New York Employment Lawyer Blog

We get a lot of calls at our law firm from people who feel that they were treated unfairly at work. They want to know if they have a case against their employer. Sadly, it is perfectly legal to treat people unfairly at work. Most of the time we tell people that they do not have a case. So when does a person have a case?

The employment laws in the U.S. are very narrow. They only prohibit employment discrimination and certain wage payment practices. We will discuss wage issues later. Now we will focus on employment discrimination. What exactly is employment discrimination?

Employment discrimination occurs when an employee is treated differently than others because of their race, sex, disability, age, religion, pregnancy or sexual orientation. A classic example of employment discrimination is when an employer prefers men in top executive positions and passes over well qualified females in favor of men.

If you want to know if you have a case against your employer, you need to focus on discrimination. You need to determine if your employer had made decisions about you that were motivated by your race, sex, age, religion etc... If you honestly believe that your employer is discriminating against because of your race or age, for example, you might have a case. Discrimination is often subtle so it is not always easy to see.

The point here is that you need to be able to understand the difference between unfairness at work and employment discrimination. It is perfectly legal to favor one person over the other so long as it is not based on a person's race, sex, religion etc.... Keep an eye out for patterns of behavior. For example, if you see that your employer has a habit of only promoting men to certain positions or has a pattern of laying off more older people - these are signs of employment discrimination. Also, keep an ear out for words that show illegal bias such as racial slurs or comments about age. If you think that your employer is discriminating against you, you should write down what is happening and include the dates of the events and who did what to whom. These notes might be the key to winning a case because they will help you remember important facts.