Employees, employers, retirees and everyone else should check out this outstanding post by Professional Life Coach Tim Brownson: “5 Questions That Will Change Your Life.” Mr. Brownson arms readers with 5 questions that you should ask when facing any important life decision- I should note, these questions directly apply to any employment dispute or litigation that you are considering.
The magic questions are these:
If you have an important document relating to a dispute with your employer- for example, a termination letter or a pay stub showing underpaid wages- please save that document. (You can read more here about keeping good documentation).
Just as important, please do not write on the document, or otherwise alter it.
Keep in mind that important employment documents may later be used in legal proceedings. For example, if you want to use your termination letter as an exhibit at an unemployment hearing, you don’t want to show the judge a letter that has your added, handwritten notes across it, saying things “This is a f#$% LIE!!!!” (I only exaggerrate slightly- I’ve had clients who marked up documents with notes reflecting their frustrations in similar terms).
Bottom line: hold on to important documents, and don’t mess with them.
If an employer has offered you a severance agreement, you should consider the following things.
Note: this post does not give legal advice. For legal advice about your severance situation, please contact an attorney. To reach me, click here:
The moment you are given a severance agreement, check it for a deadline. Chances are, your employer gave you a deadline in which you must agree to, or decline, the severance. For workers 40 years old or older, federal law requires employers give at least a 21-day period to review the severance agreement.
Filed under Employee Tip - Severance & Settlement
There is an interesting article at law.com about employers who spy and use surveillance on employees who are on medical leave.
The employers’ main argument boils down to this: many employees abuse medical leave, and surveillance is needed to bust the wrongdoers, some of whom are busted while bowling or otherwise doing highly questionable things while on medical leave.
The employees’ main argument: surveillance of employees is over-intrusive, and just because an employee on medical leave is “caught” doing an everyday task (e.g. mowing the lawn) doesn’t mean the employee is faking a medical condition (e.g. faking the panic attacks that the doctor recommended a week off of work to attend to).
When I was in law school, a professor discussed an interesting analogy. It involved the invention of cloverleaf-shaped on-ramps. The new on-ramps were self-imposed structures, which- like the self-imposition of new laws- improved safety and prevented us from making human errors.
Filed under Philosophy - Employee Rights
Does your job:
If you answered ‘yes’ to one or more of these questions, then you may well have a legal claim against your employer. You may call a lawyer and check into that.
But more importantly, you may want to question why you put up with it, continuing to get slapped by the hand that feeds you. There are other hands out there. If you are fired or treated too adversely, you will be forced to find a new employer. So why not start the job search now, when it’s already clear to you that your employer is acting against your interests?
I get phone calls from employees all the time who describe legitimate, painful hardships inflicted upon them by their employers. So then I ask, “Are you looking for a new job?”
Disappointingly, often the answer is “No,” or “Not yet, but I plan on it,” or “No, because no one else would hire me.”
As these answers show: many employees who are being treated unfairly do not react proactively. When obvious trouble arises, they do not react by planning for the worst and sending out resumes, etc. Rather, they spend a great deal of time: (1) internalizing the employer’s irrational criticisms (e.g. “Maybe I really am a lousy employee for getting cancer and having to take leave from work”); (2) futilely trying to debate the employer’s irrational criticisms (e.g. “Why are you giving me a ‘final warning’ for an ‘attendance problem’ when I’m taking leave for chemotherapy? I’m going to file my third grievance against you guys if you fire me”); and/or (3) avoiding a job search, because they believe that no other employer would hire them anyway.
Such self-tormenting is sympathetic and understandable. A conscientious person wants to examine criticisms and actions against them, to examine if the criticisms have merit, and if the person can improve things. This is the natural reaction of a conscientious employee. But it’s the wrong reaction. If you encounter unfair conduct and see the writing is on the wall, you should not stick around to analyze or debate it. Nor should you become paralyzed by self-doubts, such as “No one would want to hire someone like me, because I [fill in the self-defeating blank].”
You HAVE to get hired somewhere else. So get over your doubts, NOW, and go and start doing the many things it will take to get hired.
The moment you recognize your employer has turned against your interests, get going with Plan B immediately. Send out resumes and prepare a safety net to land on. The same employer who unfairly denies your cancer leave may also unfairly decide to fire you.
Recently, I watched a very interesting, albeit unsettling, documentary titled “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.” More information about the film is here.
The film, of course, addresses the notorious photographs of torture (or alleged torture, some feel) that was conducted by U.S. prison workers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The pictures speak for themselves. The people interviewed speak volumes as well, although their assertions (unlike the pictures)are more open to dispute. Were the prison workers involved “a few bad apples,” or were they acting under the explicit direction or negligent oversight of the U.S. government? All of the above, according to the film.
Filed under Philosophy - Employee Rights
Employers- are you looking for an employment defense attorney who will unquestioningly agree with every word you allege, gladly smear your opponent employee as “ridiculous” and a “liar” and the like, and write letters to your opponent (although more so written to you) proclaiming your organization will be “vindicated?”
Employees- are you looking for an employee rights attorney who will unquestioningly take your “slam dunk case” as you call it, who gladly promises to be more “aggressive” than the prior two attorneys you retained, and who nods and agrees that your case may well go to the Supreme Court because you’ll “never settle with those people?”
If you search long enough, and if you bring a big wallet along, you will eventually find the right attorneys to Pump (PAUSE, CLAP) You Up.
And at some point (well short of the Supreme Court or “vindication”) you will realize that you have spent a lot more money on legal fees than you needed to, and you probably WILL “settle with those people” (or, at least you’d BETTER). And the settlement will be a disappointment to you as compared to what you had believed back when your attorney was vocal about pumping you up, and silent about the multiple risks of deflation. But at some point you’ll see it’s better to cut your losses than continue to pay Hans and Franz’s membership fee.
Another plaintiff’s attorney told me a war story that I’ve often thought about.
The attorney was involved in a very negative lawsuit, where the parties (plaintiff and defendant) apparently disliked each other immensely.
The case went to trial. After the last day of trial, the attorney asked the other party’s attorney if he wanted to go drink a beer at the local tavern.
The opposing attorney, before answering, looked behind to make sure his client (a representative for one of the parties) had left.
She just wouldn’t understand us drinking a beer together, he explained. When he looked back, he saw the representative had left.
So the opposing attorneys went to the tavern, and drank a beer.
I didn’t ask the attorney what he and the opposing attorney talked about at the tavern. But I have some educated guesses about what they didn’t talk about. They probably didn’t trade personal insults. They probably didn’t talk about how righteous they or their clients were, although each attorney probably believed in full that his respective client was right, and at trial covered every important fact and argument in his client’s favor.
But probably, by the time they got to the bar, they didn’t say much about the case at all, other than each politely acknowledging that the other did a good job for his client. And then, the trial disputes behind them, they probably went on to discuss more important things. Their kids. Their health. Their belief that it was important for people- and for opponents, in particular- to drink a beer together. That at a time when our differences have come to a head, and pose the greatest risk to defray us, that is the best time to embrace commonalities.
Filed under Philosophy - Employee Rights
If you listened only to corporate-based rhetoric, you would get the following impressions about individuals who sue organizations:
As someone who works with individuals bringing legal claims, I see many problems with these concepts, which mischaracterize the state of the world as I experience it.
Filed under Philosophy - Employee Rights
Take Justice Back Daily Developments in EEO Law by Paul Mollica
WI Employee Rights Lawyer: Severance, Wages, Job Termination, Discrimination 