I lost my job. Do I have rights?
Learn tips on how to protect your rights if you recently lost your job. This can help you figure out if your employer might have done anything illegal. It can help you determine if your employer owes you anything or if you owe your employer anything.
Contents
1. Basics
When an employee loses their job, it can be called many things including being fired, discharged, terminated, or laidoff. These situations are different from when an employee quits or retires.
What is constructive discharge?
Constructive discharge is when your working conditions become so intolerable because of discrimination or harassment that you are forced to quit. Courts and agencies treat constructive discharge more like being fired because the unfair treatment forced you into quitting. Constructive discharge is a legal claim that your lawyer can make for you if you were forced to quit because of discrimination at work. Just because you weren’t fired and were forced to quit instead, doesn’t mean you don’t have rights.
What if I was discriminated against at work?
Employment discrimination means your employer or prospective employer treated you unfairly in a way that breaks (violates) federal, state, or local law. Many kinds of behavior at work might be wrong or unfair, but to qualify legally as discrimination, the treatment must be related to a certain “protected status.” A protected class or status is a legally protected characteristic.
A protected class is a group of people with a specific characteristic, like age, sex or gender (including pregnancy, gender identity or sexual orientation), race, religion, veteran status, disability, and so on. People who have a protected status can’t be targeted for discrimination because of that characteristic. Most discrimination laws include a list of the protected classes they cover. Federal law and state law can have different protected classes.
To be qualified as employment discrimination, the unfair treatment must:
- Be based on a protected status or
- Have a disproportionate negative impact on one of the protected groups
An employer might be able to excuse certain unfair practices that are job-related and necessary for the operation of the business.
Employment discrimination protections apply to applicants for jobs as well as employees, former employees, and trainees or apprentices. Read our guide about employment discrimination to learn more.
What is retaliation?
Retaliation is when your employer punishes you or treats you negatively because you made a claim of discrimination to HR, your union, other managers, the courts, or one of the reporting agencies. Retaliation can also happen to witnesses, workers that oppose discrimination, or other workers who participate in a discrimination investigation.
Retaliation is prohibited under both state and federal law. Read our guide about retaliation at work to learn more.
What if I was sexually harassed at work?
Sexual harassment at work is a specific kind of mistreatment that can have legal consequences for your employer. Not all sexual harassment is discrimination but some treatment can be both sexual harassment and employment discrimination. It can be complicated to figure out if what you experienced would be considered legal sexual harassment. Read our guide about sexual harassment to learn more about what legally qualifies as sexual harassment and how to make complaints about it.