Glendale Legal Blog

Despite the rise of the #MeToo movement and an increased media focus on sexual harassment on the job, many California workers continue to suffer from inappropriate advances and other misconduct in the workplace. One campaign is focusing specifically on harassment incidents in the health care industry, following similar efforts in entertainment, tech and other major sectors. Time's Up Healthcare aims not only to fight sexual harassment but also to increase gender diversity and equality in the industry.

The health care campaign is a spinoff of the anti-harassment campaign launched in entertainment. Time's Up said that it received the second-largest number of requests from health care workers, following only entertainment, the campaign's generating industry. According to advocates, while women make up 80 percent of the workforce in healthcare, they only make up 10 percent of its chief executives. In addition, workers at all level of health care reported serious problems with harassment and discrimination. One study noted that 58 percent of female surgeons had experienced sexual harassment in the past year, as had 25 percent of male surgeons.

A report from the leader of the Nursing Mothers Law Project at the University of California, Hastings College of Law revealed the extent of the economic harm caused by employers who discriminate against breastfeeding women. An analysis of legal cases involving women who experienced workplace discrimination because of breastfeeding showed that two-thirds of them lost their jobs.

The discrimination involves employers denying women breaks to pump milk. These denials occur even when employees experience pain and milk leaks. Workplace barriers frequently forced women to stop breastfeeding or left them with painful infections. In some cases, requests for breaks resulted in job termination. Refusal to provide a clean and private location to use a breast pump represented another common form of discrimination as did an unwillingness to temporarily change work duties to accommodate the situation. Breastfeeding women also tended to experience increased harassment from co-workers who talked about their breasts.

Members of the gamer community in California might dream of working at companies such as Blizzard. However, a former Blizzard employee has spoken out about the allegedly discriminatory treatment he experienced while he was working on the Hearthstone esports circuit.

According to the man's social media post, the culture of inclusion at the company only applies if people are not people of color. The man, who is of Hispanic heritage, reports that he was repeatedly tormented over the fact that he was Mexican by a female team member.

When employees in California witness or experience inappropriate or discriminatory behavior in the workplace, they may want to take action but be concerned about the potential to face retaliation. In fact, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission noted that retaliation is a common form of discrimination in and of itself. Equal employment laws prohibit workers or even job applicants from being punished or targeted because they complained about discrimination or asserted their rights regarding workplace harassment. Employers that fire workers, cut their hours or deny them raises as a result of raising these issues are violating the law.

There are a number of protected activities for which employers are prohibited from retaliating against employees. These include filing a complaint with the EEOC, participating in an investigation or pursuing a lawsuit; witnesses are also protected. It is also illegal to punish employees for answering questions during a harassment investigation at the company. Workers have the right to refuse to follow discriminatory orders, to refuse sexual advances and to proactively intervene to help others being targeted for harassment and discrimination. Employees also have the right to ask other workers about their wages, as this is a mechanism to uncover discrimination in pay that may go otherwise unrevealed.