Employees have a right to expect a safe work environment, and retaliating against or terminating an employee for that expectation is illegal. One salon in New York found that out the hard way when a former employee and the United States Department of Labor sued them for unlawful retaliation.

A receptionist at the Bronx based Salon Zoë warned her co-workers that the solution they were using to straighten hair contained formaldehyde. She had experienced trouble breathing and sought medical treatment for her respiratory problems, telling her employer she thought it was the products used in the salon. A few months after her initial injury a physician confirmed that her respiratory problems were caused by formaldehyde. She gave her co-workers a fact sheet from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration which identifies formaldehyde as a carcinogen and an eye, nose, and throat irritant. The acceptable level of concentrated exposure is .75 parts per million over an 8 hour exposure window. Just a few days after she handed out the fact sheet she was fired. Together with OSHA, she filed a lawsuit against her former employer.

They will now have to pay their ex-employee $165,000 in restitution, far more than the likely cost of correcting the workplace hazard in the first place. The salon was inspected and cited for failing to have a chemical hazard communication in place. An OSHA representative will also visit the salon to inform the workers of their rights and their whistleblower protections. The business will have to display posters about this in a prominent location so all employees are aware of their rights.

The regional solicitor of labor in New York, Jeffrey S. Rogoff, said, “There’s a simple message here: Don’t fire, discriminate or retaliate against your employees when they raise legitimate health and safety issues: there will be consequences.”