Quote: No one is asking for unemployment benefits. Honestly, there is nothing either of us expects to gain personally from this, aside from the last $30 of Mary's paycheck. This employer treated her terribly, though, and in these couple cases we believe he has legal culpability, and it's more about holding him accountable than it is about what she can get back. Yes, you can be fired for most reasons in today's workplace, but I believe that calling out sick (when you really are sick, of course) is NOT one of those reasons. Sick time is legally protected, isn't it?
Again, her only legitimate recourse is that if she is terminated without a valid misconduct reason and she has the monetary eligibility, she could possibly get unemployment benefits. For you to decide she is "not interested in unemployment benefits" is rock solid stupid. Unemployment benefits are not a welfare program, and it is required that you sign up for them before you try to get any type of needs based assistance because you will only get them if you were terminated without a good cause or through no fault of your own.
And as I said before, the only place for her to air her grievances is inthe unemployment system. There IS no one else, no other system, no great bureau of fairness in the workplace where you can file a complaint against an employer. I'm counting that you've been told this, regardless of what you believe to be true about six or seven times already now.