By Carolyn Hunter, Equal Employment Opportunity Zone Manager, Civil Rights Directorate

The Coast Guard kicks off an Anti-Retaliation Campaign geared to educate and inform the service’s entire workforce about workplace retaliation. The campaign will run from Jan. 17 to March 1. Please stay tuned to MyCG for content covering topics like what employees’ rights and responsibilities are, how to remedy a suspected retaliation situation, how managers and supervisors can avoid retaliation, and much more. To start, let’s talk about what retaliation is:

What is retaliation?

Every member of the Coast Guard’s military and civilian workforce and all applicants for employment have the right to engage in the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Equal Opportunity (EO) complaint process. The EEO/EO complaint process includes reporting workplace discrimination or harassment, filing an official discrimination complaint, or participating in an investigation of harassment.

Retaliation, also known as reprisal, occurs when an employee receives negative treatment or disciplinary consequences from managers, supervisors, or even other coworkers, because they took part in this process.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency that enforces federal laws prohibiting workplace discrimination, considers participating in the complaint process to be a protected activity. This means that employees may engage in the EEO/EO complaint process without fear of an adverse reaction by...

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