Fired for poor work performance after filing a complaint of harassment with HR

by Diana

(Michigan)

I was fired after working for a company for 10 years. I’ve always gotten great reviews until shortly before I was fired. After the job I did for 8 years was eliminated I was given a choice of a full or part time position that was open. I chose the full time position but was hardly trained at it so I struggled. I did get an OK review with the former manager for the first year but then a new manager started. Her review was horrible and degrading so I had to do the whole PIP thing. While I was on PIP I filed harassment charges to H/R. There was an email that went out to several employees where one supervisor was making fun of me to another supervisor. It was referring to a comment that was made during my review. They were made to apologize, but nothing else was done and H/R never got back to me as what the results were. I told one of the supervisors that apologized that I wouldn’t accept the apology as I didn’t believe she was truthful. (Many of us witnessed her make fun of and bully others at the company.) I did tell upper management this too. I was eventually fired. My question is: would this affect the outcome of the phone hearing (employer appealing unemployment) and should I let my advocate know? Or do you think I should just file harrassment charges later? I do have witnesses that would testify on my behalf. So what do you think I should do? Do I have to let anyone know that I have witnesses? One of the witnesses is a gal who’s job I took over. She was fired for poor performance too and she did the job for over 40 years. She told management that the job was too much for 1 person to handle, as I did, but they wouldn’t listen.

Hi Diana,

Yes, let your MI advocate know all of this. Witnesses are important and if you have a good advocate .. that is maybe also a lawyer, they might be able to help extract testimony from the employer witnesses for use in a retaliation claim .. have you filed one of those?

At the very least they might try to subpoena documentation that should have been placed in your personnel file regarding your complaints of harassment to HR.

In fact, some preemptive maneuvering might actually get the employer rethinking the wisdom of their unemployment appeal and withdraw it.