In California, employers generally do not have to treat employees equally. Further, employees do not have the right to ask or demand that coworkers or managers treat employees a certain way. For example, managers may yell at employees, curse at employees, insult employees, set up employees lie about employees, impede employees’ job duties, publicly embarrass employees, wrongfully discipline employees, assign abnormal tasks to employees, etc., because employers are mean or like certain employees less than others.
However, employers may not harass, discriminate against, or take adverse action against employees like in the examples above specifically because employees are members of a protected class or in retaliation against employees who engaged in protected activity. For example, an employee’s race or sex would be protected classes, and making a complaint to the employer about illegal activity or filing a lawsuit in a court for race or sex discrimination would be protected activities. Note there are many other protected classes and protected activities not noted here.
(See Link(s): Labor Code Section 2922 and Government Code Section 12940)