employer confidentiality/ harassment problem

[bflguy]

I have been a faithful employee of 9 years and have only missed two days of work in the last five years. I recently needed to take 2.5 days off of unexcused absence and made an inquiry to my advisor for the time off. He signed my time off slip and I was ok'd for the time off. A week later he fired my co-worker then came back to me and refused my time off. I was going out of state and needed the time off. My company has an attendance policy that allows an employee to miss 2.9 days of unexcused absence every 6 months without being counseled. I returned from my trip and was met with a write up stating insubordination for lack of "team work" for taking 20 hours of unexcused absence, and if I did this again I would be terminated. On top of that, he told another hourly employee of my write up, which I feel is information directly from my personal file, and of course this employee told others. I wanted to speak to HR about my unfair write up but the HR lady lives with my supervisor. I went to the vice president of operations, who happens to be friends with the Hr lady and my supervisor, and she told me I was lucky I wasn't fired. The men in my department have talked about the way we have all been treated by this advisor, and feel we have no representation on our behalf, because of the relationship of HR to our supervisor. He is constantly using foul language and refers to some employees who make mistakes as being stupid or retarded. I feel like everyday is going to be my last with this guy. We are good employees who don't deserve to be treated this way. Is this a hostile environment and has my employer/ employee rights of privacy been violated? Thank you for responding

 

[Beth3]

So your boss denied the time off request due to a change in circumstances at work and you took off anyway? You're lucky you weren't fired. While I can appreciate it's aggravating to be told you could have the time off and then have the decision reversed, you were indeed insubordinate and the write-up was not unfair.

On top of that, he told another hourly employee of my write up, which I feel is information directly from my personal file, and of course this employee told others. While it wasn't good form for your manager to tell another hourly employee you were disciplined, he didn't violated any laws. The information in your personnel file is not protected.

I went to the vice president of operations, who happens to be friends with the Hr lady and my supervisor, and she told me I was lucky I wasn't fired. She is indeed correct. Most employers would have fired you.

The men in my department have talked about the way we have all been treated by this advisor, and feel we have no representation on our behalf, because of the relationship of HR to our supervisor. He is constantly using foul language and refers to some employees who make mistakes as being stupid or retarded. I feel like everyday is going to be my last with this guy. We are good employees who don't deserve to be treated this way. I agree that the HR person being intimately involved with a manager (even if they were married) is a bad situation and it can easily result in a conflict of interest but that is not illegal.

Is this a hostile environment No.

and has my employer/ employee rights of privacy been violated? No.

You describe a lot of bad management taking place but no laws have been broken - not even close.

 

[Linc]

If this is a everyday uncommon or for the record a common problem and it exist's in front of all to see and hear. Than what you need is to organize and unionize yor workforce. By doing so you will be able to agree with management on rules and laws that would apply to such harassment and behavior. Or you may file charges through your State Labor Dept.(if like all other department's,backlogged approx 2 to 3 years before action) in any event it is much easier to organize the work force and start filing labor grievances against those managers/supervisors that continually create and practice work force harassment. Remember you will need to have the cooperation of all the other workers to accomplish organizing. There are several UNION's available to help get you started, all you have to do is ask for thier help.Good luck in you endeavor and be smart.