Illegal Actions Employers May Take Against You

We want you to be aware of the many illegal actions employers may take against you. Employment payroll is complex so mistakes are common, but employers should correct payroll mistakes quickly if they are unintentional. However, there are also many unlawful tricks employers may use to deprive you of earned wages or violate other employment-related rights.

You can begin to evaluate the seriousness of the employer violation once you have a basic understanding of your employment rights. There are many employers who willfully deprive you of entitled wages and benefits so legal action is often necessary.

The Most Common Illegal Actions Employers May Take Against Employees

American employment law covers an extensive number of illegal practices. Congress has enacted significant laws to curb workplace abuses. One example of this is the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938, which protects employees by mandating overtime pay and timely payment of other wages.

Besides the FLSA, there are significant laws on how employers can hire, promote, and terminate employees. National laws prohibit workplace discrimination based on protected characteristics. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces these laws on behalf of employees. Those laws protect certain classes from experiencing discrimination in the workplace based on race, color, religion, sex (which now includes gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, or disability.

Employees can sue employers who discriminate against employees.

If an employer does anything to jeopardize your employment status or creates workplace harassment on any of those grounds, you might have a case for a civil suit. It is important to contact an employment lawyer if you believe your employer has mistreated you.

Other Illegal Actions Employers May Take Against You

In addition to discrimination, there are several other things employers cannot do to you such as:

They can’t ask you to work “off the clock.” which means working without being clocked into the timekeeping system.
They can’t ask interview questions that coax you into revealing your age, creed, religious beliefs, or anything else that could lead to discrimination.
If there is a past grievance against you and the employer, your boss can’t use that to retaliate against you.
They can’t treat you like an employee but classify you as an independent contractor.

Dodging the Overtime Pay Obligation

Escaping the legal responsibility to pay overtime is such a prevailing problem that we have represented employees across the United States to collect earned overtime. We’ve mentioned before how there are many common ways bosses avoid paying employees overtime.

Employers sometimes play games with the way they pay for breaks and lunches. If an employee receives a 30-minute unpaid meal period, then the employee must be relieved of all work during that time. The employer must pay employees who work during an unpaid lunch period. Otherwise, this is illegal. We see this commonly happening in the health care and assisted living industries.
They may also misclassify employees as “assistant managers” to get them to accept a low salary while assigning a heavy load of hourly worker tasks and very little managerial work.
They might also try to move work hours from one week to another hoping to spread out the total and incur fewer overtime hours. Another common strategy is to make employees work for two companies and perform this same work while splitting work hours between the companies to avoid overtime.

You do not have to stand for workplace abuses like these. We always recommend trying to reach a direct resolution with the employer if you think you’ve lost wages and are comfortable doing so. Most unpaid wage situations, however, require the employees to hire employment attorneys to get the wages the employees have earned.

Let Rowdy Meeks Legal Group LLC Help You Fight Back Against Unlawful Employers

Rowdy Meeks Legal Group LLC is on your side if your employer fails to pay you all wages you have earned. You don’t have to understand employment law to win a case. We’re here to help you obtain the wages you have legally earned.

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