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General Harassment

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Does an employee have any legal recourse when a supervisor harasses them for no apparent reason. It is not based on gender, race, sexual orientation or anything else covered under hostile work environment. The employee complains of being held to higher standards and disciplined excessively (compared to other employees in her dept.) and has detailed records supporting these claims.

Sadly, there is no law requiring supervisors to treat employees fairly, or with respect. Since you insist that there is no discrimination based on sex, age, race, religion, disability, etc., we’ll take your word for it.

It’s possible that the supervisor doesn’t realize that he’s being unfair. Filing a discrimination complaint might alert him to that fact, even if a subsequent investigation determines that there is no illegal discrimination.

In some states, if an employee is terminated for behavior that is tolerated in other workers, she genuinely has a case for wrongful termination. However, those situations are rare.

A better tactic might be simply to sit down and calmly talk to the supervisor about this. He may have specific performance concerns that need to be addressed. Is what he’s doing right? No, it’s not. But, from your description, it’s also not illegal.

It’s possible that this supervisor is “an equal opportunity jerk.” That’s a term used in the HR field for a person who is rude or insulting to everyone, without regard to sex, race, religion, color, national ancestry, disability, age, pregnancy, etc.

Unfortunately, there is nothing illegal about being “an equal opportunity jerk.”

Many companies have written policies that all employees –including supervisors – will treat coworkers with respect. If there have been clear violations of this policy, the best bet would be to bring them to the attention of the HR department. If the company has no HR department, then the complaints should be brought to the attention of the supervisor’s boss. Ideally, the employee would have documentation and/or witnesses to back up her assertions.

If the supervisor is the owner of the company or its highest executive, then it’s probably time to look for a different job.