America was founded on the principle of equality, and the civil rights laws passed in the latter half of the 20th century ensured equal opportunities in the workplace. Under both state and federal laws, employers cannot discriminate against workers based on several classifications.
Workers who experience discrimination in the workplace might not earn as much or receive the same level of training and advancement as their fellow workers. They may even face hostility, harassment, bullying, and retaliation.
Garces, Grabler & LeBrocq has decades of experience representing workers who have experienced discriminatory treatment. Our Jersey City workplace discrimination lawyers pursue workplace discrimination claims to help you recover compensation for discrimination. But they can also seek remedies to prevent your employer from continuing its discriminatory policies.
What Is Workplace Discrimination?
Workplace discrimination happens when your employer treats you differently based on a “suspect classification.” These classifications are called “suspect” because any differentiation based on them is likely to be based on stereotypes rather than the individual’s:
- Qualifications
- Experience
- Merit
- Knowledge
- Skill
For example, suppose an employer has a call center to provide technical support. The company cannot have a policy against hiring people of a certain race because it believes they will not speak English well enough to help customers over the phone.
Instead of basing hiring practices on this stereotype, the employer should use interviews and tests to determine language proficiency.
The suspect classifications covered in state and federal law include the following:
Types of Workplace Discrimination in Jersey City
Civil rights laws prohibit discrimination in the workplace. Workplace discrimination cases fall into three broad types:
Denying Equal Opportunities
Employers cannot take any action that affects the conditions or benefits of employment based on prohibited classifications. Some actions that an employer cannot perform in a discriminatory way include the following:
- Hiring
- Firing and laying off
- Training
- Promoting
- Increasing pay
- Providing fringe benefits like insurance
- Assigning tasks
Your employer can be liable for this type of discrimination regardless of their intent. It doesn’t matter if they discriminate because they favored one group or disfavored a different group. The only relevant fact is that one group was favored over the other group, that the groups were defined based on a prohibited classification, and that actions were taken against you because you belonged to one of the groups.
For example, suppose that you are a black salesperson for a pharmaceutical company. Your employer sends all the white salespeople, including those with less experience than you, to sales training. The employer denies your promotion because you have not completed the training course.
Your employer’s reasons for taking these steps are irrelevant. The relevant fact is that your job situation has fewer opportunities and that the only reason for this difference is your race.
Creating a Hostile Work Environment
The second form of discrimination happens when your employer creates a hostile work environment. This means you are subjected to such intense and pervasive abuse, bullying, harassment, or retaliation that it becomes a condition of your employment.
To prove workplace discrimination, we must prove that you were targeted for hostility due to your membership in a protected class. We must also show that the hostility went beyond a few comments or jokes. Most critically, we must show that your employer created the environment or did nothing to stop it after learning of it.
For example, suppose that one shift supervisor always writes up Spanish-speaking workers for violations and bullies them by calling them names and taping racist memes on their locker doors.
If no one reports the actions, the employer might claim that the supervisor went rogue. But if someone reports them and the employer does nothing to correct the problems, the employer might have contributed to the hostile work environment due to inaction.
A term you may hear in hostile work environment cases is “quid pro quo.” Although quid pro quo might contribute to a hostile work environment, you do not necessarily need to experience quid pro quo to have a discrimination case.
For example, in a classic sexual harassment case, the harasser might threaten to derail the target’s career if they do not agree to a dating or sexual relationship. This “something for something” trade is meant to pressure the employee using fear.
Since it is based on the employee’s sex, the law prohibits this type of quid pro quo.
But quid pro quo is only one type of hostility that qualifies as discrimination. Pervasive sexual harassment, by itself, would be enough to create a hostile work environment without any quid pro quo or the threat of it.
Retaliation
The third type of claim involves retaliation. In this type of claim, the employee doesn’t experience discrimination based on their race, sex, or other immutable characteristic. Instead, the employer discriminates against the employee for helping another worker’s discrimination claim.
For example, an employer might fire a male employee who testified in support of a female employee’s sexual harassment case.
Understanding Employer or Workplace Discrimination
To understand employer and workplace discrimination, you need to go back to the reason for civil rights laws. Equality in America means equal opportunity. The laws don’t promise success to anyone. Instead, they promise that everyone will have the same opportunities to succeed, and if they make the most of them, they can succeed just like anyone else.
New Jersey law goes even further than federal law in ensuring a level playing field. In addition to race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, and disability, employers in the state also cannot discriminate based on:
- Creed
- Nationality
- Ancestry
- Familial status
- Marital/civil union status
- Domestic partnership status
- Atypical hereditary cellular or blood trait
- Gender identity and expression
- Genetic information
- Liability for military service
- AIDS and HIV status
Importantly, your Jersey City workplace discrimination lawyer doesn’t need to prove animus to win your case. Workplace discrimination is not about hatred, dislike, or distaste for a particular group. It’s about the unequal treatment of that group. From the viewpoint of the law, holding down one group or promoting a different group produces the same result. The goal of both New Jersey and U.S. employment discrimination laws is to give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed in a genuinely unbiased way.
Compensation You May Be Entitled to in an Employment Discrimination Case
Before you pursue an employment discrimination claim, you must file an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charge. This opens an investigation by the EEOC. You do not need to wait until the EEOC finishes its investigation, but you do need to get a Notice of Right to Sue if you plan to sue before the investigation ends.
If the EEOC takes action on your case, you might receive compensation, but the EEOC’s remedies are capped based on the size of your employer. The EEOC can also order your employer to end its discriminatory practices and place you where you should have been without suffering unequal treatment.
The problem with the EEOC is that it takes action on only a small fraction of all the charges it receives. The odds are good that your case will receive no attention from the EEOC, even if your claims have merit.
Instead, you will probably need to pursue an employment discrimination lawsuit. The compensation you can seek in an employment discrimination case includes the following categories.
Compensatory Damages
Compensatory damages are meant to put you in the financial position you would have had if you had not been discriminated against. These damages include your income losses due to the following:
- Being underpaid
- Not receiving promotions or pay raises
- Being fired or laid off
- Getting pushed out of the company
To recover these kinds of financial damages, you must show that they were caused by the discrimination you experienced. For example, suppose that your employer denied you training and promotions, but you ultimately left your job to take care of a sick relative. You will likely get compensated for the losses while you were employed and not the losses when you left.
Compensatory damages can also include compensation for emotional distress. Being treated unfairly could cause you to worry, lose sleep, and become depressed. These impacts on your quality of life might have value in addition to any amounts you spend on therapy and mental health treatment.
Punitive Damages
Punitive damages are rare. But courts can award them to punish an employer for especially egregious actions. We need to prove that the case is extraordinary and not in a good sense. Your employer must have done something that other employers do not do.
The good news is that punitive damages are meant to send a message to your employer and other employers who might contemplate doing the same thing. As a result, these damages are often deliberately huge, so they attract attention.
Injunctive Relief
Injunctions are orders from a court requiring your employer to do something or refrain from doing something. For example, a court might order your former employer to reinstate or even promote you. You might also seek a change in the discriminatory practices, at least as they apply to you.
Why Hire GGL?
Since 1991, Garces, Grabler & LeBrocq has represented clients against those who have wronged them. We prepare every case as if it will reach trial by thoroughly investigating and documenting our clients’ claims. No law firm will ever out-prepare us.
This approach is necessary in a Jersey City workplace discrimination case. Much of the evidence of your employer’s policies and practices will be in your employer’s possession. Witnesses may be reluctant to step forward. And even those who do may be accused of exaggerating or misremembering.
We will put together the evidence that persuades a judge or jury of the discrimination you experienced. The hope is that this evidence convinces your employer to resolve the case quickly and fairly rather than going to trial.
Contact us online or at 1-800-923-3456 to discuss your unfair treatment at work and the remedies that may be available to you under New Jersey and U.S. laws.
