Hostile Work Environment Definition
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Do You Know the 4 Key Steps to Taking Back Your Life from a Bully?

September 20, 2009 By 4 Comments
Learn to Take Back Your Life

Question: What are the four key steps to taking back your life from a bully? Answer: Listen to our interview with psychotherapist Dr. Ben Leichtling (pronounced Like-Ling).  Dr. Leichtling wrote a book about how to take back your life from a bully, and consults with companies on how to eliminate bullying from the workplace. Dr. Leichtling reveals in this interview his four key steps to breaking free of a bully.  He also gives invaluable advice on how to deal with the mental and physical trauma that bullies inflict.  This is one episode no one should miss. Podcast #11: Interview With Dr. Leichtling Dr. Leichtling was so generous with his time that we couldn't fit all of his helpful insights and ideas into the podcast, but it was simply too good "to leave on the cutting room … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, Podcast, Retaliation Tagged With: abusive boss, Bully Boss, diabetes discrimination, employee rights, harassed at work, hostile work environment, Hostile Workplace, job harassment, retaliation at work
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Podcast #10: Bully Boss Creates Hostile Work Environment by Forbidding Bathroom Breaks!

August 12, 2009 By 3 Comments
No Bathroom Breaks

Don't Have iTunes on Your Computer? Free Download from Apple w/ easy install instructions. Main Segment In the Main Segment of Episode #10 we tackle the issue of "Bully Bosses Who Forbid Bathroom Breaks."  This craziness happens much more frequently than you may think.  Can you guess who the primary victims are? #1 Spanish radio station in Miami The radio show I mention during the show is 98.3.  My thanks to Frank, the Undercover Lawyer community member from Miami who got the book and called in to 98.3 to talk about it.  Thanks Frank! All Spanish UCL Site Now Launched: www.demandas-empleos.comNew Segment -- The Q & A: We also debut a new segment in Episode #10, the Q&A.  In you have a legal question about work that you think other listeners would be interested in, send … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Age Discrimination, Blog, Featured, Podcast, Signs You're Abused at Work, Videos Tagged With: abusive boss, diabetes, Discrimination, employee rights, harassment, hostile work environment, Hostile Work Place, Retaliation, sexual harassment
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When Your Bully Boss is Behind Closed Doors, Do You Want to Know What the Lawyers Are Telling Him?

July 21, 2009 By 8 Comments
Listening In on Your Bully Boss

In Episode #9 the Undercover Lawyer (Curt K.) reveals 10 things that bosses do to their employees that cause hostile work environment lawsuits. (Podcast Player below). Even defense lawyers get mad at bad bosses, because bad bosses cause lawsuits.  This is explosive information that big business pays top dollar for; Curt himself regularly charges companies $1,000+ for "How Not to Get Sued" seminars that cover this same material!  But now you get it for free, plus Curt's explanation of how employees can use this information for their advantage. In the Quick Tip Curt covers how the new Federal Bailout Program includes money that you get right now if you've lost your job.  It's the COBRA subsidy, which requires your employer to pay 65% of COBRA premiums, so that you pay only 35% of the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, Hostile Work Environment & Workplace Harassment, Podcast Tagged With: abusive boss, Bully Boss, employee rights, harassed at work, hostile work environment, Hostile Workplace, job harassment, retaliation at work
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Gradual Workplace Harassment Is Not Legal Harassment

July 2, 2009 By 6 Comments
gradual_harassment

You complain to your manager or to H.R., and what do they tell you?  There's no evidence that you are putting up with an illegal hostile work environment.  But you are having trouble sleeping, you feel sick when you think about work, and even though you try not to you spend most of your time worrying about work, you think about little else. How can your boss or H.R. excuse this?  How can they possibly claim that nothing is going on? Acme Markets said that Gloria Nieves was just complaining about good old fashioned teasing among co-workers.  Some of it may have been insensitive, but Acme claimed that no one thing that happened to Gloria at the deli where she worked amounted to illegal harassment.  But Gloria knew differently.  She took Acme to court, where the court said even … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Discrimination, Featured, Hostile Work Environment & Workplace Harassment Tagged With: hostile work environment, job discrimination, job harassment, national origin discrimination, Workplace Harassment
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The Abusive Boss Who Got Sued For “Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress”

June 16, 2009 By 13 Comments

Have you felt emotional distress at work because of the abusive way your boss treats you? Many of the people who contact me for help in dealing with a bully boss feel this way, and they want to sue their boss in court for all the workplace abuse he or she has inflicted. When someone like this tells me they want to sue, the first thing they say is that their boss caused “a hostile work environment.” (If you still think you can sue for a hostile work environment, you need to sign up for my 7 Free Work Law Secrets Email Course). The second thing people want to sue for is “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” This also rarely works, and I don't advise pursuing it, but... ...but a women named Gina Strong in Washington State recently has some success suing her boss for … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bad Boss, Featured, Hostile Work Environment & Workplace Harassment, Legal Strategies Tagged With: Add new tag, Bully Boss, hostile work environment, negligent infliction of emotional distress
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Is Your Former Abusive Boss Going to Give You a Bad Reference? Here’s How to Fix It

June 3, 2009 By 1 Comment
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If you've escaped working for a bully boss, but are afraid of what the bully will say to your prospective employers during reference checks, then this article is for you. I've been getting this question a lot lately, most recently from a reader named Allen, whose email to me is posted below with my response following: Hi there, I was searching through some law websites when all of a sudden I came across your website. I had a question about job applications: is it unlawful to ask why you left your last job? The reason I asked is because I was fired from my last job for some flim flam reason, and it would be a shame if I didn't get the job that I'm applying for due to telling the truth, and then the truth turns right around and kicks me in the butt. Also, is it illegal for a former … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Claim Unemployment, Featured Tagged With: defamation, ex-employer, former employer, references
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Can Your Abusive Boss’s Unattainable Goals for You Actually be Discrimination Against You?

May 25, 2009 By 8 Comments
appraisal_pic

A performance improvement plan (or "PIP") is not discriminatory by itself.  But scores of employees who have bought "Work Laws Exposed" and utilized their free phone consultation with me have described feeling like their boss was trying to "get back at them" by setting astronomically high goals at the employees next appraisal or in a PIP. One female employee told me how she used FMLA leave to take her autistic son to a series of therapy sessions; soon after returning to work her boss placed her on a PIP and assigned her completely unattainable goals that she had to meet "or face termination"; One older male employee told me how he noticed that his boss, a first time supervisor, was driving out all the employees who were also older and more experienced; when the employee told HR that … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bad Boss, Discrimination, Featured, Hostile Work Environment & Workplace Harassment, Retaliation Tagged With: Appraisals, hostile work environment, PIP, unrealistic goals
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Faking Disability? And, Lawsuit Caused by Abusive Boss

April 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment
rodeoclown

You decide if this police chief was faking his disability: Former police chief for city was no longer disabled, and thus, he was not entitled to continue receiving not-on-duty disability pension. While former chief could not work as ordinary police officer because of injury to left knee, his disability did not prevent him from functioning as a supervising law enforcement officer in an administrative position within the police department. A videotape of the former chief performing as rodeo clown showed him running, jumping, climbing fences, dancing, running from bulls, leaping on top of and off barrels, climbing into and carrying barrels,and being rammed by bull while crouched inside a barrel. Rhoads v. Board of Trustees of City of Calumet City Policemen's Pension Fund, 810 N.E.2d 573 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bad Boss, Discrimination, Featured
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Employees File Complaints, Employers Pay

April 15, 2009 By 1 Comment
orange_shirt_row_suits

Janitor's EEOC Complaint Ends With Order to Pay $350,000 A nursing home company, Skilled Healthcare Group, must pay a class of Hispanic employees it discriminated against $450,000 "and provide significant remedial relief [because they] were subject to harassment, different terms and conditions of employment, promotion, compensation, and treatment."  The EEOC ordered the company to pay Hispanic employees because the employees had been forbidden from speaking Spanish at work, BUT, other ethnic groups were allowed to speak their own native (non-English) language while working for Silled Healthcare.  Because the compnay treated employees differently with respect to their national origin, the EEOC had filed suit against the company in Federal Court in California, alleging discrimination in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Discrimination, Featured
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Meeting “Efficiencies”

March 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

One reader of Undercover Lawyer contributed the following piece based on his own experiences at a large employer in Southern California.  Our guest writer, Brian, followed the advice in "Work Laws Exposed" and filed claims with California 's DFEH.  He has now retained a California attorney to further fight back against the Hostile Work Environment he had to live through.  Here are Brian's insights: MEETING "EFFICIENCIES" Every now and then a company needs to “meet efficiencies”, which also means to get rid of employees for whatever reason; (over budget, employee complains, don’t like, asks for training, wants a raise, etc). How the game works: A manager is usually asked to lunch by his/her supervisor. During lunch the supervisor will inform the manager that the company … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bad Boss, Featured Tagged With: Bad Boss, hostile work environment, Layoffs, unfair discipline
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