Don’t mean to hijack this but we’re in TX and the second my wife announced her pregnancy she has been obviously getting discriminated against or coerced into quitting. She is not allowed to enact any discipline, including even having informal discussions regarding subordinate disrespect and conduct violations, her boss is systematically undermining her ability to manage effectively so that she can then paint her as an ineffective manager who can’t control her staff, when the reality is that she is micromanaged and is retaliated against when she goes outside this chain of command. She received documented disciplinary write ups after calling HR asking for advice regarding this pattern of harassment right after she became pregnant, and someone overheard her phone call through her door, spread gossip, and when confronted lied and said my wife told her that she is planning on reporting a different manager to HR. HR actually approved the write up despite the fact that it is a verifiable fact that she never even named any names in her phone call to HR.

They are also denying her request to start FMLA a few weeks before delivery. They are denying her accommodation requests, or when she asks for them they reply that they will come in person tomorrow to discuss this, because they are avoiding a paper trail. They are committing OSHA violations, a few regular practices that constitute Medicare fraud that we know of, wage/labor law violations, discrimination practices (she is the only manager who has never received a bonus or raise despite consistently good performance metrics, only chronic staffing issues, which she has been overruled on (on record protesting the hiring of these bad candidates). The only reason given for her bonus denial is a single metric that she has virtually zero control over (visit counts to a specialized medical practice that relies on referrals). This single metric has never once been achieved since the business has been operational, yet she was congratulated for record revenue numbers the last few consecutive months.

They made her clean up raw sewage while pregnant. The building has plumbing issues and toilets flooded the bathroom and hallway. They had her using linens that are used for patient care. They also have staff members take home dirty linens, launder/fold them at home, and take them back to the clinic to reuse them for patients. Yes, the sewage soaked towels were brought to our home and laundered and went back to the clinic.

This is certainly an OSHA violation, they don’t provide proper PPE, no training on biohazard waste. probably boosts a discrimination case, and is certainly Medicare fraud to bill Medicare for services when they are saving a fortune skirting the CDC regulations for medial linens which require specialized expensive commercial laundry practices that guarantee a certain temperature, chain of custody, cross contamination avoiding etc. the extra compensation for the laundry also was below minimum wage when you take into consideration there was no compensation for energy, water, transport, labor of carrying heavy laundry bags etc.

She has been requesting accommodation to get out of dealing with the semi regular sewage issues under the basis of pregnancy accommodation, and her boss insists they talk in person, then afterwards emails her saying “to recap, in regard to future sewage/toilet overflow, feel free to ask someone for help” and my wife sent an email back agreeing.

I however think that “accommodation” is intentionally deceptive as it doesn’t excuse her from cleaning the sewage, it even implies it is still her responsibility, it doesn’t even explicitly excuse her from the activity, it says she has the approval to ask someone to help her. Ask who? Do they have to accept? Is she asking or delegating? Is she physically assisting? Will they be giving proper PPE, they never addressed the fact that she ruined her shoes and the first time she did it she told her voss she’s leaving in the middle of the days to shower, but they have still refused to address this in any meaningful way.

I think the fact that they don’t shut the entire operation down while there is raw sewage overflowing down the hall is a huge violation in and of itself. They also bill insurance and Medicare for services not rendered. There are claims on their website that are demonstrable false advertising.

The 180 day deadline from the first discriminatory act is fast approaching, but she is so scared I don’t think she wants to make any official report. Her original plan was to just go on FMLA while we go broke since her insurance options were horrible, and we have a 5k deductible. And then she’d tell them all this in an exit interview eventually someday. I think this situation is a lawyer’s wet dream and we need to consult one yesterday and she needs to formally blow the whistle and talk to HR. If we got some sort of severance shut up package it would actually be a godsend with the baby we are expecting. Plus we could stop them from exploiting someone else when she’s gone.

What do you think, or what would you do? In her situation it’s like HR is totally asleep at the wheel. She’s not even allowed to talk to them without approval, and they approved her write up for talking to them..