What a lovely place to work, hey ?
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A former Oracle regional sales director has sued the American database goliath, claiming he had been fired unlawfully after 13 years of employment for seeking medical treatment under US Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). As described in the initial complaint, plaintiff Timothy Shaulis claimed that he began suffering from a …
I'm glad there is protection here. It is generally illegal to fire somone on sick leave. There are ways to do it, if somebody is long term sick or regularly takes sick days, but it is complicated and requires the employer to jump through several hoops to actually get rid of them.
That his wife was having an affair is besides the point. If he officially, and with authorization, took leave for medical reasons, being fired 3 weeks later is not justifiable.
But the cynical side of me can't but think that the plaintiff is suing Oracle to pay for his wife's alimony payments.
What is it good for?
Well, if nothing else, from protecting us from the worst excesses of such progressive, modern, employers like this who treat their staff on a level barely evolved since the industrial revolution.
The really sad thing about this is that in an organisation the size of Oracle, this would have required numerous decision makers to approve it. Away from the employee and line, who are emotionally involved, second line, HR, and so on all have sat down and gone through;
"We want to sack this guy, he complained about something"
"Okay, what's he doing now?"
"Well, he's in hospital on approved time off for serious health and mental issues. It looks like his marriage is breaking down"
"Fine, sack him"
Humans...
Its all a balance I suppose. In some places in Europe strict labor laws are partially responsible for youth unemployment being astronomical for example. We are the other side of the coin where our whole culture is built to the advantage of corporations. Not sure maybe the UK has a nice balance.
"Not sure maybe the UK has a nice balance."
Nope. Our employment rights have been scaled back to the point where you can't even file an unfair dismissal claim until you've worked for an employer for a minimum of two years. As for HR, I've only ever seen one HR manager fight an employee's corner - with the result that she was fired as well as the employee who had been discriminated against. In all other cases I've seen, HR is simply used to provide a convenient counterpoint to discrimination allegations.
For example, at one employer a developer was verbally abused and threatened with physical violence by an irate director after a problem with a third party software package. The developer had archived emails that described his concerns with the suitability of the software, but he'd been overruled by the IT manager. When the software failed, the IT manager blamed the developer. The developer was told to hand in his resignation or be fired, so he contacted HR. HR said they took the side of the director because ... well because he was a director. That was despite the developer having contractors willing to back up his case with personal affadavits. (The contractors ended up leaving in disgust).
... Not sure maybe the UK has a nice balance.
Don't be so sure !!!
The US of A standards are being used in the UK & the EU even though there are very strong Employment laws.
There is always a way to work around them if you try hard enough and everyone (on the employers side) works together !!!
Just get a minion or two to verify that the person was not as good as they thought and then they can simply be sacked due to not meeting standards for the job or whatever.
(Even if they have had 5 Star reviews there is always a way to define that their skill are now redundant for the new direction the company is going in etc etc)
Change the structure of the dept and find that you need less people :) ..... qelle surprise the job(s) that is/are redundant include the person you want to fire.
Many many other ways are available !!!
At best you can fire someone without any comeback, at worse they may sue and file for unfair dismissal BUT you have 'evidence' to backup your actions as above.
In a nutshell, watch your back and do not depend on Employment law to protect you 100% ..... it does not !!!
Deal with it - plenty of others have had to deal with much worse.
Apologies if that's harsh but in case nobody ever told you that life is a ruthless competition in which only the strong succeed, that's what it is. For those of us who aren't self centred wankers, we just have to deal with being fucked over by those who are, occasionally, and just hope that karma really exists and that she really is a complete beeatch
"life is a ruthless competition in which only the strong succeed"
It needn't be. All we have to do is drop that base animal attitude, be civilized to each other and disadvantage those that use that method to succeed at the cost of others. We can be better, and stopping the bullies is a good early step. It'd solve many of this worlds issues.
...if you've got a medical issue, document it! If you need to take more than an absolute minimum number of sick days, make sure you keep your receipts and scripts in order. Small pieces of paper, but make sure enough to cover your whole a$$. Definitely saved mine.
Feel for this guy, esp since the wife has been doing offshore drilling and navel exploration with the partner. Usually doesn't end well.