Gender Discrimination

Passed up for a promotion because you are a woman? Getting paid less than your male counterparts? You may be entitled to damages!

If you have been discriminated against because of your gender, you may be entitled to compensation to remedy the injuries, which you have incurred.  According to the Equal Pay Act (California Equal Pay Act) any employer is prohibited from paying an employee wage rates lower than the wage rates of the opposite sex for similar tasks in the same establishment. If two employees of the opposite sex are working at the same establishment where performance requires equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions, they are required to be compensated an equal wage by law. An example of such discrimination may be that two workers are working at the same company as engineers, they both have 5 years of experience and they both have the same daily workload with the same responsibilites but the female gets paid $70,000 a year while the male makes $90,000 a year, this may constitute gender discriminiation. In that instance, the female employee may be entitled to compensation for damages from the employer based on the discrimination and the damages which the female employee incurred. Gender discrimination may also be constituted if one received a promotion while an individual of the opposite sex was much more qualified. An example of such a case would be if one person had been with a company for 5 years and was completing a task just as good or better than an individual of the opposite sex, but did not receive a promotion into a higher position while the individual that had been with the company for 1 or 2 years did.  Failure to comply with these requirements may make the employer liable to the affected employee in the amount of wages, interest and in an additional amount as liquidated damages. If you feel like you have been discriminated against at your work establishment due to your gender, sex, race, national origin, you should contact one of your employment attorneys at Jafari Law Group.

Authors: David V. Jafari and Kourosh Pishnamaz