How Osha Determines Whether Retaliation Occurred

It is important to try and keep people safe in California. As a result, there are traffic laws to try and reduce traffic accidents, laws that property owners must follow to keep people on their property safe and many laws to keep workers safe while they work. Many of the laws regarding workplace safety are regulated by OSHA or its state-level equivalent.

However, like most enforcement agencies, OSHA sometimes needs the assistance of the workers to report when a company is violating the laws and regulations. Many companies may not like it when their employees report violations. So, they may retaliate against employees who do so.

This could be to punish the employee for reporting violations or it could be to try to discourage other employees from reporting future violations. However, no matter what the reason for the retaliation, it is illegal.

There are many different ways that employers can retaliate against an employee, and some are more obvious than others.

So, if an employee believes that their employer retaliated against them, they can file a claim with the appropriate authority, which will investigate the claim. Through the investigation, OSHA will determine whether the employee in fact reported a violation, whether the employer knew about the report, whether they took adverse action against the employee and the adverse action was motivated by the employee reporting a violation.

Almost all employers in California must follow certain safety regulations, and many of these are governed by OSHA. It is important that these rules are followed and therefore if employees know that the employer is violating these rules, they are encouraged to report them to OSHA. These employees are protected from retaliation if they do so and may be entitled to compensation if they are retaliated against. Experienced attorneys understand employees’ rights and may be able to help protect them.