Legal Question in Employment Law in Indiana

In 2009 Our department of contractors (FROM Alliance Group Technologies) were hired back through a bid process at BP Whiting Oil Refinery with another contracting firm (Swift Worldwide Resources). The new firm stated the employee health care would be a paid benefit for all workers by the employer. The monetary value of this insurance benefit was used in negotiating my wages and contract which I signed in 2009. Six months following that day - our benefits were due to be renewed. This is when I learned the contractor had failed to pay premiums on my behalf as was agreed upon, and I had never been covered by medical insurance and my family was at risk during that entire time. This situation was brought up many times by myself to various Swift employees (even discussed with some BP management in confidence). Several of the Swift contractor employees said they would try to find a remedy - such as reconciliation for the value of the 6 months of unpaid premiums. The girl who was looking into the situation left Swift without providing any information to me. (As did the previous 2 girls before that.) I most recently reminded and discussed this issue again with Swift's local office business administrator 2 weeks ago, and she said she will try to work something out. Today I was called into the office - hoping to hear a remedy had been reached concerning the lingering problem of the unpaid benefits. Instead -- they fired me without notice today.

Thanks in advance.

R. L. Christensen


Asked on 6/22/12, 2:47 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Voyle A. Glover Attorney at Law

That's a tough one to answer here. One thing you need to do for sure is make a written demand for the premiums. Your problem is that if all you get is the premiums, that might not be a whole lot, certainly not enough to make it worth litigating. However, if you incurred medical expenses during this time, then it might be worthwhile. As to whether they can fire you, employers in Indiana can fire an employee for good reason, bad reason or no reason, but not an illegal reason. Only remedy for "bad" reason or "no" reason is unemployment benefits. Remedy for illegal reason varies from reinstatement to back pay and damages.

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Answered on 6/22/12, 6:06 pm


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