Likely termination of employment

TEXAS

My wife has been working for a company since November 2004, although her previous employment of 3.5 years for the same company has been acknowledged.

She is currently not eligible for FMLA, due to the number of hours worked being less than 1250 in the last 12 months of service - We anticipate that she will not reach FLMA requirements until June/July 2005.

Since November she has had a number of "occurences" against her record, nearly all of which have been due to sickness of one of our two children (one aged 4 1/2, the other 12 months old (as of February 2005) - the most recent being a 4 night hospitalization of our 12-month old.

She is expecting to receive a written warning now that she has reached half the number of allowed occurrences according to her contract. Should she reach the full quota of "allowed occurrences" in a 12 month period, this causes automatic termination of employment.

This has really upset her - she enjoys her job and has a near-perfect employment record excluding the above.


We are already considering filing a written response to the warning that she is expecting, confirming that the occurences received so far have been outside of her control and due to unexpected sickness of her child.

Is there anything else that we can rely on to assist in her retaining her position.

Incidentally, I now work for the same company and have the same "contract" obligations in this respect.

It has also been suggested (off the record) that we "split" any further occurrences due to "child sickness" between us, but this is likely to be a practice that will not go down too well, since I work for a fairly small department and have only been working there for a month!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

This is an unfortunate situation but since your wife is not eligible for FMLA leave (and even if she was, that doesn't necessarily mean that all her absences would have qualified for FML), then her employer has no obigation to "excuse" any of her absences from work, no matter how compelling the reason. All I can suggest is that you hope your children's health improves and see if you can find someone (a friend? relative?) you trust to take care of your children when they are ill with routine illnesses and you/your wife need to be at work.

Here's my .02: I would not write about how the circumstances were out of her control. Fact is, as far as our employment goes we are responsible for our actions and choices. The employer hired an employee because he needed x amount of work done. It's a business deal. If you write that the actions were out of her control it sounds as though she is saying that at any given time if the same situation comes along it will again be out of her control and she will miss work again.

If you are going to write something , do not be defensive and do not act as though the company has no right to enforce their policies re: attendance. Do say that you have a plan in position for this not to happen again, and I would throw in the bit about loving her job.

I don't recommend that you write anything in the first place.

It's not the employer's problem whether the absences are within her control or not. They hired her to be at work; she is not eligible for any state or Federally mandated leave time; therefore regardless of the reasons for the absences they are legally within their rights to discipline her for missing time. Writing a rebuttal to a warning, or even in anticipation of a warning, could well be seen as a refusal to take responsibility for her own actions.

If you absolutely must write something, follow Katy's suggestions. But I most strongly suggest that you do not.

Thank you all for your responses.

After reading them, it does seem like anger took the better of both of us!

As it happens, over the weekend we forgot about this and haven't even thought any more about it other than keeping eyes out for alternative employment for my wife with a company that has a little more compassion towards working mothers and sick children.

What I find annoying is why it is "all about the employer"

As an employee, we are expected to agree by the companies terms and rules, but if an employee ever attempted to add in a few of their own terms, I'm sure the employer would simply walk away and never offer employment in the first place - talk about one-sided.

This tends to be emphasised with LWOP, whereby an employer can turn around to an employee after they arrive at work for the day and send them home due to lack of work - with zero notice and zero pay! Naturally, this is only relevant if mentioned in the employment contract.

I guess that the only way that an individual can ever overcome issues like any of the above, as well as the "at will law" for instance, is to simply work for themselves - you're hardly likely to fire yourself are you!

Thanks again for the advice - a "rant and rave" and a clear head makes things all the better!

I used to work for a company that tried to make allowances for individual people's circumstances, and make exceptions to policies for someone who didn't qualify for certain benefits and leaves.

You know what happened?

The OTHER employees, the ones who had had to wait to receive these benefits and who were stuck at work picking up the slack for the employee in question while she dealt with her kids' situations, were in a line outside my office wanting to know why "Beverley" got so many extra privileges and why they had to do her work while she got to be off taking care of her kids. THEY had to make other arrangements for THEIR kids. THEY didn't get to utilize the benefits when THEY didn't qualify. What was so special about her?

You can't make everyone happy. Sticking to policy is much safer - and much more fair to the overall employee base.

I've had the same line to deal with on a number of occasions. There's just no good way to handle these situations. Somebody is always upset and thinks the company isn't being fair. (How I've come to hate that word.)

I understand the last two updates - as an employer, you can't bend the rules for one without complaints from the masses, not to mention the likelihood of law suits against an employer who "does" bend the rules!!

Again, we intend to leave "as is" and not proceed, but I would be interested on your comments with regards to whether this action could be classed as discrimination?... against working mothers, for instance?

Patty is exactly correct. This does not remotely constitute any form of illegal discrimination.

Thank Y'all

Understood!!

Thank you all for your responses - I will certainly learn from the above, as I'm sure other readers will who are not aware of these issues.

Thanks again!!

ad496 said:

What I find annoying is why it is "all about the employer"

As an employee, we are expected to agree by the companies terms and rules, but if an employee ever attempted to add in a few of their own terms, I'm sure the employer would simply walk away and never offer employment in the first place - talk about one-sided.

I guess that the only way that an individual can ever overcome issues like any of the above, as well as the "at will law" for instance, is to simply work for themselves - you're hardly likely to fire yourself are you!

Click to expand...

Form a union

That only assures employees will start paying union dues. It does not assure anything about the employer's policies and practices will change.