I heard back from the DOL

[Guest guest]

I heard back from the DOL (Dept. of Labor) on my complaint

yesterday, and it was very interesting. I now have a specific

investigator assigned to me, so that if any problems arise, I

contact her specifically.

She told me that my company didn't technically do anything to

warrant an investigation, however, they CANNOT request or make me go

to a 3rd opinion doctor, because both doctors agreed that I have a

serious health condition, Fibro, and that the only thing they didn't

agree on was the terms. The second opinion doctor never really gave

any, probably because my company never sent them my rheumy's FMLA

form!

She told me that if they start talking about wanting me to go to a

3rd opinion doctor, that I am to tell them that according to

regulations, that since the 2 doctors actually agreed with

eachother, there is no need for a 3rd, because that is supposed to

be the " tie breaker " between doctors who disagree, which they

didn't, and if they want a more definative answer about my terms of

leave, they are to contact the 2nd opinion doctor to get more

information out of him. They have told me twice that they were

going to do that with him, but I don't think they have.

Since I have " provisional " FMLA terms of 2 days every 3 weeks right

now, and they haven't brought anything else up yet, she told me not

to say anything to them until they bring it up with me. She also

told me that if I could, hold them off until I could contact her,

and we would go over the exact wording to answer them, and put it in

writing, with both human resources and myself having a copy. She

also told me that if I needed to miss more than that allotment, to

get it in writing from my doctor that I missed for my FMLA illness,

but since they were being so difficult, that she recommended that I

try to follow the provisions to the letter.

That can be really hard though, as we all know that Fibro doesn't

follow any set standards! Especially in the winter, or when it's

rainy and cold, it's not going to wait until my 3 weeks is up, or

maybe not last only 2 days. And if I don't use those days in the 3

weeks, they're gone for good. I am thinking that once this gets

settled, I'm going to do what I did with my old FMLA, and get it set

into just a lump sum of days. At first, my old FMLA was set at 3

occasions 3 times a year, which really screwed me, because if I only

used 1 day, I was screwed out of the other 2, so I asked them if

they would change it to 9 lump days to give me a little more

flexability, and they did. I don't know if they will do it with

this many days though. I figured it up, and it ended up being like

34.6 days. Heck, I'd be happy with just 30 days!

I also found out that they wrote me up for days that should have

already come off of my attendance before they wrote me up, since a

year had already passed several months before I got the write up.

It was days I missed after I ran out of FMLA, and thankfully, a lot

of them are going to start coming off within the next 2-4 months. I

just really can't wait to tell them what the investigator said.

They knew I turned them into the DOL, so they have been walking on

eggshells around me since.

Even my HR director totally lied about something he'd said. He told

me " If you miss one day in the next 3 weeks, I will seek your

termination. " Well, it just so happened that my next 3 week

allotment of FMLA started the next week. I called the HR

supervisor, and when confronted, he said he didn't say that, and I

told him that yes, he did, and that there was a witness, and then he

starts saying that if he said it that way, it wasn't what he meant.

I am seriously starting to think I should start (openly) recording

all meetings I have, or at least be able to have my own

representative present, since there are two of them there for backup

of what was said. Or I should start taking notes and make both of

them sign it. It's only fair, and protects my rights. Does anyone

know how I go about doing that? We are non-union.

So that's where my Dept. of Labor/ Company battle stands right now.

This is just sooo much fun!

Jen