Gainey Law, PLLC Seattle Employment Law Attorney

It seems that as a society we have a lot of notions about work and what an employer can and cannot do under the law. Very few of these commonly held beliefs are true. In my day to day life as an attorney who focuses her work on employment law, I spend quite a bit of time discussing potential legal claims with people who have been mistreated at work. Very rare is the call where a person calling was, in my opinion, not mistreated by the employer. In one such rare case, the gentlemen calling had terrorized a female coworker and was genuinely confused about why he was terminated. Not quite as rare, is the caller who has been mistreated and has a remedy under the law. The most common caller has in their, and my, opinion been mistreated but has no legal remedy under the current law. Most callers are victims to an employment system that has become increasingly callous and indifferent to the plight of the worker. The system I am describing is called At-Will employment. Washington Sta...

These are just quick notes from a Webinar the Washington State unemployment (ESD) office put out today. If you work or worked in Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, Kent or anywhere in Washington State this information applies to you. Current options for Unemployment benefits (ESD) during the Corona virus / Covid-19. Watch the recent webinar here (starts at 27 min. fast forward) . 1. Standby 2. Partial Employment 3. Shared Work (no requirement to look for work ) “WAIVER OF WORK SEARCH” Right now unemployment department is inundated with applications. Normal 3K last week 100K!!!! So go online and apply when everyone else is sleeping. File every week even if denied and keep filing. They can fix it retroactively. Still requires a base year (first 4 quarters of the last five) of work to qualify - must have worked 680 hours. You can combine claims with other states if you moved. You can open a claim while still working full time. Why would you? To see what your benefit ...

In a perfect world, dealing with Discrimination or Sexual harassment in the workplace would be about putting systems in place and creating a corporate culture where such behavior is not allowed to exist much less get so out of hand that it creates a hostile work environment. We don't live in a perfect world, so what do you do when confronted with Biased Jokes, Discriminatory treatment or Sexual harassment in the workplace. Tune in, April 27, 2018, to find out .