Houston Employment Law Blog

In years past, most women did not work outside of the home. As such, workplaces were not required to accommodate women in the event they became pregnant. For years, as more and more women entered the workplace, many suffered discrimination, especially if they became pregnant. Today, state and federal laws exist to protect women from suffering pregnancy discrimination. Despite these laws, however, some employers continue to actively engage in discrimination against pregnant women.

Employees who work at call centers must often meet certain quotas with regard to time spent on the phone and calls answered. Failure to meet these quotas often result in disciplinary action and may even be grounds for termination.

Unfortunately, cases involving allegations related to sexual harassment in the workplace are fairly common. The large majority of these cases, however, are filed by female employees who purport male superiors or colleagues carried out wrongful acts of sexual harassment. Men too, however, are often the victims of sexual harassment. Due to embarrassment and shame, however, many men fail to come forward and report such abusive and illegal actions and behaviors.

Oftentimes cases that involve allegations related to sexual harassment and discrimination are complex in nature. The lines between what is and is not appropriate or consensual may become blurred and result in unwanted advances or sexual conduct that is not 100 percent consensual. A woman recently filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against both her former employer and its CEO.

Many victims of discrimination file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") before trying to hire a lawyer. This is usually a bad idea, as I've addressed in another blog post. However, if you choose to forge ahead pro se, as we say, here is what you can expect from the EEOC:

1.     A Cursory Investigation.  The EEOC is made of up of lot of good, caring people, but they have too many cases and too few people to handle them. As a result, you will likely only get a cursory investigation of your claims. In fact, investigation is too generous a word for what the EEOC does. In most cases the EEOC sends your charge of discrimination to the company, and upon receiving the response from the company closes the case. The EEOC may request you file a reply to the company's response. Once you provide that, the EEOC will likely then close the case. The whole process generally takes 3-6 months.