This guide goes into details of determining if an employee is victim of illegal discrimination.
1
Review the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's explanation of what is discrimination.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission website at www.eeoc.gov lists all types of illegal discrimination and the Federal Laws that prohibit that type of discrimination. Illegal discrimination is generally spoken of as bases and people in protected groups. Currently the EEOC enforces laws against discrimination by age (over 40), race, color, nationality, ethnic origin, disability, religion, sex, marital and military status. Sorry, if the action is not listed on the EEOC website it is not protected by Federal law. Do check with your state's laws.
2
Determine if any of the discrimination bases or protected groups of people apply to your situation.
To do this look at the action done by the employer: Did the employer make any comments that would lead you to believe that you were singled out due to one of the discrimination bases? Does the employer treat other employees who are not in your protected group better than you? Were employees who are of a different race, sex, religion, etc. treated better in a similar situation?
ATTENTION: this determination is what employment lawyers are trained to do. It is not easy because discrimination is not always obvious. You are always better off having an employment attorney review your situation.
3
Make sure that you fit the requirements.
Some bases of discrimination require that the employer has a certain number of employees in order for a complaint of discrimination to be filed. The employee who is filing the complaint must be the person who was discriminated against. It cannot be anger seeing discrimination to other employees. A complaint of discrimination also has a very strict time limit. Usually for a Federal complaint the employee will have 300 days from the date of the discrimination violation. That includes counting weekends and holidays. The EEOC enforces these requirements.
4
File a Complaint of Discrimination
It is always best to have an employment attorney review your situation and draft any legal complaint. Your attorney can also advise you of what your options are and negotiate with your employer.
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