There are some bosses out there who expect their workers to do what they’re told no matter what. This means that they are sometimes expected to do illegal or unethical acts and are punished if they refused to engage in illegal activity. Other times are less extreme such as if a person reports something wrong and then is punished for the simple fact that they reported it.
This kind of behavior is called retaliation and is illegal as much as it’s unethical. It contributes to a toxic or hostile workplace. If you suspect that you are being retaliated against then you could definitely have a case that any lawyer would love to take on. In this article, we will go over the signs that you are facing retaliation so you can do something about it.
1 – Wrongful termination
If you fear that your refusal to do things that you were not comfortable doing for work is the reason you were fired then this is the biggest sign of retaliation. You can be fired for just about anything if you work in an “at-will” state but they can’t fire you for unethical reasons. One of those would be to fire you for not doing something you knew to be wrong, or for reporting such behavior.
If this happened then you will need to come forward with some compelling evidence that you were fired for this reason. You may even have some documentation from your job that this is why they are letting you go. This would be an open and shut case for any court.
However, if they are clever then they wouldn’t give you this evidence. Make sure to keep any kinds of records such as your performance reviews that show you were a model employee and not one that would get fired out of the blue.
2 – Schedule changes
One form of retaliation is an effort to make your life difficult. This would involve something like changing your schedule so that you are not able to pick up your kids from daycare on time, for example. If your schedule suddenly changes and it is known that it will be damaging to you but the bosses do it anyway then this is a giveaway.
Bring this up to the HR department and see if you can change your schedule back to your normal one and see what happens. If it doesn’t help then you should escalate.
3 – Being passed over
Not everybody is always deserving of a promotion, but when you do the hard work and help the company to grow then it is expected that at some point you will be rewarded with a promotion.
When you are continuously passed over and it always happens after you had an issue with the higher-ups then this is a sign that you are being retaliated against. When it happens once then you can look past it but take note when it happens a few times.
