Legal Question in Employment Law in California
I am a general manager of a company in Irvine, CA. I have one particular employee who has been habitually late since her first day. Along with that, she has broken numerous rules, including doing some things so obviously wrong that rules didn't even exist for them. She has gone against things that I've told her, directly. She has disobeyed things that her employer has told her to do.
This employee has been spoken to, by myself and her employer on numerous occasions about her quality of work. And yet I cannot terminate her. The reason, I believe, is because she has accused me of having a personal grudge against her and my employers fear legal action.
On one occasion I brought her into a room and yelled at her about her poor work. The door to the room was closed at the time. I'm including this information in order to get a completely honest response to my question.
This employee has accused me, time and time again, of having some kind of personal problem with her, and one of the company's owners agrees with her. (The other owner feels the same way about her work as I do).
This employee continues to break rules and be a poor employee. However, I cannot do my job, and try to use any kind of discipline, because of her accusations against me. If this were almost any other company for which I have ever worked, this employee would have been fired long ago. But here her behavior is ignored. This employee is disabling me from being an effective manager.
I am curious if this constitutes some for of harassment on the part of the owners, and this employee, towards me. I feel as if I'm being personally discriminated against because of personal issues, not professional.
I would appreciate your response
1 Answer from Attorneys
Unlawful discrimination must be based upon a classification that is protected by law, i.e., sex, race, age, religion, national origin, etc. Personal grudges that are not the root of one or more of these protected classifications, while inappropriate, is not actionable in law.
It sounds as though you have done all you can do (except the yelling part) and it is now the responsibility of the owners to take appropriate action. It is not clear why they are afraid of a lawsuit, since you have described a very defensible position, given the employee's behavior. But it is their company and they can choose not to fire her if they wish.
While I cannot give you advise in this forum, you may have to assess if this is the right company for you, given the lack of support and the fact that your authority as a general manager is undermined. It may take further discussion with your employer and establishing a plan regarding who should supervise this employee, since you are not able to. Perhaps, if she reports directly to the owner who supports her, he or she will see for themself the problems you have been dealing with.
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