Cerritos

Employment lawsuits can be emotionally challenging. It can be nerve-wracking to go up against your employer when you depend on the company for your livelihood and your family’s well-being. When faced with your employer’s wage violations, discriminatory conduct, harassment, or illegal conduct, it’s crucial to call the seasoned Cerritos employment lawyers of Calderone Law Firm. We have years of experience to rely upon when fighting for the best outcome in your case.

It can be difficult for workers to know when they’ve been discriminated against. Not every negative action an employer takes against an employee counts as actionable discrimination. Rather you can sue for employment discrimination if your employer takes an adverse employment action against you because you have a characteristic protected under federal, state, and local law. What is an adverse employment action? These actions include firing, failure to hire, disparate pay, layoffs, and demotions. In most cases, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) provides greater protection than federal laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Action of 1964 or the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protect midsize to large employers. Categories protected under FEHA include race, color, national origin, ancestry, creed, religion, disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, marital status, reproductive health decision-making, age (40 and over), and military or veteran status. FEHA covers all employers with at least 5 employees, except in the case of sexual harassment, which is prohibited in workplaces of every size, even those with just one employee.

Whistleblowers are employees who act in good faith to report their employer’s misconduct or legal violations. California law prohibits employer from retaliating against their employees so long as they believed in good faith that they were reporting a legal violation by the employer. Retaliatory conduct can include actions such as firing, termination, layoffs, failure to promote, demotions, denial of training programs, and unfair performance reviews. For example, if you reported your employer, a health care practice, for making false claims to the government, you would be protected under California Labor Code section 1102.5. Similarly, you receive protection under this section if you testify in front of a public body about those false claims.

It’s important that your employer pay you fairly under the law. If you are a nonexempt employee, you receive substantial legal protections with regard to overtime, minimum wage, rest and meal breaks, and uniforms. and rest breaks, and uniforms. Unfortunately, some companies fail to abide by these protections. There are a few different ways in which wage theft can occur. In some instances, employers misclassify workers as independent contractors, which means they don’t receive any protections with regard to how much they’re paid. Employers may, in other cases, try to misclassify nonexempt workers as exempt employees who also don’t receive the same wage and hour protections. It’s important to keep in mind that the classification of workers is determined by the law, not your employer. The damages in wage and hour lawsuits brought by individuals tend to be small. But you and your coworkers can band together to sue your shared employer in a wage and hour class action. Class action lawsuits must be certified; to obtain certification we will need to file a motion with the court that demonstrates the class (you and your coworkers) meet the requirements of numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy.

In most cases, employers have significantly more power and resources at their disposal than do their employees. Retaining a knowledgeable attorney can level the playing field when you’re in a dispute with your employer about discrimination, harassment, wage and hour violations or whistleblower retaliation. Our founder, Vincent Calderone, has more than 20 years of experience representing workers in litigation. Please contact us online or call us at (424) 348-8290.