Redondo Beach California Employment Law Blog

Did you recently lose your job, and do you think you were wrongfully terminated? Your first reaction is likely frustration or anger -- or both. Losing a job is hard enough on its own. Losing it unfairly just makes it worse.

Don't despair; there are steps you can take if it really is a wrongful termination. You do have rights. To get started, try asking yourself these five questions:

1. What happened before the termination? For instance, if your boss made sexual advances, you rejected them and then you got fired, that's a problematic chain of events.
2. Do you have any specific evidence? You want to know if this is more than a gut feeling. Maybe you have text messages showing the inappropriate comments or a direct statement from your boss, for instance.
3. Are there any witnesses? Maybe your boss made their interest in you clear or even made jokes about it to other employees. Maybe you showed co-workers inappropriate text messages or email messages.
4. Were you the only one? Unfortunately, in many cases like this, multiple people experience the same treatment. While no one deserves it, a pattern of behavior can support your case.
5. Did you work in a hostile workplace before the termination? If you were subjected to repeated instances of discrimination, abuse, harassment and the like, that can create a hostile workplace. This is evidence of how you were treated and why you may have been fired.

The Me Too movement (#metoo) certainly brought a lot of attention to sexual harassment, especially in the workplace. Things that were going on behind the scenes suddenly came to light. People took a stand when they hadn't before. We saw people who had committed these harassing acts retire, apologize, get fired, quit and suffer from all sorts of other ramifications.

But now, in 2019, we're roughly two years past the start of the movement. Did it change anything dramatically? Is life for the American worker different now?

Office romances are common, to some degree because the office is simply the place where people socialize the most. In the same way that you once met people to date in classes in high school or at college, you may find yourself striking up relationships with people at work.

This is not always a great situation, though, and some companies even have policies to prevent it. They note that there can be a lot of negative consequences, such as:

• Experiencing jealousy from other workers
• Having other workers think you get preferential treatment
• Negative consequences when the relationship doesn't work out
• Possible ethical violations

Look at your current workplace. Do you feel like there are more men than women?

If so, it is very important to note that women in these workplaces, which are dominated by male workers, reported more instances of gender discrimination than women in workplaces where the breakdown was more equal between male and female workers.