SUe K - firing for disabilities

[Guest guest]

HI SUe:

MY employer pulled that same sort of crap. I was off work and

struggling to get back. I loved my job so much that often the desire to

go back was all that got me out of bed many days. A few days after I

went off sick, m y boss called me and told her she and my other boss

were " let go " . I felt that if I was not off sick they would have gotten

rid of the three of us (not a sensible move for a large hospital to get

rid of its entire quality management dept.) A few months before that a

graduated masters student with no experience or clinical background had

been brought in as an unpaid volunteer to help me. I trained him. They

started paying him and he got my non clinical stuff when I went off sick

but the illness went on and on (I am still off 4 years later). I was

called in a year later to be told my position was eliminated as it was

" redundant " . I found that hard to believe. The VP used the position

description from 1989 when I started although a new one had been

submitted to her and signed by my boss - a year before. It mysteriously

disappeared and she claimed she had never seen it (which my boss

confirmed was a lie as she remembered hand delivering it and I was in

her office when she was talking to the VP about it).. The guy who took

over for me conveniently had a new position description similar to mine

(they were both done off the same one with some variations). It was a

convenient excuse to cut someone who was costing them money. Forget the

hundreds of hours of free overtime I gave them...The only thing that

saved me was that I was still under nursing contract so I reverted back

to that area and exist in the nursing department, unassigned. If not for

that I would have been unable to work and have no decent income, no

benefits- I would be destitute. My last trip to the drugstore was for

over $1200 in prescriptions. I don't know many people who could handle a

bill like that - I think God every day I still have the insurance and

other benefits.

I had the union have at them with no success. They advised me to sue

the hospital (using their lawyer) should I be well enough to go back.

Working for nursing is not realistic given all my health problems.

SO - sounds like a similar situation where a position description is

at issue, Craig's being " conveniently " rewritten when he is in a

vulnerable position. I would get a lawyer familiar with disability

issues. My case and his certainly aren't the first where the employer

has decided to dispose of the sick person and things like this are

thinly veiled attempts to do so. Even if he succeeded in holding onto

the position somehow, the outcome of legal action (unless an actual

settlement occurred) might not protect him in the future. Is he able to

" bump " someone less senior. How is it that he is not qualified for this

" new " position?

Just what you both need as if things aren't difficult enough!!!

HUgs,

Joyce