Compliance with Fire Safety Personnel leads to persecution

Oregon.

My husband has worked at a retirement center for several years. A week ago there was a fire alarm. The fire department was automatically called. It turned out to be nothing, but the fire personnel were concerned by some of the new building's safety features. They asked my husband to show them around. He did. He wrote up the incident in the incident log. The Fire safety personnel said that they would be contacting the adminstration about the problems they saw.

The next week my husband was written up for not delivering the newspaper. This is was for the same morning that he was busy with the fire department so he didn't have time to deliver the papers. He was also asked to rewrite the incident so that it didn't describe any interactions with the fire department. Lastly he was given the last portion of a form to fill out and sign, but it was clear from the form that there were more pages than what he had been given.

Lots of red flags are going up for us.

I'm worried that this may turn into a wrongful termination. What precautions should we take to safegaurd ourselves?

Start by not rewriting the incident or signing the form.

DC

I am not aware of any law which would prohibit an employer from legally firing an employee who did not do their job because they were giving the fire department a tour. That's not to say fire safety isn't important, but I don't see any grounds for wrongful termination here if your husband were fired for refusing to sign the form and/or rewrite the report.

swalsh411 said:

I am not aware of any law which would prohibit an employer from legally firing an employee who did not do their job because they were giving the fire department a tour. That's not to say fire safety isn't important, but I don't see any grounds for wrongful termination here if your husband were fired for refusing to sign the form and/or rewrite the report.

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I wouldn't characterize the fire department's visit a tour. They responded to an alarm. The employee may have thought he didn't have choice about showing them around.

DC

In nine years working at this establishment this is the first time he's been written up. To me its clear this is retalitory. What ARE we supposed to do?

Here's the thing though.

Not all, or even most, "retaliation" is illegal. Not even close.

If your husband had reported illegal violations up the ladder to whoever is the regulatory authority, and then some form of adverse action was taken, THAT would be illegal retaliation. But a retaliatory action because he took the fire personnel on a tour and/or refused to rewrite a report, is not even CLOSE to illegal retaliation.

Unless he can point to a specific law that would be violated by terminating him, then he will NOT have been illegally terminated and his options will be to file for unemployment and look for a new job.

The above assumes that no legally binding contract or CBA expressly says otherwise.