What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? MO
I worked for the same employer for the better part of 15 years. Just prior to me going on maternity leave this past November, a meeting was held to announce that my company was going to be reorganizing. This was to happen at all 3 of our locations. About three or four weeks after my daughter was born, I was asked to come in for a meeting with my new bosses and other folks who had been department heads in different departments (they were merging several departments into one big one) to help redistribute work load to everyone and reassign different tasks to different people. I came in for this meeting - which was a big deal with having a newborn and still recovering from a c-section. Around a week before I was due to return back to work, HR called me at home and told me that effective about two weeks after my scheduled return date, my position was being eliminated and was being replaced with a part-time hourly position. I was offered the opportunity to *apply* for the position, but was given no guarantee I would be hired for the position. They offered to let me use my remaining vacation time and they paid me 4 weeks' severance, and they told me they would not fight any unemployment claim if I made one.
Out of the three different locations that this reorganization affected, I was the *only* person to be laid off. AND the person who was in an equivelant position to mine at one of the other locations was promoted to a corporate position so her position was vacant as of the effective date of the change. I was never offered this position, nor was I offered any other position within the company. The full time employee who got promoted has since been replaced and the employee at the third location that was equivelant to my position still remains in her position with no changes to her employment status (except I think there may have been a cut in pay, though I'm not sure about that).
Is this legal? I thought that under FMLA they had to give me my same position back or an equivelant position. I believe that I was targeted because the new supervisors that were taking over the newly formed department did not like me and one had been actively trying to get me fired for nearly the entire time I was pregnant by making false claims about my work performance. The supervisor that I had before the reorganization had explicitly told me the name of the person who was making the false claims, and I was able to show my employer that the claims were bogus and she fully believed me and the proof I presented her. I had several conversations with my supervisor about how my "adversary" was basically creating a hostile work environment and she had advised me to document everything with regard to interactions with customers (which was what the false claims were about - that I wasn't returning calls, and that customers were complaining about me, etc.).
I know that MO is an at-will employment state... but is what happened to me legal? And if I were to seek legal remedies (if I have a case) - is there a way of targeting just the two new supervisors that I had an issue with, without targeting the entire company? Because I still love the company... I just think these 2 people (one person in particular) took advantage of an opportunity to get rid of me. Could/should I talk to these individuals' superiors (I consider the president of the company to be a friend and do not believe he had any knowledge of what happened). Several former co-workers that I've talked to have stated that the "word" at work has been that I chose not to return from maternity leave which is not true!
I worked for the same employer for the better part of 15 years. Just prior to me going on maternity leave this past November, a meeting was held to announce that my company was going to be reorganizing. This was to happen at all 3 of our locations. About three or four weeks after my daughter was born, I was asked to come in for a meeting with my new bosses and other folks who had been department heads in different departments (they were merging several departments into one big one) to help redistribute work load to everyone and reassign different tasks to different people. I came in for this meeting - which was a big deal with having a newborn and still recovering from a c-section. Around a week before I was due to return back to work, HR called me at home and told me that effective about two weeks after my scheduled return date, my position was being eliminated and was being replaced with a part-time hourly position. I was offered the opportunity to *apply* for the position, but was given no guarantee I would be hired for the position. They offered to let me use my remaining vacation time and they paid me 4 weeks' severance, and they told me they would not fight any unemployment claim if I made one.
Out of the three different locations that this reorganization affected, I was the *only* person to be laid off. AND the person who was in an equivelant position to mine at one of the other locations was promoted to a corporate position so her position was vacant as of the effective date of the change. I was never offered this position, nor was I offered any other position within the company. The full time employee who got promoted has since been replaced and the employee at the third location that was equivelant to my position still remains in her position with no changes to her employment status (except I think there may have been a cut in pay, though I'm not sure about that).
Is this legal? I thought that under FMLA they had to give me my same position back or an equivelant position. I believe that I was targeted because the new supervisors that were taking over the newly formed department did not like me and one had been actively trying to get me fired for nearly the entire time I was pregnant by making false claims about my work performance. The supervisor that I had before the reorganization had explicitly told me the name of the person who was making the false claims, and I was able to show my employer that the claims were bogus and she fully believed me and the proof I presented her. I had several conversations with my supervisor about how my "adversary" was basically creating a hostile work environment and she had advised me to document everything with regard to interactions with customers (which was what the false claims were about - that I wasn't returning calls, and that customers were complaining about me, etc.).
I know that MO is an at-will employment state... but is what happened to me legal? And if I were to seek legal remedies (if I have a case) - is there a way of targeting just the two new supervisors that I had an issue with, without targeting the entire company? Because I still love the company... I just think these 2 people (one person in particular) took advantage of an opportunity to get rid of me. Could/should I talk to these individuals' superiors (I consider the president of the company to be a friend and do not believe he had any knowledge of what happened). Several former co-workers that I've talked to have stated that the "word" at work has been that I chose not to return from maternity leave which is not true!
