Bad Reference Creates Problem With Resume
Q: I resigned from a company after a dispute with the owner over sales commission owed me. Now I have discovered that he is giving prospective employers very negative reviews and opinions not only about my qualifications but also my character.
Should I omit that position from my resume? Can he be held liable for any jobs I may have lost because of his comments?
--R.T., Long Beach
A: You should not omit that position from your resume. When reviewing resumes, prospective employers typically look for gaps in employment.
A prospective employer may assume that a gap in employment means that you were terminated from one job before you had the chance to find another. Or they may assume that you had to leave employment for personal reasons, and may be concerned that you will be a less-than-stable employee.
Certainly, if you are interviewed for a job, you will be questioned about the period of unemployment. If you explain your circumstances at that point, it will likely appear that you were attempting to hide an unfavorable track record.
If your former employer has made untrue statements about you to prospective employers, and if you were not hired because of those statements, you may have legal recourse. For example, you may be able to assert a claim for “blackballing” under the California Labor Code, or for defamation.
For that reason, I typically encourage employers to provide only basic information--such as dates of employment, title and most recent rate of pay--when contacted for references.
Nonetheless, you may have difficulty proving that your former employer made the negative comments, or that you were damaged by them. An appropriate first step may be to contact your former employer, either directly or through an attorney, to determine whether the employer will agree in the future to provide a mutually acceptable reference when contacted by your prospective employers.
--Josephine Staton Tucker
employment law attorney
Morrison & Foerster
Religious Holiday Policy Must Treat All Equally
Q: One of my bosses and I are the only Jewish employees in a bank.
When I recently asked this person if I could use vacation time for the major Jewish holidays, he told me I could only take them without pay. Otherwise, he said, it might lead to abuse by other employees.
In my 25 years of employment in Los Angeles, I have never encountered this problem and would not have taken this job if I had known about this. I cannot afford time off without pay; my boss is wealthy.
Could this be construed as discrimination?
--S.L., Culver City
A: As a general rule, an employer has a duty to reasonably accommodate employees’ religious beliefs unless it would cause the company undue hardship.
In your case, this probably means that you must at least be given the most important Jewish holidays off without pay. However, unless non-Jewish employees are permitted to use vacation time for their religious holidays, your employer is probably not discriminating against you in requiring you to take religious holidays off without pay.
If the bank’s non-Jewish employees may use vacation for religious holidays and you are not permitted to do so, however, this is probably discriminatory. In that case, I suggest you bring this to the attention of the bank’s personnel head or to a member of senior management.
You should also tell your boss that you are doing this because you believe it is unfair and discriminates against you because of your religion.
If you cannot resolve the situation internally, you may also go to either the state or federal anti-discrimination agency and explain your situation. The state agency is the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and the federal agency is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
You do not need a lawyer to make a claim with either agency. If an agency feels a potentially discriminatory situation exists, it will look into the matter for you and attempt to resolve it with your employer. In addition, the law prohibits the bank from retaliating against you for making such a claim.
--Diane J. Crumpacker
employment law attorney
Fried, Bird & Crumpacker
If you have a question about an on-the-job situation, please mail it to Shop Talk, Los Angeles Times, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 ; dictate it to (714) 966-7873; or, e-mail it to shoptalk@latimes.com. Include your initials and hometown. The Shop Talk column is designed to answer questions of general interest. It should not be construed as legal advice.
