Vermont Employment Lawyers

Experienced Lawyers in a Highly Specialized Area of Law

Do you work for a great employer? Do you feel trusted? Do you have job security? Do you enjoy a positive work-life balance? Are you paid fairly? Too few workers can answer “yes” to all these questions. When your job is making you miserable, or you have been denied a job unfairly, or you have been wrongly discharged, there may be a legal solution. There are federal and Vermont state laws that protect employees from certain types of discrimination, retaliation, and other abusive employment practices. It is an unfortunate fact that in our legal system, employment laws do not solve every problem that workers face. Unfair treatment is not always illegal.  Our firm can help you determine if your legal rights have been violated. We can guide you through the administrative and court process and avoid the many pitfalls that may arise.

If you are qualified for a promotion, and your boss tells you, “I am not promoting you because you are pregnant” or “because you are Asian”, that would probably be illegal because pregnancy and race discrimination are prohibited under federal and state law. However, most employers are too savvy to admit that they are committing illegal discrimination. Most of the time, a discrimination case is based on indirect or circumstantial evidence.  One means of proving discrimination is to demonstrate that similarly situated employees were treated differently based on race, or sex, or some other protected category. Another example is when employer deviates inexplicably from a company policy or standard business practices when taking an adverse employment action against an employee.

Vermont Employee Rights Group lawyers have deep knowledge of the many ways that discrimination occurs.

• We recognize that some employers discriminate because of hatred or bias against people of color, people who were born or whose ancestors were born in different parts of that world, and against people who are sexual minorities including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

• Some employers violate workers’ rights because of stigma and stereotypes. For example, an employer may fire or refuse to hire an older employee based on their assumption that older workers are slow, weak, resistant to change, or likely to retire. That would be age discrimination.

• An employer may decide not to promote a worker with a disability, believing that the worker will be focused on their health instead of on the job.

• It is also important to recognize that implicit bias causes employment discrimination.  Implicit bias is a form of bias that occurs automatically and unintentionally, that nevertheless affects judgments, decisions, and behaviors. Discrimination that is based on an implicit bias is can still violate the law.

Employment laws are complex. The law that applies to your situation depends on the size of your employer and the type of discrimination and retaliation from which you are suffering. Our Vermont employment attorneys can sort out which law applies to your situation including laws related to:

• Disability rights. Disability rights include the right to be free from unequal treatment, harassment, and the right to reasonable accommodations.
• Medical leave. The right to medical leave arises under several different laws including the Americans with Disabilities Act, family and medical leave laws, the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act, and the Rehab Act.
• Retaliation. Retaliation is illegal, but only if a worker has engaged in “protected activity”, meaning, they reported a violation of law or took some other action to help enforce the law. 
• Sex discrimination. This includes not getting hired, earning less money, being passed over for promotion, and being fired for something that members of the opposite sex are allowed to do.
• Harassment or hostile work environment. These cases can be tricky because these terms are not clearly defined in the statutes, and because the legal standard that has been developed in court decisions is not precise. The current legal standard is that sexual harassment and harassment that is based on sex, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, and other protected classes must be “severe” or “pervasive”. Is one act of sexual harassment illegal? Sometimes, but not always. How many times does it take for the use of a racial slur like “boy” to become pervasive?

It would be nice if no worker was ever subjected to abusive words or mistreatment of any kind. When that day comes, there will be no more need for Plaintiff’s Employment Lawyers.

Contact Us for a Consultation

If you are an employee and you feel you are being mistreated at work, call us at 833.365.2929 or complete our online form for a consultation.