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so you want to know about workplace harassment also known as a hostile work environment well you're in luck i'm an employment lawyer and in this video i'm going to break down what illegal workplace harassment is what you can do about it and by the end of this video you'll know at what point rude behavior constitutes illegal workplace harassment so stick around and find out [Music] okay before i begin nothing in this video is legal advice it's for information and educational purposes only secondly i'm licensed in washington state so the laws i'm talking about are the laws of washington state but we have federal laws that are almost identical to the laws that i'll be talking about today so if anything you hear in this video rings any alarm bells in your head talk to a lawyer in your jurisdiction because very similar laws probably apply to you so what is illegal workplace harassment well before we talk about workplace harassment let's talk a little bit about harassment generally you see harassment comes in many different forms criminal harassment happens when someone stalks someone else or threatens to commit harm to that other person or threatens to damage their property or threatens to confine someone these are examples of criminal harassment and they carry criminal penalties it can be a misdemeanor or a felony depending on the severity of the harassment but in this video i'm not talking about criminal harassment i'm talking about illegal workplace harassment also known as a hostile work environment a hostile work environment is a form of discrimination and thus it's protected by our laws against discrimination so to understand our protections against workplace harassment we have to look at the law against discrimination so let's do that so in washington state we have a law against discrimination and it can be found in rcw 49.60 i'm going to put rcw 49.60.180 subsection 3 up here because that's the part of the law that we're going to be talking about today the law states that it's an unfair employment practice to discriminate against any employee in compensation or in other conditions of employment because of the person's protected characteristics now the law here lists the protected characteristics i'm not going to go through them all i will put up a list in the next slide so what does the law against discrimination have to do with harassment well courts view certain kinds of harassment as a type of discrimination as long as certain criteria are met so let's go over those criteria first the harassment must involve language or conduct concerning a protected characteristic or that only occurred because of a protected characteristic second the language or conduct has to be unwelcome third the language or conduct has to be so severe or pervasive that it alters the workers conditions of employment let's break down what each of these elements means okay so the first element concerning or on the basis of a protected characteristic those characteristics are things like your age race gender lgbtq status disability a harasser makes comments or conduct concerning a protected characteristic if they explicitly say something about that characteristic like something sexist or racist but the harasser doesn't have to explicitly talk about a protected characteristic for it to be concerning that protected characteristic for instance if a harasser is targeting a person because of their protected characteristic and isn't targeting anyone else outside of that group that could be attributable to the victim's protected characteristic because the only reason that the harasser is saying these things or doing these things is because of the victim's protective characteristic second the language or conduct has to be unwelcome that means that the victim of the harassment didn't incite the conduct or comments and found the behavior offensive the best way for a worker to show that they found the comments or conduct offensive is by submitting a formal complaint and telling the harasser that hey i found this offensive putting your complaint into writing is always the best approach because it creates a record that we can use as evidence later but your testimony of the event also counts as evidence so that works too finally the language or conduct has to be so severe or pervasive that it alters your conditions of employment so what does that mean severe means that it was something extreme like touching or threatening pervasive means that it happens persistently over a period of time like little jabs over and over again altering your conditions of employment means that the harassment rose to the level that it made your work harder to do maybe you had to use a different entrance or exit to get it to your job or maybe you had to move positions or change your workstation anything that makes it more difficult to do your job now that you know what a hostile work environment or illegal harassment at work looks like the next question is is your employer on the hook well employers are liable for the harassment under two scenarios first if the harassment was done by a corporate officer or manager or owner the employer is then automatically liable but what if it was a co-worker or non-managerial staff or a customer or a delivery driver well under those circumstances the employer is only liable if it knew or should have known about the harassing conduct and failed to take prompt and adequate corrective action an employer knows or should know about the harassing conduct if you make a complaint to hr or if you make a complaint to management when the employer fails to take any corrective action after you make that complaint then the employer is liable so what do you get if you win your case of workplace harassment well victims of illegal harassment at work can collect their lost wages and emotional harm lost wages happen when you were fired or you had to quit your job because it was just too much to put up with the harassment in those circumstances you can collect the amount of salary that you would have been paid had you remained in your position as for the emotional harm you can collect compensation for the emotional harm that you endured like humiliation embarrassment the fear and anxiety that you had to go through as you were being harassed on a daily basis if you've lost some enjoyment in your life i'll make another video talking more about damages and how to calculate these figures but i'm already taking a long time in this video so we'll save that for another time okay so now you know what illegal workplace harassment is it's also called a hostile work environment and it happens when a worker is subjected to language or conduct on the basis of their protected characteristic or class that the worker finds offensive and unwelcome and that is so severe or pervasive that it alters the workers terms of employment if you live in washington and think you were illegally harassed at work you can contact my office for a free consultation and make sure to share this video with other workers so that they know the options that are available to them okay that's all for me this week see you next time