Appeals process ended

Linda called her former employers to set up the time for the next step in the appeals process. The first meeting was a joke. Instead of being one on one, it was two against one. Not one thing Linda said, they listened to, and simply rubber stamped the decision and passed it along. Since they obviously had no intention of abiding by their own policies when it came to these meetings we felt it only reasonable that the next meeting included me. I have been very much involved in this and am much better at presenting an argument than Linda.

She told them I'd be coming, but they said I'd have to wait in the lobby. Linda handed the phone to me. I told the woman that we were participating in the appeals process as a courtesy to them, but could already tell it was not a real appeals process but a "delay, annoy, delay, annoy" process designed to discourage the former employee from continuing to pursue the matter. Since they had extra people in the meeting, they had no legitimate reason not to allow me. She put me on speaker phone, and I heard a man, who said he was the Human Resources director repeat, verbatim, her line, "If you choose to come you are welcome to wait in the lobby." I explained that Linda would not attend any more meeting that I was not allowed to participate in, he cut me off to repeat, verbatim, what he'd just said. I told him that if they chose to end the appeals process by applying silly rules that they themselves had no intention of following, that would be their decision, and we would pursue a resolution via other means. He, again, repeated the exact same sentence he'd said twice before. I wanted to ask if there was someone there that could unstick the record, but he hung up on me.

To recap the whole situation. Linda's immediate supervisor, a man who has for years thumbed his nose at company policy even going as far as having an affair with a married woman under him, made a pass at Linda. She politely rebuffed him, but he then began harassing her by having Human Resources "warn" her of things they wouldn't explain very well. Even though her supervisor had made the pass, she was warned to keep her conversation "professional" but never given a clear definition of that. Just before leaving for a company sponsored trip to help build houses for Habitat for Humanity, Linda had an urgent question regarding the trip and couldn't locate her supervisor. She attempted to reach him at home, but only got an answering machine.

Upon returning from the trip she was informed that her phone call constituted "insubordination" and "sexual harassment" and she was summarily fired. Having two kids with a rare congenital condition means we are very much dependant on the insurance the company provided. So her firing has left us in a severe financial predicament. But the most galling part is that a boss who made little attempt to hide his own sexual antics, accused my wife of sexual harassment, with no evidence, and had her fired. This is a very large international corporation and it's very doubtful the corporate office knows anything of this, but being so big they would most likely ignore a single complaint from a single, former employee. So we are in the process of gathering more evidence of the behavior the management in this local plant has allowed, in order to allow the corporate office to address it. If they fail to, then we'll go public with the name of the corporation and their response.

For now, though, we are waiting for the information packet the company is supposed to send us, so we know what we are facing in trying to keep our insurance going. I got a phone call from the life insurance company that handled that part of the benefits. I told them we really didn't see that as a priority given the other needs, so it will expire in about 30 days.

To be continued...

Posted by Danny Carlton at June 5, 2007 8:16 AM