Not everybody can be friends at work, but there’s a line between rivalry and discrimination. Law firm White, Hilferty & Albanese can help you figure things out when the situation goes from bad to worse.
Take the story from their client, a veteran public servant by the name of Betsy Bambrick. Her workplace problems started in 2014 in the town of East Hampton, New York, she said. She said that at first, she thought she’d just to accept that a new male public safety administrator had issues with women.
“And I’m just going to have to suck it up and deal with it,” she told Law&Crime Network host Jesse Weber.
The colleague had apparent issues with her being a director of co-enforcement because she was a woman, and he made frequent comments about her appearance, she said.
“And especially about my hair, frequently,” she said.
But things escalated, she said.
“He took a liking to a young woman that was hired and he was making the comparison that me being old, and her being young and new, that he was going to replace the old with the new,” Bambrick said.
She said that she faced instant retaliation for making a complaint. Her salary was cut $18,000, she said. Not only that, but she said a female colleague physically pushed her out into another office.
Bambrick said it felt like she was being squeezed out of her 30-year career. She felt panic attacks and anxiety just going to work, she said.
Chris Albanese, a partner at White, Hilferty & Albanese, was joined by associate attorney M. Dinora Smith to discuss Bambrick’s case. Their firm specializes in discrimination, harassment, and termination controversies. Albanese called Bambrick’s tale a textbook story of age discrimination.
“You have the supervisor, or the boss, saying things like ‘out with the old and in with the new,'” he said, adding that a younger, less-qualified person was promoted over the older individual.
Smith explained how people can identify retaliation in the workplace.
“One of the things you want to look for is that temporal nexus,” Smith said. “So you talk to the HR person on Monday and by Thursday your boss is upset with you, or if you notice that your supervisor starts assigning you assignments that you don’t want to take, and they don’t do it to the other employees that are on the same level as you.”
Discrimination cant happen to anyone, even an experienced public servant like Bambrick. Learn more at White, Hilferty & Albanese.
[Screengrab via Law&Crime Network]
