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brown13453

Guest
What is the name of your state? Georgia

Thanks for the opportunity to post. I would like to receive some unbiased feedback.

Story: I was terminated from a Fortune 500 company on the grounds that "GA is a right to work state and they wished to end the working relationship". Bottom line is...I reported hostile and harassing behavior from my supervisor numerous times over a 3 year period. Each time I reported, I was told it would be taken care of. Several times I was told "oh you know him, that's just the way he is) Each time, the hostility and harassment became worse. (other people in my dept. were complaining of same behavior). In my opinion, I was set up by management by requesting me to do a, virtually, impossible task. My supervisor verbally attacked me and showed signs of physical hostility. My reaction was caused by his behavior and I responded with a verbal confrontation that lasted approx. 15 seconds. My supervisors boss told me to go home and calm down and come back on Monday. I did, and when I returned on Monday, I was told I was being sent home pending an investigation. Investigation lasted 6 weeks and I was told I was being terminated because "GA is a right to work state & they wished to end the working relationship.

I am now in a dispute resolution program with mediation coming up in a couple of days. I know that the only, maybe, law that was broken was termination because of retaliation. However, many company policies and procedures were broken by management. I have a ton of documentation, including each time I reported supervisor's behavior, and they have no documentation. I need to stress that my supervisor was demoted several years ago because of his behavior towards subordinates.

I was employed for 10 years with excellent performance reviews. I even received a performance review 3 months prior to my being terminated which states I have excellent performance. I have asked for my job back, but management said that was not possible. I guess my question is...What kind of settlement can I expect to bargain with at mediation? If I do not receive an adequate settlement, should I go for arbitration?
I have asked for back pay and reimbursement for COBRA that I have had to pay and equal pay until I secure employment.

This one, 15 second, incident is the only blemish on my personnel history over the 10 year period. I am trying to prove (and believe that I can) that I was set up and terminated in retaliation for reporting hostile and harassing behavior from my supervisor. And also that on 15 different (documented) times that I discussed issues with upper management, including corporate office, that no one addressed the issues, which led to management supporting a hostile environment for their employees to work in.

Thanks so much for your help!:)
 


cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
I have no experience with mediation, so I really can't be of any help to you there. But if you will answer a couple of questions, I might be able to give you a better idea of where you stand.

Can you tell me what you mean by harassment? What a lot of people believe is harassment actually isn't, in the legal sense. The same goes for a hostile environment. Can you provide more detail on that? What do you mean by verbal attacks? Probably most important, if you had to guess, why would you say that your supervisor treated you this way?

By the way, you don't mean right to work. That means that you can't be forced to join a union and has nothing to do with your current situation. What you mean is at will, and it's correct, GA is an at will state. (So is every other state except Montana - and even Montana has a couple of at-will provisions.) What this means is that you can quit for any reason whatsoever, and the company can fire you for any reason not prohibited by law. The answers to the questions above will help determine if your supervisor's behavior constitutes prohibited.
 
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brown13453

Guest
By harassment, I mean verbally abusive, discrimination in the form of favoritism, demanding unrealistic deadlines and virtually impossible demands in regards to work. You are probably right, it is not harassment, but I do believe it is hostile. When I reported harassment, I had not done the research that I should have done. However, I do believe that hostile work environment would be more appropriate.

Verbal attacks would be yelling, crashing fists on his desk, at one point he stood over me in a very "manly" way. I am 5' tall and he jumped up and stood over me like he was daring me to do something. That was the last occurence.

Why he treated me this way....Of the research that I have done, male supervisors are sometimes intimidated by strong and confident women. I am a confident woman who requires very little, if any supervision. There is one other female in the office who is strong and confident and requires very little supervision, he treats her the same way but worse. There is one other woman who is a weak little, pityful, everything that happens to me is someone elses fault type woman, who cannot handle her job and makes numerous mistakes. Everyone (there are only 4 of us) in the office have complained about the errors (the errors directly affect our job) and the numerous absences (54 days as of September) I have documentation where I was told, in the presence of 4 other people, that if I had the same job performance as she did hers, I would be terminated. I was also told in the same forum that if I had the same attendance record that she did, I would be terminated. Back to the question of why he treated me this way....He knew that I had reported his behavior and that he was in the wrong. He also knew that I had documentation of broken policies and procedures. In 10 years, I have not done anything. I believe he thought that if he terminated me, the problem would go away and I would not do anything. I have not done anything in 10 years, why would I now.

You are correct in the "right to work" thing. The reason why I have it in quotes is, that is their exact words to me. They did not even use the correct language. I didn't realize this until I started researching. I understand that employment at will is the correct language. Their words were "GA is a right to work state". Thanks for your response. Keep it coming.
 

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