Transcript:
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Well, the answer is it depends. So, as an employee working for a company, there’s a concept called at will employment. That means you can be fired for any reason or no reason. And it could be the most morally reprehensible reason so long as it’s not unlawful. And what I mean by that is it’s not discrimination or retaliation or something that’s really against the law. Um, if you complain about a supervisor because that person’s treating you unfairly or the person’s a jerk, you
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know, you really have no recourse because unfortunately it’s it’s not against the law to be a bad person. And if they treat you poorly or unfairly and you get fired because of it uh because you complain about that supervisor, there’s really not much you can do. However, if you’re complaining to a colleague or another individual, whether a second level supervisor or someone else, that your supervisor is not just a jerk, but the but the supervisor is actually racially discriminatory towards
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you. they’re clearly treating you differently because either a woman or or because of your race or because of your age or some other protected class, then you would potentially have a claim against the employer for being fired for that purpose because of the disperate treatment based upon a protected status. Similarly, if you complain to an employee about a supervisor that the person is retaliated against you because you are protesting discrimination or you’re complaining about some other
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illegal or wrongful conduct that also could be against the law and it being fired for that could be wrongful termination that you could go after. Now, there’s one other exception I want to share and that is the issue of of the National Labor Relations Act. So under the NLR that primarily protects the rights of non-managerial employees to gather together to form a union um or otherwise advocate for their mutual aid and benefit and protection. So what does that mean? Most employees that come to me are not working in a
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union and most employers don’t these days don’t uh uh have unions that govern their employees that it’s non-managerial employees. So how does the NA cla control in this situation? Well, if you’re speaking to an employee because you want to bring to someone else’s attention uh about a supervisor’s conduct towards you and you’re you’re meeting with that employee because you are trying to band together to advocate for your mutual aid and protection that would be protected
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by the NRA. You cannot be terminated for that. And so simply because you’re not looking to join a union or create a union doesn’t prevent you from being protected. And so if you have further questions about this, feel free to reach out to an attorney at Eric Seagle Law. We’d be happy to answer your questions.