T
tasman
Guest
Myself and eight others work for an electrical contractor in New Jersey, where I reside. I was absent due to illness five days in a two week period last month. In the mornings, we huddle around our employer to receive work assignments for the day, and apparently during one of those days I was out sick, my employer told everyone "Fred (not real name) is out sick again today, He has AIDS". I do not have AIDS, but even if I did, feel his comments were very unprofessional at the least. Now, I'm incredibly embarrassed to even work with these guys, and my employer, and feel he is to blame for creating a most distressing work environment. The camaraderie I've enjoyed with my co-workers seems to have vanished, and I don't know if they believed him or not. I thought about asking him to retract his statement but realize my co-workers won't know whether to believe his retraction, or his original statement. I quit my job yesterday, feeling uneasy about the whole matter. Do I have any recourse? We are not union. Two months ago, union representatives tried to talk with some of us, and when our boss, the employer, found out, he held a meeting with all of us and threatened to close the business, hire new employees, and reopen under a new name. I can't speak for all the others, but I wanted to pursue the opportunity to unionize, but needed my job too badly to inquire further. Can he threaten to fire us and close up shop if we wanted to unionize? Not that this really concerns me now that I've quit. How should I have handled the AIDS comment? Also, when you call out from work sick, and your boss asks what's wrong with you, should he be allowed to pass this information to your coworkers? Isn't this an invasion of privacy?
[Edited by tasman on 07-04-2001 at 12:29 AM]
[Edited by tasman on 07-04-2001 at 12:29 AM]