Legal Question in Employment Law in New York

Hello. My question pertains to labor law.

For the past 16 years I have worked in a civil service job as a 10 month Clerk for the White Plains City School District in New York. I was laid off from my job on June 30, 2010. I went to my union claiming I must have some kind of seniority after 16 years, but they said that the school district was abolishing all the clerk titles in the district. There were only three clerks left, myself and two other women who were also laid off. The same day that I was laid off, a woman who was an Office Assistant I (that is her title) was also laid off. She worked for the district only 3 years. She was called back to work. I asked the union how she could have been called back when I had been there 16 years and she had been there only 3 and they told me she has a totally different title than mine. They insist that civil service law is all about titles. To me, it is a question of semantics. We do the same kind of work.- office work. I called White Plains City Hall and challenged this. They said that several years ago all the Clerk-Typists were automatically switched over to the Office Assistant I titles. However, 17 years ago I took only the Clerk test. I don't think they even offered the Clerk-Typist test at that time. The irony is that in the past 17 years with technology being what is, I did a lot of typing and data entry in my job. When they laid me off they put me on a Preferred Eligibility List for Clerk for the next 4 years so if something comes up in my title they would call me back. Is this even legal? How can they put me on an eligibility list for a title that has been abolished? Also, about a month after I was laid off they posted a 12 month job for a Senior Clerk. They abolished the regular Clerk title, used that excuse to lay me off and then posted a job for a Senior Clerk involving more duties. Couldn't they have just left me in my Clerk job and piled more work on me for less pay?

Also, because I work for a school district, I got no severance pay. I understand this. Because they laid me off on June 30, 2010 I missed the COBRA subsidy deadline by one month. In other words, had they laid me off by May 31, 2010 the government would have picked up 65% of my health insurance. I would have been able to pay $200 a month for the same health insurance that is costing me $629 a month now.

If all that wasn't bad enough, I was a model employee for 16 years who did not take a lot of days off so I accumulated several sick days. I was told that only the people who were retiring were allowed to "cash out" a percentage of their remaining sick days. The school would not pay me the 40 or so sick days that I had accumulated in my sick bank because I was laid off and not retiring. They said those sick days would be reactivated in my sick bank if I ever came back to work for the school district.

I know the economy is bad, but I feel like I have been screwed (excuse my language) every which way. Do I have any rights here at all? Can I challenge my title? Can I get my job back? Can I at least get those sick days paid back to me? I would greatly appreciate any advice you can give me.

Elisa

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