Legal Question in Employment Law in Alabama
Harrassment and forced to stay home during pregnancy
I have been berated, cursed, and hit in the back of the head (pretending to be kidding around) screamed at, things thrown behind me to attempt to scare me, for 6 years by a coworker that did not like me. For about 4 of those years I took the problem repeatedly to my boss and HR with no results.
Then when I announced I was pregnant and had some slight spotting the same coworker went to my manager and told him I said I needed to be off my feet, which was not true. I was out sick one day and my doctor said I was fine. But my employer forced me to stay home for over one week against my judgement. I told HR with no results. A few weeks later, unrelated to the above problem, I did miscarry. I announced it to the office and then my boss began to meet with me once a day bringing up mistakes that were erroneous but were simply paper trail created for this reason, and he did this after talking in private with the above employee each time. After the second meeting he said, ''You have been approaced.'' I told my HR dept no results. I told them I was harrassed for six years and during my pregnancy the problems came to a climax and my boss was in the process of terminating me with erroneous errs, I have 6 years of good reviews.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Harrassment and forced to stay home during pregnancy
First of all, there is no law against harassment. The law prohibits sexual harassment and both elements must be present. If this person who was harassing you did so by making sexual comments then this is a violation of the law. But the law does not protect you against general "harassment". That might seem odd, but the statutes only prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, religion, etc., and the courts have interpreted the statute to include harassment based on those characteristics. So for example if your coworker's berating comments are about your genitalia or his genitalia or are about your sex life or his sex life, then there is a serious issue. Any sexual touching is extremely serious. If you two are the opposite race and he makes racially derogatory comments that too is actionable.
But general comments such as calling a co-worker an "idiot" "moron" "jerk" or other non-sexual or non-racial comment are not prohibited under the law of discrimination. (they can create other legal problems, including criminal charges of harassing communications and threatening, but that's another issue.)
If the harassment is sexual or racial, then you need to have complained of it to HR or your supervisor or they must somehow know about it. You say that you have complained, but can you prove it? Do you have recordings of your complaints to HR? Call them up and record the conversation. I assure you that they will deny that you ever complained about this guy before.
Also call HR, record the conversation (which is legal in Alabama), and complain about your supervisor's violation of the pregnancy discrimination act. You were sent home for a few days. That should count as FMLA if the company is under that law (more than 50 employees in your area?). You cannot be terminated for FMLA or because of pregnancy. You probably have a cause of action for that if they persist. Your past good reviews would be very helpful in proving that discrimination. The key is to at least attempt a resolution through HR first.
Any other questions, just shoot me an email: [email protected]
Sterling L. DeRamus, Attorney at Law
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