If you work for the Commonwealth of Virginia or one of its Counties, you have employment rights and ways to enforce those rights.
Virginia State Grievance Process
The Virginia Department of Human Resource Management has a grievance process that Virginia state employees can use to protect their job rights. The process allows for informal resolution of workplace disputes through mediation, which is an informal process involving a neutral third party who helps the employee and the employer find common ground and amicably resolve their disagreements. Read more »
Virginia County Grievance Process
If you are an employee of a county in Virginia, your county probably has a grievance procedure that you can use to challenge adverse employee actions. With few exceptions, each county has its own procedure which you can probably find through your county’s Human Resources office or on-line. Your county’s grievance procedure should tell you important information you need to know, such as whether you are entitled to use the grievance process and your and your agency’s deadlines. The procedures will also tell you if you are entitled to have an attorney represent you in your grievance.
Call us if you want to talk about your grievance rights and how to protect them.
Virginia State Employee Whistleblowing Rights
The Virginia State grievance procedure offers protections for state employees who are subjected to adverse personnel actions because of their whistleblowing activities. The procedure says that a personnel decision, such as termination or suspension without pay, cannot be based on “acts of retaliation for participating in the grievance process, complying with any law or reporting a violation of such law to a governmental authority, seeking to change any law before Congress or the General Assembly, reporting an incidence of fraud, abuse, or gross mismanagement, or exercising any right otherwise protected by law.” Virginia Code § 2.2-3003. The employee has to file a grievance under the Virginia State grievance process within 30 days.