Jay Trucks and Associates Legal Blog

The U.S. federal government has laws that prohibit job discrimination on the basis of religion, age, race, and gender. Some examples are:

• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, or national origin
• The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 protecting people over 40 years of age
• Sections 501 and 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, prohibiting discrimination against qualified disabled people employed by the federal government

These laws are all enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

There is also the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA), enforced not by the EEOC but by the Office of Special Counsel and the Merit Systems Protection Board. It contains several prohibited personnel practices and is designed to support fairness in federal government personnel actions. For example, the CSRA prohibits any reprisals against whistleblowers, and against any federal employee who files a complaint or appeal.

Examples of Prohibited Discriminatory Practices
Together, the various federal laws make it illegal to discriminate on any basis in any aspect of employment. Aspects of employment include:

• Recruitment
• Use of company facilities
• Hiring and firing
• Compensation
• Fringe benefits
• Disability leave
• Training programs

Discriminatory practices might be exclusion of certain people from company facilities or extra training; paying lower wages to certain people; or consistently not hiring certain types of people. It would also be classified as a discriminatory practice to penalize an employee who filed a whistleblower suit.

Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination and includes requesting sexual favors from an individual as well as creating any hostile environment for either gender – this applies to females as well as males. Also, pregnancy and childbirth must be treated the same as “other temporary illnesses”, although of course, pregnancy and childbirth are not illnesses. The Family and Medical Leave Act offers additional parental rights which are enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Job discrimination in both the private and public sectors has been vigorously fought by lawyers nationwide for several decades now. Our attorneys are very familiar with employment law and stay up to date with all changes in it as well as with all awards and settlements in such cases.

If you feel you are being discriminated against in your workplace, please contact our office for a free case review. We serve the areas of Lansing, Flint, Saginaw, and Traverse City in Michigan.

In 1979, Michigan’s Employee Right to Know Act became effective, giving employees access to their own personnel records. The Act applies to employers, private or government, with four or more employees. It defines personnel records as being information that identifies you, that is kept by your employer, and that is used to decide on any promotion, transfer, increase in pay, or disciplinary action.

Reviewing Your Own Personnel File
To see your own personnel file, you must send a letter by snail mail and it must include as many identifying items as you can think of:

• Social Security number
• Dates of employment
• Address of the facility where you worked or still work
• Identifying numbers such as branch number, division number, plant number, or badge number

You can send such a letter and be given access to your file up to twice a year, or according to any bargaining agreement your employer might have signed. If you are asking to see the file of a previous employer and you are no longer in the same location, you can ask that a copy of the file’s information be sent to you. If you want to see the actual file, a time and place will be arranged, usually within business hours and at or near the place of employment.

If, after looking at your file, you want a copy of it, you can ask your employer for one, and he or she can charge a fee for that. The fee amount must be limited to the employer’s actual cost of making the copy.

Disagreement Over File Content
If you find something in your file that you disagree with, you can inform your employer of that and perhaps come to an agreement on correcting it. If no agreement seems possible, you can submit a statement giving your point of view, and it will become a permanent part of your file. By law, it can be quite long – up to five pages of letter size paper – and must be included if any third party asks to see your file.

Your personnel file must not include any information about your personal life. Employers are forbidden to gather information about your friends, activities, political views etc. unless you give written permission for that. If you do give permission and information is assembled, it must be kept as part of your file.

There is a penalty for violating the Right-to-Know Act and you can file a claim in a local circuit court if you think your employer has acted illegally. If you have difficulty in gaining access to your file, or if it contains any evidence of political or other improper surveillance, you can contact the Michigan state representative in Lansing, MI.

Employment law can be complex in any given situation and we invite you to contact our office if you think you might have a valid legal claim against your employer. You can read more on our Frequently Asked Employment Law Questions page.