Your Rights in the Workplace

Documenting the Problem
Most employers now embrace the workplace mantra reinforced by thousands of court cases: Document, document, document. If your good working situation has gone bad—or you have recently been fired—you, too, must heed the call: Document all that happened. You are nowhere, legally, without evidence of how and when things went wrong.

A little bit of workplace paranoia may later prove to be a healthy thing. Even if everything seems fine now, take the extra seconds to create a paper trail. Collect in one place all documents you receive on the job: initial work agreements, employee handbooks, management memos, performance reviews. To be safe, keep your file at home, away from the office.

If you have what seems to be a valid complaint, it is crucial to gather evidence to bolster your claim. From the start, beware of deadlines for filing specific types of legal claims. The deadlines may range from a few weeks to a few years but will likely signal that you have to act quickly.

Caution Watch what you grab. While it’s true that you are in the best position to gather evidence while you are still working, you must be wary of what you take in hand. Confidential information, such as evidence of the company’s finances, and other documents that the employer has clearly indicated should not be disclosed, are off limits. If you take these kinds of documents out of the workplace, that may actually become a legal ground for the company to fire you—or for a court to limit or deny your remedies for wrongful treatment you suffered while on the job.

There are several kinds of evidence you should collect as soon as possible.

Company policies. Statements of company policy, either written or verbal, which indicate arbitrary or wrongful treatment—including job descriptions, work rules, personnel pamphlets, notices, or anything else that either indicates or implies that company policy is to treat workers unfairly may be the most meaningful evidence you can amass.

Written statements by management. Statements by supervisors, personnel directors, or other managers about you are also important. Save any written statements and note when and from whom you received them. If you have not received any written reasons for a job decision you feel is discriminatory or otherwise wrongful, make a written request for a statement of the company’s reasons.

Verbal comments. In many cases, employers and their managers do not write down their reasons for making an employment decision. In such cases, you may still be able to document your claim with evidence of verbal statements by supervisors or others concerning unwritten company policy or undocumented reasons for a particular action involving your job.

Make accurate notes of what was said as soon as you can after the statement is made. Also note the time and place the statement was made, who else was present, and the conversation surrounding it. If others heard the statement, try to get them to write down their recollections, and have them sign that statement. Or have them sign your written version of the statement, indicating that it accurately reflects what they heard.