Glendale Legal Blog

When employees feel they have been treated unfairly by their employers, they often face difficult decisions. Although they may truly believe they are being mistreated in a manner that is against the law, they might hesitate to act for fear that nothing will come of the complaint except more negative treatment at work or, worse yet, termination. Often, the worker wants to continue on the job but under proper and legal conditions. However, even when a California employee does take the major step of filing a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the results are not always as expected.

Established EEOC procedure requires a claim to be evaluated to determine if mediation may be helpful or if the employer should be provided an opportunity to answer the employee's allegations. Discrimination case experts indicate that the case may be dismissed for procedural reasons, such as an untimely filing or the lack of jurisdiction by the EEOC. Increasingly over the last several years, the EEOC has been designating more of its regular cases to its low-priority track, which essentially means that no action will be taken.

Despite advances made in recent years, many LGBT people in California are deeply concerned about discrimination in employment, housing, health care and other key areas of life. This is especially true at a federal level where courts have disagreed with one another about the extent to which existing civil rights law protects LGBT people against discrimination, typically under the banner of sex discrimination. The Democrats in the House of Representatives are pushing to institutionalize those protections explicitly in federal law, passing a proposal 236-173 to expand civil rights protections to LGBT people.

Eight Republicans joined all House Democrats to vote in support of the legislation called the Equality Act. It aims to update existing laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected characteristics. Anti-LGBT discrimination would be prohibited as a form of sex discrimination in terms of employment, housing, access to loans, education and other forms of public accommodation. Most of the 2020 Democratic candidates for president came out with strong support for the legislation, which is backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In California, an anti-discrimination law already on the books protects people from harassment based on their race. However, if SB188 passes, the law could be updated to include hairstyles or other traits associated with a race. The bill is known as the Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair Act. It is meant to create an inclusive and diverse environment in schools and businesses. Rules against braids, locks and twists have typically been a greater burden for black students and employees.

These rules have the potential to discourage African-Americans from applying for jobs or subject them to punishment from their current employers. In some cases, workers have been denied advancement opportunities or event terminated from their jobs. Children have been sent home from school because their hair was deemed inappropriate. According to the lawmaker who created the bill, there are already state and federal protections for those who wear their hair a certain way for religious reasons.

Human resource departments throughout the country, including in California, are keeping tabs on a recent case in Illinois. In the lawsuit, a large clothing retailer is being sued by employees in Illinois for tracking them by improper means as well as improper collection of personal data. The case is currently waiting to see if it will be certified as a class action.

An Illinois statute is at the heart of the claim. The law prohibits the collection of biometric data from employees unless they consent, and the proper means to store the information is used. In this case, the suit alleges the company utilized a fingerprint time clock to which an employee must present a fingerprint ID to log in and out of work rather than utilizing a time card or picture ID. The company claims the employees did, in fact, consent to the use of the biometric time clock. It further claims that it does not retain the data collected, obviating the need to store it.