Pregnancy discrimination and unemployment

by R

I’ve been working as a General Manager for a big name company for over 2.5 years. Up to the date of when I announced my pregnancy I had a flawless file, and even traveled to other locations to help other General Managers. After I announced my pregnancy my boss made my life miserable, writing me up for bogus accusations and threatened my job. The closer it got to my due date the more pressure she put on me trying to make me quit. In return, the stress made my blood pressure rise and I delivered my child two weeks early. Prior to my delivery, I contacted the EEOC and filed a claim. THe EEOC is so backed up here I will not get an interview until the begining of May. I also filed a harassment and discrimination suit with Human Resources. After my file with Human Resources was filed she acted in retaliation. She came to my location once a week harassing me, fishing for any breach of conduct to exaggerate to terminate me. After a week of embarrassment and stress I went to the doctor who advised me to take some sick time until my child was delivered. A week later she arrived, which was two weeks early which we believe was due to the stress. While on FMLA, she hired a so called temp to act in my position who came from another location. I was recently told that the temp would not be going back to her old location after I return. SHe will be staying in my location and my location cannot support another salary due to cuts in payroll. This makes me believe that I will either be terminated when I return or the harrassment will start again as soon as my FMLA ends. I am due back to work in 3 weeks and I am concerned for my health and overall well being going back to such a hostile environment. I would also like to state that upon the start of my FMLA I contacted Human Resources about my case and my cocnerns that I did not want this to be dropped, I wanted the investigation to continue. HR said then were coming to a conclusion and asked if I would like to be notified of the outcome. I said yes. 11 weeks later I still have not heard of a conclusion. My questions is, do I return to work? Or do I quit? If I quit can I apply for unemployement benefits?

Hi R,

First tell me if you have contacted a lawyer for advice .. because that is really who you should be asking these questions of.

This employer is not only allowing your manager to harass you still, but they are adding what I believe to be FMLA violations to the mix by not returning you to your same position. I guess I should ask how far away you think your new location will be.

Do us both a favor, use the free lawyer referral service on this page tell them exactly what you told me .. maybe even try to wrangle yourself a free consultation and let me know what they tell you.

I’d be interested to know. I know EEOC is backed up. They have an ever increasing glut of retaliation claims .. which just goes to show you that when things are rough .. some employers are more willing to break the rules, but if you have a lawyer it tends to change their tune .. if you know what I mean.

By the way, I personally, would not quit .. I’d give them as much rope as they need.

First if you have been documenting .. they would have a hard time sustaining misconduct as the reason and secondly, it gives them more opportunity to screw up more or correct the situation by terminating the person that’s actually causing them trouble .. so you can go about your business of living your life and doing your job without unlawful harassment from your superior.