Los Angeles Employment Law Blog

It’s been a little over 50 years since Congress passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which is supposed to protect employees in California and elsewhere from age-related discrimination in the workplace. However, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, many employers still show bias against older workers. As a result, the agency has started aggressively combating the issue.

One struggle people in California might encounter in the workplace is the issue of subtle discrimination or harassment. While it may be easy to identify overt speech and action, this can be much more difficult when the discrimination is harder to pinpoint.

Transgender people in California live in an uncertain environment about their federal level legal protections from workplace discrimination. Some legal rulings, like the unanimous decision this year from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit that interpreted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 in favor of a transgender employee, have shown judicial willingness to view Title VII prohibitions on sex discrimination as inclusive of people mistreated because of their gender identity.

Despite the rising publicity and awareness about sexual harassment, some of the most prominent companies in California may still be guilty of gender discrimination. One group of female former employees at Nike, the athletic wear company, have filed a lawsuit alleging that the corporation systematically discriminated against women on the job through a hostile work environment.

With so much awareness into the fair treatment of women and other minority groups, many employers are taking action to reduce problems in the workplace. While this is a positive step, it is not enough unless it entails the right kind of changes. Otherwise, the program can backfire. Harvard Business Review reports on how diversity training is not only ineffective but also harmful. This may explain why you are still facing discrimination at your job, or even more than before, despite your employer’s efforts to eliminate the problem.

Some older job seekers in California and throughout the country may not be recruited for certain jobs, and several related lawsuits are in progress. One 45-year-old woman found that her daughter was seeing job ads on Facebook that she was not. In December, the Communication Workers of America filed a lawsuit on her behalf and that of other workers against Facebook, T-Mobile and a number of other companies alleging age discrimination.

Most older workers in California and across the U.S. face age discrimination according to a new survey by AARP. The discrimination occurs both during job searches and in the workplace. AARP polled 3,900 job applicants ages 45 and up and found that age discrimination is rampant. More than 90 percent of the survey’s participants said they believed age-related bias is common, and 61 percent said they had personally experienced it or witnessed it happening to others.

It is a simple fact: pregnancy discrimination still runs rampant in the workplace. In over 20 years of practicing employment litigation in California, my pregnancy discrimination caseload has not let up. There are typically two types of cases. The first is when a woman finds out she is pregnant in the course of employment, and after a stellar career with no performance problems, she finds her position has “been eliminated” along with one or two other employees, of course, to make it look inconspicuous.

As part of its efforts to crack down on leave policy violations, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has settled a case against Mueller Industries Inc. The agency accused the manufacturer of discriminating against disabled employees with its leave policy. The settlement that emerged from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California applies to Mueller Industries’ nationwide operations.