Santa Barbara Employment Law Blog

Many workers in the United States, including in California, can find themselves in delicate situations regarding immigration status and employment. Renewing a work visa one day late can place you in a precarious position, while undocumented workers may have little to no recourse in many situations without being discovered. An unscrupulous employer may take advantage of this to exploit workers in delicate situations regarding immigration status - and may threaten to report your immigration status if you intend to report unsafe, discriminatory, or otherwise unethical work conditions. Can your employer legally do this, or do you have protections even in your situation?

Believe it or not, you are actually protected in this situation. This is called immigration-related retaliation, and the California Department of Industrial Relations states that if an employer threatens to report your immigration status as retaliation for you exercising your human rights under California Labor Codes, they may reported to the Labor Commissioner. Even if your immigration status is in question, you still have the right to not be exploited based on those conditions.

Working for a large corporate employer is often a difficult position for entry-level employees. Many workers assume that the policies such companies have in place are legal and enforceable. After all, the company surely employs an army of attorneys to make sure it complies with the law. Still, many Starbucks employees learned recently that the coffee shop giant may have instituted illegal labor practices for hundreds -- or even thousands -- of its workers.

Now, many of those same workers may soon join a class action lawsuit alleging that the company required illegal overtime work without pay, if an ongoing suit against the company succeeds. In fact, many com009panies throughout the country may quickly reconsider some of the widespread business practices currently in place l throughout service industries and other sectors.

We have all seen what happens when celebrities' intimate photographs are leaked to the public by vindictive exes and malicious parties. Yet such instances can happen to private individuals as well, with persons in power over them using possession of intimate or explicit images to coerce specific behavior out of them. This can even happen in the workplace; there are a number of ways employers can obtain intimate or embarrassing photographs of employees, including employees who may have more personal relationships with employers. If you are in such a situation, what are your options?

First, it is critical to know that for your employer to possess or distribute those materials is not only a violation of your privacy, but illegal under California state law in very specific statutes outside of the existing statutes governing sexual harassment in the workplace, which this also constitutes. You have the right to pursue action, including an immediate injunction to prevent distribution of private materials or cease any existing distribution that has already taken place. A temporary restraining order may also be granted.

One factor that keeps so many victims silent in the instance of workplace sexual harassment is the fear they will not be believed. Many harassers do not commit their offenses in easily captured media such as emails or text messages, instead engaging in sexual harassment in private places with no witnesses. This results in "he said, she said" situations where the burden of proof may be on the victim, making you extremely reluctant to come forward out of fear of being dismissed or even punished. So how can you prove you were harassed when you are your only witness?

Often you cannot, but that does not mean employers can dismiss you outright without hearing your case and, if warranted, conducting a formal investigation before making a decision based on the evidence at hand. The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing sets out a guide for employers when dealing with claims of harassment, particularly those without tangible proof. Rather than using the type of standard one might in court in which incontrovertible evidence is required, instead employers are inspected to conduct an investigation into the plausibility of the events you described to determine if they are more likely than not.