Job in Question

[pioneer]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Indiana

I work for a small company that has about 30 employees. I work in a office we process paperwork for outgoing research mail. In the 5 years I’ve been there we’ve had a high turnover in employees, it’s not a job for everyone. If you exclude the owners I’m in the 4th spot of being there the longest. We all basically paid within .50 cents of each other’s (due to economy we have not seen raises in a few years).

In the last year I started to get shots for my back, from a car accident I had years ago. I can do my job but I can’t process as fast as I used to cause sitting. Sometimes I need to get up and walk, my back issues didn’t become a problem till a little over a year ago (it was not caused by work). Anyways I was recently given 30 day probation to improve my speed. They were told about my shots and were ok with things; however things seem to have changed. I do not have anything in writing from them about things except the last year I’ve been employed still while having the shots.

The concern I have is how I’m being treated "different", others have been called into work and missed sometimes 2-3 days a week, yet they are still remained employed. Others have been skipping forms and not completing yet they are still employed even after 3 probations in a few months time. I’ve never been on probation and I’m processing at about 90% compared to others and was given a notice for this.

It would be easy to say get another job, which actually I have been trying to do with no results. However the concern is the fairness in my treating and what recourse I have if they fire me and with my 3 weeks of vacation that’s still due to me and they have denied me twice from using.

 

[swalsh411]

Your employer is too small to be covered by FMLA. I am not aware of any additional laws in Indiana that would cover this.

There is no law that requires you to be treated fairly, only that you are not discriminated against specifically because you are a member of a legally protected class.

They would have to pay you your vacation if you were terminated unless they have a policy specifically stating they did not pay this out. When you are allowed time off is up to them.

 

[commentator]

If they fire you, you have no recourse except that you did your best, and you are out of work through no fault of your own, therefore you will probably be able to draw unemployment insurance while looking for another job.

A company does not even have to follow their own policies, or treat each case the same. It may not be fair, but there are no laws prohibiting it, so it is not illegal. If they want to fire you, they can.

The only thing it may hurt is that when you file for and are approved for unemployment benefits their unemployment tax rates will rise, so be prepared for them to scream bloody murder and appeal your receiving benefits.

Under no circumstances should you let them talk you into "resigning to protect your reference" or something stupid like that. Because this way they would be much more likely to keep you from getting unemployment insurance, and as I said, it's your only recourse if they do, as it appears they are about to, fire you for performance issues, even though others have been retained with less performance, or have been allowed to take more time off. They may be afraid that you are about to have lots of health problems that may affect their insurance rates and be gunning for you for that reason.