(MONEY Magazine) – Texaco, Mitsubishi, Morgan Stanley, Smith Barney, the U.S. Army. What do these employers have in common? They have all been the target of recent allegations of either harassment or discrimination in the workplace. And in turn, each case shows that, even in today's increasingly enlightened environment, it's still up to you to stand up for your rights on the job. Fortunately, you've got some advocates. City and state legislatures and federal courts have lately broadened several key protections for employees and retirees. "For a hundred years the employer was the boss, and if an employee didn't like it, he or she could walk," says Lance Liebman, a professor at Columbia University Law School in New York City. "Now, courts are reinterpreting labor laws in employees' favor."

Retirees like Leonard Moeller (shown here), 69, of Sun City West, Ariz. are on the front lines. The former senior accountant, along with 50,000 other special or early retirees, filed a class-action lawsuit against General Motors in August 1989 when the nation's biggest automaker began paring back their health benefits. "We were told we would receive health benefits at GM's cost for the rest of our lives," says Moeller, who suddenly found himself hit with $750 in insurance co-payments and deductibles in 1988 after receiving free health benefits during his 29 years at GM. "I would never have taken early retirement if I thought my benefits would change," says Moeller.

Last August, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of Moeller and the other early retirees, saying GM had to pay for their health benefits. GM filed a petition to have the case reheard by the full 14-member court. The court has agreed to rehear the case this spring. Says a GM spokesman: "We have the right to suspend or modify our benefits packages."

For advice about your rights on the job, MONEY talked to a dozen employment lawyers, benefits consultants and congressional staffers. Their tips:

SPEAK UP AGAINST DISCRIMINATION

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says employers can't discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. A 1991 amendment strengthened this protection, letting courts award compensatory and punitive damages for violations. The threat of heavy fines--not to mention ghastly negative publicity--has made "most intelligent employers more likely to take discrimination or harassment allegations seriously," says David Larson, a professor at Creighton University School of Law. What's more, virtually all states have enacted their own antidiscrimination statutes; some are even broader than federal laws. For instance, nine states, including California, Connecticut and New Jersey, forbid job discrimination based on sexual orientation. The District of Columbia even prohibits workplace discrimination based on appearance, whether it's your weight, the way you dress or the color of your hair. (Dennis Rodman, are you listening?)

ACTION PLAN: If you believe you are the victim of job discrimination, collect evidence. Keep records of all pertinent conversations, and include dates, times and names. For advice in this area and referrals to legal resources, call an employee-rights organization, such as 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women (800-522-0925). To file a formal job discrimination complaint with the U.S. Government, phone the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) at 800-669-4000.

REPORT SEXUAL HARASSMENT ASAP

Thanks to highly visible cases like Anita Hill's, unwanted sexual attention on the job is now considered a serious offense. "The courts have expanded their understanding of what the laws were designed to prevent," says Donna Harper, a senior trial attorney for the EEOC in St. Louis. "They now recognize that employers have a duty to protect employees from unwelcome sexual conduct." Today you have grounds to file a complaint if your colleagues tell off-color jokes all day or hang nude or otherwise offensive photos in their working areas. The new definition of sexual harassment, says Harper, is "unwanted words or conduct that are sexual in nature and are pervasive or severe."

ACTION PLAN: Report the problem immediately to your supervisor or to the human-resources department. If you let the situation fester, it will likely escalate. What's more, if you report an incident and are subsequently fired, it won't look like sour grapes when, after your dismissal, you file a formal complaint. If you're brushed off by management, get in touch with your state or federal department of human rights. The feds and most state agencies will send a "notice of charge of discrimination" to your employer, which may ask for information about your allegation. Most smart employers will want to nip the problem in the bud.

If you want more advice, consult an attorney. An employment attorney can help you decide whether to file a state action, a federal claim or both. In a landmark case against a Warsaw, Mo. Wal-Mart store, for example, Peggy Kimzey, 47, won a $50 million jury verdict in June 1995. Kimzey filed both a state and federal complaint in U.S. District Court in Jefferson City, Mo., claiming that her manager had used "abusive language toward her, harassed and intimidated her." Although the judge reduced the award to $5 million three months later, if she had filed only a federal claim, the most she could have received in compensatory and punitive damages would have been a mere $300,000. Kimzey's case is under appeal in the Eighth Circuit Court.

CHALLENGE A WRONGFUL DISMISSAL

Historically, your employer had the right to fire you at any time without explanation--unless you were protected by a union contract. However, courts increasingly have ruled that some dismissals are illegal. For instance, judges have slapped large fines on employers who fired workers for simply exercising their rights, such as serving on jury duty or filing a workers' compensation claim. In addition, many states are writing laws to forbid unfair axings. In Montana, for instance, employers must be able to prove a just cause, such as incompetence, before firing anyone.

ACTION PLAN: If you want to fight a dismissal, determine the exact cause for your firing and consult an employment lawyer. Broken promises or interference with your civil liberties could be legitimate grounds for taking your company to court. Says Beverly Hills employment lawyer Gary Ross: "Employers must be careful about making promises they don't intend to keep."

DEMAND TOPNOTCH SAVINGS OPTIONS

Courts have lately grown more protective of employee assets in company-sponsored retirement savings plans like 401(k)s. Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), businesses are protected from worker suits if they offer a variety of investment options. But those choices must be prudent, according to the law. The courts decide what prudent means. For instance, the hundreds of employees of Unisys, the Blue Bell, Pa. computer services firm, are suing the company for investing 401(k) assets in a troubled fund. The fund held guaranteed investment contracts (GICs) issued by Executive Life, an insurer that failed in 1991. The result: $176 million of Unisys employee investments were frozen. (Executive Life has so far paid back $150 million to the employees.) The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled in favor of Unisys in June 1996. A Philadelphia federal appeals court differed with the lower court ruling, however, and sent the case back for a retrial last October.

ACTION PLAN: Ask your benefits department for a wide range of investment choices and personal-finance education. "Companies that fail to heed these requests may open themselves to the threat of lawsuits from disgruntled employees," says David Wray, president of the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America in Chicago, an association of plan sponsors.

SECURE YOUR HEALTH CARE FOR RETIREMENT

As health-care costs have escalated, many employers have canceled retiree health plans or begun charging for coverage. Last summer, Pabst Brewing of Milwaukee abruptly canceled health benefits for 800 retirees, leading then Labor Department Secretary Robert Reich to say: "Legally it doesn't violate the law as much as it violates the intended spirit of the agreement."

It's perfectly legal for a company to change its retiree health coverage as long as a clause in its benefit-plan brochure says the firm reserves the right to do so. The courts have held employers to specific promises that were broken, though. And some in Congress hope to pass a law making employers face even higher hurdles before they can cancel or shrink benefits. Rep. Gerald Kleczka (D-Wis.) is co-sponsoring a bill, along with 27 other members, that would require employers to give retirees a six-month warning before changing or terminating health policies. The bill is pending in Congress.

ACTION PLAN: First, know the law. There are two circumstances in which your employer usually cannot cancel your retiree health benefits: 1) if, when you retired, your plan did not include a clause reserving the right to change the rules and 2) if you were wooed into early retirement with the written promise of lifetime health insurance at a fixed rate.

For now, one defense is to make a pre-emptive strike. That's what Nelson Phelps, the former executive director of human resources at U S West, did in 1995. After Phelps, 57, accepted an early-retirement offer from the company, ostensibly guaranteeing his health coverage, he noticed that his benefit plan had a cancellation clause. "I thought, my goodness, they are talking out of both sides of their mouth," he recalls now. Phelps then sued U S West along with approximately 30,000 employees who left the company before 1991; specifically, he asked that the company guarantee their health insurance for life and delete the cancellation clause. In March 1996, U S West issued a formal guarantee to the employees, and the case was dropped. Today, Phelps has free health and dental coverage. He says: "It's unfortunate we had to go to court. But if we hadn't...sometime in the future we could have been without coverage." And you might be too unless, like Phelps, you secure the rights you're due.