Fired in Retaliation

[zoberin]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Nebraska

I was fired for reporting discrimination by a senior employee. The senior team member was assigning projects to my 2 male colleagues but not to me (I am female). When I would attempt to do them, he would tell me to give projects to him, or simply take over them without even telling me. On at least two occasions he coerced me into giving projects I had picked up to a lower level male colleague. His actions resulted in me getting a slightly lower than satisfactory review on April 1st because I was unable to complete enough projects, and I was denied a raise because of it. I was in good standing despite this, and my manager assured me they had no intention of getting rid of me when I saw a job opening for my department (this was to replace one of my coworkers who was moving to a different department). I reported the senior employee's actions on May 21st to my manager and was terminated on June 17, with no explanation or prior notice. No other recent events had occurred that would justify being fired. My manager's wife is the lead HR person of this company, so there is no doubt she knew about this.

I have set up an interview with the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission to begin the process of filing a claim against them for retaliation. I would like to recover lost wages, as it is financially difficult for me to be looking for a new job whilst being unemployed. Is this the correct course of action? If so, what can I do to ensure my case is successful?

 

[FlyingRon]

You can see how it will play out there's not enough here to tell if you have a case.

Your last statement makes no sense. If you are collecting unemployment your #1 responsibility is to look for work, otherwise you don't qualify.

 

[commentator]

Whether or not you file any sort of EEOC grievance or anything else you do, the first thing you should do when fired is file for unemployment insurance. If the company has really fired you without having a valid misconduct reason to do so, this needs to be established, and you should be determined eligible to draw benefits. It will also help to establish just exactly why they claim they fired you, and whether they have any kind of paper documentation of warnings or verifiable misconduct on your part. Performance issues can't work for them as long as you did the job to the best of your abilities, which you should tell them.

Unemployment insurance is the venue you use to have some income to hunt for other jobs with. It will come to pass much sooner than any sort of EEOC complaint/lawsuit etc. that you may want to pursue. Two or three years from now, if you were backpaid, that'd be about par for the course IF you had a successful lawsuit. Unemployment insurance is for in the meantime.

 

[Eekamouse]

Why is it financially difficult for you to look for a job while unemployed? What do you expect? Them to rehire you so you can work while looking for a new job? What a ridiculous statement.