that you don’t know about. The employer’s owner may have wanted to hire his incompetent nephew for the job, which is unfair, but is not unlawful under WI law.
There are many times when job applicants” beliefs of discrimination are not borne of hard evidence, but instead stem from the frustration in not getting a job. This frustration is completely understandable, as is wondering about discrimination, as discrimination does exist and is not uncommon.
However, just because discrimination is “out there” doesn’t mean it is everywhere.
Further, even if discrimination is in play for a given job opportunity, it does you no good to adopt defeatist beliefs like “They won’t hire me because of my age- heck, most employers won’t hire me because of my age.” Even if it were true that most employers exercise age-discrimination in hiring (which is not true in my view), it doesn’t do a worker any good to stew about that, or lose motivation because of that. Again, most of the time, discrimination is not at issue in hiring decisions.
For those occasions where there is evidence that discrimination is an issue, that is not something to defeat you, but rather an obstacle to work around.
In my view, the most common areas of discrimination in job-hiring context, which are supported by the most evidence, is discrimination based on the applicant’s disability, age, or criminal record (criminal record is basis for a protected class under Wisconsin law, although this is not the case under federal law or many other states’ laws). Within these protected classes, people who fall on the end of the spectrum- people with the most severe disabilities and medical needs, people of increasingly advanced age, people convicted of types of crimes that are strongly shunned by the public- probably are wise to keep potential discrimination in mind as they apply for jobs.
However, such at-risk workers should not dwell on discrimination, or stew about how bad it is (even though it is). Rather, discrimination should be thought of as something to adjust to. If your reality is that you are dealing with a hiring employer with discriminatory beliefs (e.g. they believe that a person over 70 cannot perform the job at issue), then your task is to politely deal with that belief and try to change it (e.g. point out the rich experiences and resume that a 70-year old has that a 30-year does not). Anticipate discriminatory concerns (e.g. that an older worker will want to retire abruptly), and affirmatively and politely address them (e.g. explain what your own goals are, and how your work life with the employer would not live out the employer’s fears).
I don’t want to get too motivational-speaker-like here, and I acknowledge that there are a whole lot of people, including many clients I’ve had, who can tell me a lot more than I can tell them about job-hunting tips. But when it comes to concerns of discrimination, real or perceived, I can tell you firsthand that it is counterproductive to deal with those concerns by stewing about them or viewing them too negatively. Again, discrimination is something you can deal with and you can overcome, if and when it presents itself.
Sorry, Can’t Give Legal Advice Via Blog Comments
Posted in Comments- Blog, Employee Tip - Considering a Legal Action with tags Blog Comments, Employee Rights, Employee Rights Wisconsin, Legal Advice, Wisconsin on June 12, 2009 by employeerightswisconsinI want to write and say, first of all, that I appreciate the Comments this blog has received- thanks to those of you who have commented!
Please know that if your Comment concerns your own specific situation- i.e. you have questions about your specific employment situation, or want to know the legal rights you have in a specific situation or legal proceeding involving your employer- the blog Comments are not a place where I can provide legal advice for such specific circumstances.
On several occasions, I have received Comments from well-intended folks who understandably want questions answered about their specific employment law situations. However, blog Comments are not a place where an attorney can thoroughly assess a situation, and provide informed legal advice. A phone or office consultation is needed at minimum.
Please do not take it personally when I do not post Comments that ask questions/ask for legal advice, or answer the questions within them.
If your questions involve a Wisconsin-based employer (or an H-1B employer in any State), then you can contact me (Employee Rights Attorney Michael Brown) via my law firm Peterson, Berk & Cross, at 920-831-0300.
If your matter concerns non-Wisconsin matters, and non-H-1B matters, please go to this website: www.nela.org, where you can search for employee rights attorneys in your particular State. For those of you who have made Comments, thanks again for reading, and for your interest in contacting me.
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