While we provide free legal guidance and lawyer referrals for just about every area of Illinois law, the most common complaint we get is from people who are having trouble at work.

Sometimes these calls involve pay and compensation issues. Other times it involves unfair treatment. Quite often it has to do with either obvious or perceived discrimination.

Dealing with a bad work situation can be extremely emotional. That is a totally logical response. The best thing an attorney can do is look at a situation objectively and take the emotion out of it. That allows you to focus on what is actual illegal behavior by your employer and what is crappy behavior, but not illegal.

This is really important because when you bring a lawsuit or in most cases, file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), it’s really important to keep the legal issues as narrow and focused as possible.

For example, it’s common for someone to call us and tell us that they are experiencing discrimination at work and were fired because of it. They want to bring a wrongful termination lawsuit. Wrongful termination means illegal firing. Not unfair, not wrong, not a misunderstanding. Rather it’s illegal based on a protected reason such as race, age, religion, gender, pregnancy, work injury, etc.

So we will ask what was illegal about it and while the caller may mention feeling it was racial for example, they will also tell us about how someone with less experience got a better shift or the new manager doesn’t like the old employees or they used to let them give friends discounts and now they don’t or other things that are clearly not illegal.

When this happens it causes two problems. First, it creates a lot of noise and crowds the issue. If an EEOC investigator were to read a complaint like this, they’d clearly see things that aren’t illegal, just unfair and likely not find in your favor. Second, it can create defenses to the case that didn’t exist. If the corporate attorney sees that you were giving friends a discount, that might create a justification for firing you.

So when calling a labor law attorney or filing with the EEOC, the best advice we can give you is to keep the issue narrow and focused on the illegal activity. It should be evidence focused and not based on things that can be explained away.

For example, if you think you were discriminated against because of your race, what proof do you have? The best proof is something that was said or written, but it’s rare that an employer is that dumb. So if your boss called you the N word, you have the makings of a great case for that gross behavior.

But most cases the evidence is circumstantial. That doesn’t mean you can’t win, but does mean you shouldn’t bring up things that are irrelevant. For example, don’t say, “My new manager doesn’t like black people. She and I got into it and I told her off. We used to be allowed to take uneaten food during our breaks, but now she won’t allow it. It’s totally unfair. She yells at us all of the time and it’s a hostile work environment. And she’s not promoting any of the black workers.”

Almost everything in that last paragraph is emotion. Instead, you’d keep it narrow like this. Myself and four others are the only African-American workers out of 30 people all in the same job. Since a new manager came in a year ago there have been eight people promoted, all of whom were white. The five of us have more experience than seven of the eight who were promoted. Since she started we are the only ones given a cleaning job that uses toxic chemicals.

Everything in the second example focuses on facts. No emotion. It’s not a slam dunk case, but it gives you a chance because it focuses on issues that are possibly illegal. That’s not to say that the company couldn’t offer a defense, but these issues certainly seem to prove there’s discrimination based on race.

When you file at the EEOC there’s one guarantee. They will give you a right to sue letter. You get this if you have the best case in the world or the worst one. A right to sue letter doesn’t mean much beyond you have 90 days to get a lawsuit filed. Some right to sue letters also include a finding that the law was likely broken. That’s what you are looking for. When you get a finding the law was likely broken, it gives you tremendous leverage and the ability to get an attorney to take the case on a contingency basis where they only get paid if they win.

If you have any questions about this or your employment, please call us any time at 312-346-5320.