Thousands of companies are hit with tens of thousands of charges each year, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's 2012 EEOC statistics. Charges range from race charges to religion charges. Being hit with a charge, or worse — a lawsuit — can damage your company's reputation and cost it millions of dollars. If you're a smaller business that does not have a human resources department, you may especially not be aware of what your employee's rights are, so listen up! Not knowing what your employee's rights are and abiding to them, could cost you your company.

Employee Rights

The following are just a few employee rights. For a full listing, visit WorkPlaceFairness.org or The U.S. Department of Labor.

Layoff, Firing, and Resigning Rights1

Private Sector Employees

Employment is at will. Employees are allowed to terminate a working relationship at anytime without reason. With that being said, as an employer, you are also allowed to terminate an employee at anytime.

Union Employees

Unlike private sector employees, union employees are typically limited to firing. Terms are determined by a CBA or contract.

Government Employees

Government employees are protected from termination that violates the United States Constitution or the constitution of the state they work in. In many cases, civil service employers are required to give employees an explanation of termination, as just cause is required. Employees who are not civil service employees are not as protected, but may have other legal protection.

Independent Contractors

As we mentioned in our earlier post on the differences between independent contractors and employees, independent contractors are not employees. Being that independent contractors are self-employed, employment is based on terms set in a contract.

Temporary Employees

At Bear Staffing, we fill a lot of temp positions. As a temp employee, unless stated in a contract, employment is at will. We always ask all employees of temp positions we fill to give as at least two weeks notice, but legally, they are not required to.

*Information summarized from WorkPlaceFairness.org.

Additional Employee Rights

All employees, regardless of classification have the right to:

• Be paid at least the minimum wage.2
• Not be discriminated against.2
• Have a safe workplace to work in including: safety from harmful mold or mildew in an office space and safety from harmful cleaning chemicals. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration elaborates on worker safety rights in this publication.
• Be provided with annual leave, paid time off, paid public holidays worked, paid sick leave, and bereavement leave.2
• Be notified if their phone calls, emails, software downloads, instant messaging, visited websites, and more of the like, are monitored (in the public sector). Union workers can sometimes negotiate monitoring.3

Sources: 1WorkPlaceFairness.org 2The Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment 3CanMyBossDoThat.com

What are your thoughts on monitoring? Leave a comment below sharing what you think.