If you believe that you have been wrongfully terminated as a construction worker, you may be able to file a claim against your employer for wrongful dismissal. You have the right under both federal and state employment law not to be terminated for unlawful reasons. Your rights are intact even if you were employed as an at-will employee.
Common Types of Wrongful Termination
If you are an at-will employee, your employer can terminate your employment for all sorts of legitimate reasons, but cannot do so if the termination is against either federal or employment state laws. If you are not an at-will employee, then you will have signed an employment contract.
The reasons for terminating your employment will be even more constrained, but you will need to thoroughly examine your contract to see whether what clause they did actually break in the contract. Typical illegal reasons for a termination include the following.
- You complained to your boss about unsafe scaffolding / safety equipment. Termination for whistle blowing or complaining about unsafe practices is illegal under federal employment law.
- Replacement by a younger worker. This is an example of age discrimination, which is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
- Termination because of your ethnicity or race. Discrimination of this kind is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
- Replacement by a man or someone of the opposite gender with good reason to believe that prejudice on part of your employer has led to you being discriminated against.
- Termination because you have a disability that does not affect your job, such as a stutter or because you wear spectacles. You cannot be terminated just because you have a disability that does not affect your ability to do the job.
What to Do If You’ve Been Wrongfully Terminated as a Construction Worker
You won’t be able to file an employment law claim against your employer for wrongful (i.e. illegal) termination unless you have clear evidence that they did so. This is not an easy task, but not impossible.
It means approaching the whole episode of termination unemotionally and collecting the sort of evidence that can persuade a judge that you are right. Examples of such evidence are as follows:
- statements from any of your fellow construction workers that support your claim that you were wrongfully terminated;
- extracts from your employment contract if you signed one that show that the contract has been breached by your employer;
- evidence from emails, text messages, phone calls or comments made that you were terminated because of discrimination against you as described in any of the examples above;
- any favorable job evaluation that has been made of you before you were terminated;
- evidence of communication about safety conditions showing you brought up concerns that were the trigger for your termination;
- any evidence that the reason for your termination was something that your employer has done systematically before, e.g. has often terminated a female worker in place of a male worker, employed younger workers rather than older workers, sacked workers who have complained about safety procedures or equipment on a construction site etc.
Get a Free Evaluation Today
If you are considering filing a claim against your employer for a breach of employment law, you may want speak with an employment law attorney.
Many employment law attorneys provide legal help for free pending a successful claim. Those that work on a contingency fee basis defer legal fees until a claim has been won and will endeavor to include legal fees within the claim. Other attorneys work on an hourly fee basis. Fill out the Free Case Evaluation today!
