Employee Survival Guide® - Know Your Rights: Retaliation At Work

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Send us Fan MailHave you ever felt the chilling effects of workplace retaliation? You're not alone, and it's time to break the silence! In this eye-opening episode of Employee Survival Guide®, Mark Carey delves deep into the insidious world of retaliation at work, shedding light on what it truly means for employees who dare to speak out against wrongdoing. Retaliation can take many forms, from overt actions like firing to more covert behaviors such as exclusion from meetings or unwarranted criticism. Understanding these nuances is crucial for every employee navigating their career. Mark passionately outlines the legal protections available to employees engaged in 'protected activities'—those brave enough to report discrimination, seek reasonable accommodations, or advocate for their rights. He emphasizes that retaliation is illegal and offers actionable advice on how to document potential retaliation effectively. Whether you're maintaining a personal timeline, submitting written complaints, or seeking legal counsel, Mark equips you with essential tools to protect yourself in a hostile work environment. But it doesn't stop there; this episode also explores the psychological complexities of workplace dynamics. Why do employers retaliate? What pressures lead to such actions? By understanding these motivations, employees can better navigate the murky waters of workplace culture and advocate for their rights. Mark encourages listeners to embrace their empowerment, urging them to stand firm against retaliation and take the necessary steps to ensure their voices are heard. Whether you're facing discrimination, harassment, or simply feeling the weight of a toxic workplace, this episode is packed with insights that can help you reclaim your power. Don't let fear of retaliation silence you—learn how to advocate for yourself and protect your career. Tune in for a transformative discussion that not only highlights the importance of understanding your employee rights but also inspires you to take action against workplace injustices. Join us as we uncover the truth about retaliation and empower employees to thrive in their careers! </div>  If you enjoyed this episode of the Employee Survival Guide please like us on Facebook, X and LinkedIn.  We would really appreciate if you could leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Leaving a review will help other employees find the Employee Survival Guide.  For more information, please contact our employment attorneys at Carey & Associates, P.C. at 203-255-4150, www.capclaw.com.Disclaimer:  For educational use only, not intended to be legal advice. 

Hey, it's Mark here and welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide, where I tell you, as always, what your employer does definitely not want you to know about, and a lot more. Hey, it's Mark, and welcome back to another edition of the Employee Survival Guide, where I tell you what your employer does not want to tell you, and a lot more. Today we're going to talk about knowing your rights at work regarding retaliation. Have you ever felt that something changed at work, especially after speaking out about something that you believe is wrong? or when asserting your legal rights. Maybe a benefit you previously had is suddenly taken away from you,

or you are being excluded from meetings or you received a disciplinary email shortly after you spoke out. If this has happened, you may have experienced retaliation. Some retaliation can be very explicit and easy to spot, but other times it can also be subtle and more insidious. In the work world, when we are inside the walls of our companies, that I call private governments, you call them workplaces. We may forget the employee handbook or policies are not the laws of the land. Therefore, it's pertinent that employees, meaning you, educate yourself on what is illegal in the workplace to understand when they are being subject to legal retaliation.

Employers and managers may think their actions are the norm, but that norm is subject to the laws that prohibit retaliation. This episode is designed to educate you, the employee, what retaliation is, what it looks like, what evidence you need to collect to prove it, and how to pursue retaliation claim. Retaliation is when an employer, through a manager, supervisor, administrator, directly fires an employee or takes any other type of adverse action against the employee for engaging in a protected activity. And I'll explain that in a second. An adverse action is an action which would dissuade a reasonable employee from raising a concern about a possible violation or engaging in another protected activity, i.e. filing a complaint, either internally or externally. The reason why employers may retaliate against an employee can be complicated and nuanced, as most human behavior is. Our workplaces are filled with egos, power dynamics, pressures by companies to perform, pressures to please clientele, shareholders and boards,

expectations of productivity and revenue, and countless other factors. Lawyers, lawmakers, and commentators may try to reduce workplace disputes to clear rules, but human behavior, as we know it. As we know it through this podcast, workplace dynamics and business pressures are often more complicated. The EEOC has commented on this topic, stating that the act of retaliation is equivalent to a revenge, where a person perceives an unfair treatment and attempts to restore equilibrium by taking the matter into their own hands or her hands.

Research has consistently demonstrated that the desire for retaliation is common upon experience in an offensive interpersonal encounter, particularly if the encounter threatens one's self-image. Furthermore, the EOC has stated, if those accused sincerely believe they have done nothing wrong, or if they believe their offensive behavior was somehow justified, they may begin to ruminate and desire retaliation. Even given the sociological explanation for retaliation, it doesn't change the law. Thankfully, there are laws

that protect employees from retaliation and explicitly lay out prohibition of retaliation for protected activities. Retaliation serves to chill employees' complaints or protected activities, which is why laws against retaliation exist. Unfortunately, retaliation happens far too often. I will tell you that by my professional experience that it happens far too often in my past nearly 30 years of doing this. And it has the desired effect. It is extremely inconvenient for your employer to hear, answer, or respond to a complaint, accommodation request, or other protected activity. The protected activity may disrupt productivity itself, sales, revenue, and simply just tick off your employer. Probably the latter is the

most often how it happens just ticking off your employer. They don't want to be told what to do. But we tell them what to do, so I continue on. But inconvenience is not enough to circumvent the law. We hope to empower employees at our firm to informing you of their rights to change the world of work for the better. Isn't that the reason why you're listening to this, get educated? It's likely you have stumbled on this podcast episode because you feel something off at work and suspect you may be retaliated against. In this case, you should immediately do the following. Preserve a personal timeline. Number two, check applicable deadlines quickly.

Number three, submit written complaints to HR or supervisor, preferably in an email, so it's timestamped. Number four, seek legal advice from an employment lawyer like myself, before filing, recording, conversations, or signing an agreement. Now, most prohibitions on retaliation protect employees who engage in what's called a protected activity. Therefore, employees need to understand what protected activities are

and keep watch for illegal retaliation for those activities. They include complaints about workplace discrimination, a discriminatory workplace culture, violations of laws intended to protect health and safety, acting as a whistleblower, and requesting accommodations for a disability. All those things are protected activities.

The law protects. The EEOC, the Equal Employment, Opportunity Commission, clarifies protected activities as, quote, participation and opposition. Those two different types. Participation means taking a part in any employment discrimination proceeding, filing an EOC charge, probably the most common. Serving as a witness, less common, because employees don't want to be witnesses, providing evidence or cooperation with investigations, which never happens. Employees can think of this as taking an active role in a discriminatory. Proceeding. This protection applies regardless of whether the underlying discrimination claims succeeds or not.

Now, the opposition type of retaliation or protective activity. It protects employees' rights to push back on what they believe is illegal conduct. This can include complaining to HR about harassment, refusing to follow discriminatory orders, or supporting a co-workers' discrimination complaint. the employee need not be correct about their belief, but they do need to have a reasonable good faith belief that something illegal happened. This is the pushback to conduct that employees does not agree with and often comes about when the employee is speaking out against something.

Again, the opposition clause aspect is really about a good faith belief that you know something is wrong and you're complaining about. So it's the act of doing something. Now, examples of protected activities are this. Reporting discrimination. That can be in an email. It can be filing any EOC complaint. Reporting harassment to HR or a junior supervisor. Participating in workplace investigations, as we said before, complaining about wage violations can also result in retaliation under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Requesting medical or family medical leave can result in a retaliatory behavior by the employer because, you know, you're going to be leaving your employment for a paid or unpaid leave period.

and that pisses people off. Requesting disability accommodations. This one is straightforward, but employers don't want to accommodate disabled employees. Just sorry. They push back. They make it difficult for you. Reporting or refusing to work in unsafe working conditions.

Now, shame on employers that they make this happen, but we've seen it. And you have to report it. You can report it actually confidentially to the federal government and they will act upon it. Cooperating with government agencies, that's also an act of protected activity,

reporting what, that your employer is doing something illegal, clearly, like telling the SEC that something illegal has happened, that has affected the financial affairs of the company. Submitting a formal complaint with a state and federal agency is a protected activity, and it's probably the best thing you can do to protect your job while you're looking for another job and cause the employer to back off,

because once you engage your protected activity, the employer typically backs off for, you know, two months to three months or longer. What does retaliation look like? It can be subtle, it can be blatant. It's also important to note that retaliation does not have to happen from one person. It can happen from multiple people, and I've seen this happen. Multiple people at work can retaliate against you as a kind of a cohort or a collective, you know, part of the management team to kind of corral and, you know, make your life miserable.

If something feels off or makes you feel targeted, you should consider it. if you're being retaliated against and record the instance in an email, only an email, and then follow up with some verbal, but then follow that with an email. Some examples of retaliation are receiving unfair criticism or being embarrassed in front of other employees. That happens a lot. Being denied certain workplace benefits like training, travel, or even parking spots, that's something you have to review when you go through your narrative and look at how you're treated differently because after you complain.

It's a kind of a before and after contrast between you and other people and what benefits they're getting. Being placed on a performance improvement plan, my favorite, and subjected to excessive coaching or discipline. If you're put on a PIP, always reach out and file an internal complaint with HR, you belt your boss, because when a PIP happens means you're being kicked out. And you need to build a case for severance negotiation. being subjected to a scheduled change or reduced hours. Typically, that's writing on the wall, get the heck out. Losing work duties or projects, again, a pretty easy self-explanatory example. Receiving negative performance reviews, very similar to a PIP.

And I will say that the negative performance review contrast may be the last year's review when you got to exceed expectation and now your needs improvement. I see that a lot. You know, why does a person performance dip after, you know, 10 years? years at work is because of dual maybe or because they're female. Being assigned work assignments or goals that are nearly impossible to meet, that's what a PIP does. I mean, you got to just stop there and pause. It happens every single time. Managers craft these new goals and expectations that you can ever meet. And you need to push back and say, you know what, that wasn't my job

before I complained. And now it's my job. So you need to ask rhetorical questions to your boss about that because you don't expect a response, but it's in the email. So you're setting employer up. So you know that I'm all about setting employers up and make this kind of stupid shit mistakes like this. They think you're stupid not to fight back. So, but that's not you. Being blacklisted and impeding your ability to gain future employment, that happens more rarely, but it does happen. Reporting or threatening to report employee to a police or immigration authorities, maybe that's the son of the times the day that happens. I've never actually had a situation where that's happened. I've had police being called to the

the workplace, but it's like, happens like, you know, one percent of the time. Being excluded from meetings, projects, and even communications, that happens, you know, a lot of, and being isolated in general from your coworkers and from work tasks, et cetera. That's a pretty good, strong list of things we see commonly happening. While employers may attempt to frame these actions as performance base, good luck with that. Timing, context, and patterns often expose, retaliation for what it is. If you can identify, protect that activity that you engage in before you experience the action, the adverse action, you may be a victim of retaliation.

So what do you do if you believe you are being retaliated against? Document the shit out of the case. You know I said that every time. Every email, text message, or even verbal communication should be saved, recorded in some manner. The company equipment should not be used to save documents. You need to basically pull things offline. for yourself to support your case, the employer will be watching you because they have the technology now to see it. Even if you forward relevant documents to yourself, figure out ways

to do it in such a way that maybe it's a screenshot off your phone or something. She always assume that your employer is monitoring your work and your work equipment. Number two, formally submit a complaint to HR via email or to your supervisor and specify that you feel you're being to retaliated against for your protected activity. I mean, you have to use the words that they're targeting you, they're discriminating against you. You know, you have to, don't be vague about it.

Don't try to, you know, try to preserve bridges because you don't want to say the nasty words of discrimination and retaliation. Complaints to HR often put employers on notice and help delay termination. They create more paychecks for you and also create a formal record

that we use to create cases and also to develop severance negotiation positions. Because then the end of the day, that's what you're trying to do. You don't like it. You know, get over that part, but the employer has a right to, you know, kick you out if they want to, and you have a right to fight back. And there are no rules of this engagement. And you can use any tool that we have crafted for you in the form of a podcast episodes. So you can use AI. But you can create your own case. You can touch the whole idea here is to empower you to advocate for yourself. And then finally, if you just just can't stomach that and you just, it's too stressful. You can use an employment attorney like myself. We'll quick. march in and examine the facts of the case and set your case up for you against your employer. So how do you prove retaliation? Elements may vary by state, but all the retaliation claims commonly include the following.

Number one, the employee engaged in a protected activity about the workplace, including issues regarding discrimination, culture, public health, and safety, or compliance with federal and state laws. Two, the employee was subject to some form of adverse workplace consequence. And I'll note here it's the Supreme Court in the States has indicated it's some harm, not significant harm. So some harm, like, you know, you used to drive a car for work purposes. Now you're not allowed to or you're taking a desk job versus when you're on the road. So it's really fact-specific. And number three, the adverse implement action was caused by the protected activity, meaning there's a cause and effect.

Meaning you complain, something happened. Shit hits the fan when you complain. So when you look at the timing, which is the next part. If an employee engaged in a protected activity and then very soon after started experiencing adverse effects, this is a strong indicator that retaliation occurred to you. However, a retaliation can often occur months later, but the further you get in time between the adverse, the protected activity to complain and the adverse action, the retaliation claim becomes weaker. With one caveat, you can have multiple adverse actions occur. over a period of time and you connect the popcorn together on a string, and that's a continuing violation of theory of retaliation, and it happens a lot. Typically, it's, you know, the employer put

the right end of the wall and you didn't want to read it, or you push back and file complaints. I famously have a case that lasted three years almost. Never filed suit, but the person kept on filing complaints, and it kept elongating their job, and eventually it's a settlement, but it's a tactic to use to push back. There's no rule says you can't. file as many complaints as you want internally and externally. So there you go. That's a pretty strong weapon to use to fight against your employer's behavior. Helpful evidence can include any sort of criticism the employee received for raising a complaint, a negative shift in performance reviews after the complaint, sudden discipline for activity that previously went unpunished,

false or shifting explanations for the adverse action. My favorite. Employers do that every time. And then just for treatment compared to employees who did not complain. You have to demonstrate factually how you're treated differently than your coworkers because you complained. Now, where do you file complaints? The EEOC is the first place. If for many discrimination claims in Connecticut, New York, EOC charge must generally file when 300 days the retaliatory act. Different deadlines may apply depending on the claim and location. The EEOC will then investigate, I guess.

I have good friends who worked there, but, you know, never had any EOC investigation results in a four-cost finding in my career. Maybe only one, but then it never led to anything. So, sorry, I am doing the job for the EEOC, but I think the EEOC knows that. And the EEOC may pursue your claim. I have really yet to see that happen. But normally what happens, 99.9% of the time is they take your file in, they give you a claim number, they file out with the state agency, and then they wait a period of time, and they give you what's called a right to sue letter. They may try to mediate the case. And if you're lucky to get that and schedule it, try it. But generally, you're going to be issued a notice of a right to sue letter.

That means you get to go to court. State level requirements in New York. Employee may file a complaint for retaliation with the New York State Division of Human Rights. You have three years to file a complaint with that agency. In New York City, an employee may also file with the New York City Commission on Human Rights. New York City claims may also be subject to a three-year limitations, period. In Connecticut, you have to file with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and opportunities, and there's a 300-day deadline. In New York, an employee can also file a lawsuit in state court within three years of the retaliatory event. So what remedies do you get, who go all the way or what you're looking for? Back pay in the form of wages, bonuses,

commissions, or benefits, front pay that compensate you for, future lost earnings until you can be placed in appropriate employment, out-of-pocket expenses, including medical, pain and suffering, including emotional distress, although I warn you that's difficult to get that in any case other than sexual harassment cases, always include that emotional distress. Policy changes in corrective action, not likely. Attorney's fees and costs, you've got to really pursue litigation to get that. Punitive damages, again, you need to basically pursue litigation to get it. Retaliation is never. as clear cut as the law will make it. That is why it's important to, more than ever,

for employees to understand what it looks like and what their rights are. Now you know, because you just listen to all of it. The law is clear, though, that is illegal to be retaliated against for protected activities, complaining about discrimination, requesting accommodations, blowing the whistle on illegal activity, or participating in an official investigation, are all examples of protected activities. In a world where all the balancing scales clearly favor employers, although I'm making every effort to shift it to a more balanced level. As you know, employees need to be empowered to recognize that there are laws and regulations that protect them from retaliation and that they have a way forward to be remedied when a violation occurs.

If you suspect you're being retaliated against for protected activity, keep a timeline, document everything like I always say. Consider speaking to an employment lawyer like myself to help you navigate and responding back when retaliation happens. This is what we do every day. We're eager to help you. Thank you for listening and letting me be of service. If you like the Employees Survival Guide, I'd really encourage you to leave a review. We try really hard to produce information to you that's informative, that's timely, that you can actually use and solve problems on your own and at your employment.

So if you like to leave a review anywhere you listen to our podcast, please do so. and leave five stars because anything less than five is really not as good, right? I'll keep it up. I'll keep the standards up. I'll keep the information flowing at you. If you'd like to send me an email and ask me a question, I'll actually review it and post it on there. You can send it to m-C-A-R-U-I at C-A-P-C-Law.com. That's capclaw.com.