Exclusively Employment Law

Why don’t more people report workplace issues?

On Behalf of | Sep 28, 2022 | Retaliation

Many workers consistently experience workplace issues that may be a violation of their rights. An example of this could be if a worker is discriminated against based on their gender or race or if their boss doesn’t abide by wage laws.

In a lot of cases, these workers do not report the issues. They may feel that they were illegally passed over for a promotion, but they don’t say anything about it or pursue a legal case. They may believe that they’re being treated unfairly or even sexually harassed on the job, but they keep quiet about it. Why is this?

Fear of retaliation

Studies have been done to find out why this happens, especially because many workers understand that they have rights and that they are being treated inappropriately. Therefore, it’s not always confusion or a misunderstanding that leads to the lack of reporting.

Instead, the main reason that is often found is that workers believe that the business is going to retaliate against them if they make that report. If the worker files a report saying that they are being discriminated against, they assume they’ll be fired. If a worker who is being harassed on the job goes to Human Resources to try to put a stop to it, they think they’ll be treated even worse.

This fear is very justified, as most people are simply living paycheck to paycheck and can’t risk losing their job. The important thing to remember is that this type of retaliation is also illegal, so you definitely want to know what legal steps you can take.