Showing posts with label Workplace Harassment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Workplace Harassment. Show all posts

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Documenting Employer Harassment & Retaliation -- Part I

FYI, this is only Part I of III

Take the mitigation measures and give me some leverage to work it out.  

3-Point Process:

1.   Shift the burden back onto them.  

What we're documenting is the harassment, the coercion, the retaliation, the discrimination.  We are not documenting a medical history, and that's really important.  

And any conversation about medical history is going to become confidential.  So instead of having all these arguments with your boss, your boss's boss, and coworkers, you can turn that all into "Look, guys, I can't talk about this.  It concerns my medical history.  You can talk to personnel and HR, and HR is not able to discuss the merits of your file.  It's confidential.  

The process that we're proposing is a way of getting the HR person, and the HR privacy confidential banner that they wear as your barrier between having these stupid conversations and stressful conversations and having them be the person who wants to question me has to go through and we're putting up that barrier for you.  

2:08  So this is on-the-job harassment.  We're going to document on-the-job harassment confidentially, which is what you would do, because your boss is supposed to be instructed by someone in personnel to deal with it because that's his role.  We're going to make everyone do what they're supposed to do.  So we open a file.  Find out who your HR manager is

STEP 1: GET A CLEAN COPY OF YOUR PERSONNEL FILE.  Get a copy of your clean personnel file, one that you had before you started doing any of this  When you're getting all of these stupid emails about all of the things you have to do and all of the exemptions and processes you have to go through, notice that they're saying "File it with HR."  They know that that's the system that you have to deal with.  That's already like in place.  Find out who your HR person is and, first, ask for a clean copy of your personnel file.  

STEP 2: CONFIDENTIAL LETTER.  We have a great letter with CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION in big red letters that outlines the parameters of the discussions that you're going to have on the claims that you're making.  

STEP 3: ONE-ON-ONE CONVERSATION W/HR DIRECTOR, OUTLINE THE ISSUES, ASK THEM TO DOCUMENT, SIGN, & DATE.  We'll ask you and guide you on this.  We'll ask you to have a one-on-one conversation, in the flesh, or on Zoom if you need to with the HR Director.  Ask them to take notes.  She'll give you the outline of the issues you're going to bring up and what you're going to ask them to document, and then this will be what you get a signed, dated copy of, and then you have that in your file as well. 

4:00  Once you ask for a copy of your file, you'll know who that person is unless it's a small company.  Establish a communication with that person.  I have a conversation I'm going to have with you, and I want it to be confidential and I have a right to keep it confidential and I want you to understand that's where this conversation is.  Now they're in that mode.  That person's going to realize that they're now in HR mode.  So any conversation after that is going to be confidential.  Going forward it's going to be confidential.  

4:40  You take your privacy back.  You're also getting the conversation adjusted to the right parameters.  You're not talking about why you think the jab is harmful to you.  You're talking about "I'm being discriminated against.  This is harassment that I am experiencing.  Your personnel are treating me like I'm a threat to them while I am in the shower.  You might have physical reactions.  You might have job pay problems, like the lady who said that she's been kept out of conferences that if she'd been able to participate in she'd be able to advance her career but she's being kept out of that training.  Also being separated from other coworkers in a certain area.  (translate this to customer situation).  And she's not being allowed to work overtime. 

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5:40  

1.  You have confidential communication with your HR rep that will relate to on-the-job harassment, the nature of which is DISCRIMINATION BASED ON DISABILITY

2.  In that conversation, you're going to talk a bit about your health, not so much your medical records.  We're not doing that.  We don't need to get your medical records and give it to the employer.  Never going to do that.  Talk about how you're feeling about this.  You're feeling anxiety, frustration, despair.  These are the things you want documented.  Write it out.  Part of this record is going to be written communications and you restating and paraphrasing what you've been told by your boss relating to this subject.  Cite the gal's comment, "I know what you want."  You might be getting memos and general emails about when you have to get your vaccine.  And that's part of the harassment.  You're documenting all of the harassment.

6:50  This woman has had significant weight loss because of the stress of dealing with her boss.  [talk about being harassed by the woman, her assistant, and her boss who says that whenever she talks to him he says, "You have to do this or you're going to be fired."  So she feels like her career is being jeopardized.  She's not able to participate in seminars that would advance her career.  She's losing weight.  She feels intimidated now by the other coworkers so she's been using a bathroom outside of the facility.  You document the treatment that you receive from them.  You're documenting how you're being coerced.  You're documenting the harassment, which would be like coworkers saying, "Oh, you're dangerous."  You're a threat.  I need to stay away from you.  "Oh, you're scaring me."  Any of that stuff.  That's all the harassment that you're receiving.  [security guard said "Down until further notice."  like they each had a role in a skit.  ]  And tell it to the HR person.  

7:54  And this is key.  You've got to recognize the consequences of on-the-job harassment and recognize it for what it is.  If your sleep pattern has changed.  Or you're gaining weight.  I'm not saying that you should blame everything on this, but it does affect a lot of things in your life.  Be cognizant of that so we want to try to document it.  

8:13  This is even in the language of the ADA. [and here.]  Daily things like talking, communicating, sleeping, eating, how is it affecting that?

the security guard.  Get the name of the security company.]  

8:27  Oh, yeah, just the harassment is affecting that.  But these mitigation measures are part of the disability and so forth.  The fact that you're being regarded as having a disability; the other word for that is you're being regarded as having a contagious disease.  If that's the case, the burden of proof is on the one who is doing that.  It's your employer, right?  That's why you never give your employer your medical records or anything because the burden of proof is always on that other party and you want to keep the burden of proof there.  Why is it that someone can impose medical interventions on you without a doctor's note, supervision, or approval of any kind without any judicial intervention, yet you have to go to the doctor to get a note for permission to exercise your right to informed consent?  You already have the right to informed consent, you see.  

9:15  You don't have to go to the doctor for written permission to informed consent.  You already have the right to informed consent.  Always keep the burden on them.  If you say things like "religious exemption" or "medical exemption," and there's no such thing by the way, . . .   There's no exemption because there's no legal duty.  So this is even the wrong language from the beginning.

9:30  Exactly, by asking for an exemption, you're saying "I accept the parameters of what you're saying needs to happen, and I'm trying to step just outside of it with my exemption."   No!!!  We're not doing that.  We're saying that you never had the right in the first place.  The burden is on you; you need to prove it.  

9:55. I know it's difficult for many of you because you're entering the premises at work and the first thing is submitting to a medical exam of your vital statistics, taking your temperature, but at some point you're going to be able to do that because you've documented the harassment, right?  And then you can say, "Look, I'm not being subjected to this anymore.  You are going to have to talk to HR," and let HR know when I'm out on my job and I'm getting harassed, I'm going to tell them to contact you but my file is confidential, so you need to tell them to leave me alone or tell my boss to tell them to leave me alone.

10:35  Once you take these three steps that we are talking about whenever these conversations or situations come up, you can say, "You need to talk to HR.  I'm not complying with this."

CONFIDENTIALITY IS YOUR LEVERAGE

10:56  Well, these are examples.  You keep it simple.  You document everything and you tell HR because the HR person is not going to be trained for this.  You train them.  When someone contacts you about these matters, you tell them that it's already worked out with me.  We already have an arrangement and that that is confidential.  You're off the hook, I'm off the hook, and he's off the hook, everybody is good.  If you break this confidence and you do something else, we got problems.  I'm trying to help you, trying to help myself, I just want to do my job.

CATEGORIES

11:35  

Document harassment, coercion, and retaliation.

Describe what's been communicated to you--copies of emails.  Free written guide.  Check it out.  Find it first. 

1.  When you go into an HR meeting, you're describing, and documenting the harassment and coercion.  And you begin by describing what you received--emails, letters, signs around the warehouse.  These are the facts of what I've been receiving.  

2.  Describe in detail how these requests have been affecting you.  Physical reactions, emotional reactions, since this has happened on ______________, you list the effects.  Hard time sleeping, heart rate racing, rashes, or you've lost weight, upset stomach, upset digestion, whatever you've been experiencing since the confrontation started.  Mental examples--fragmented thinking, always on the alert due to conflicts, can't concentrate, disrupted focus.  Always thinking about it that I can't focus on my job or production.  Angry, nervous, afraid of getting fired.  Worried about job is under threat.  Have the HR person write these things down.  

RHETORICAL QUESTIONS

Legal questions but they're going to be rhetorical questions.  And will lead the HR person doing his job, which is to resolve it, work it out, and document the solutions.