by silently hurting
(E.P. R.I. USA)
I been at my job for 4 1/2 years, I’m a medical asistant and I work closely with the doctor, I have had situations where I have been out of work over the course of the years, mainly because I have a child with asthma and several different kinds of allergies, in which my job was aware of the whole time of my employment there. In June of 2008, my job presented a written warning regarding my attendance, since then I tried to watch my attendance, its hard because if my youngest child is sick with asthma, I have to be home to give him his treatments and monitor him, since the last warning in June, I have tried really hard to watch my attendance, it wasn’t until Dec. of 2008 in which I was sick and had to go to the doctors, that I was out again, I had a note and even called my employer from the doctors to keep them updated on what was going on and if i was going to be out of work or not, I decided not to stay out because i was scared of losing my job, I never missed a day again since being out in Dec. of 2008, then in April of 2009, I had childcare issues, because we moved, and I had to put my youngest in before and after childcare, so i informed my job of the situation, and they even had to write a letter for the childcare office verifying them of my schedule, and there were no indications of any problems, I even informed them I would be late until my childcare gets approved, so I was late about a week in a half, while my childcare was in process, this all took place in the beginning of April, and at the end of April they fired me, and i was very shocked, when I asked them why, all they said was they were An At Will company and didn’t need a reason, it wasn’t until I insisted on a reason out of respect, is when they said it was based on the attendance issue back from June of 2008.
Hi Silently,
File for unemployment. Explain just what you explained here.
I’m always hesitant to tell people they will get unemployment, but you should. Even if it takes having to appeal the initial determination.
They are correct .. they are an at will employer .. as are the majority of employers in this country. They can fire anyone for any reason they like .. as long as it is not an illegal reason which would make it a wrongful termination and subject to recourse by the employee based upon a violation of one of their employee rights.
People who work for companies with 50 or more employees have the ability to protect their job with the availability of intermittent FMLA for a child’s sickness or disability .. under 50 you’re out of luck.
Doesn’t seem fair, does it?