File a complaint, for sure.
husband got fired years ago, he should have filed a complaint but just wanted to put it all behind him. He really had grounds, he got shafted right royally, with no grounds whatsoever. We never knew why, but after a couple of years we sort of worked it out - we think he had been accused behind his back of industrial espionage, because he had to totally change careers, the word was out. Then 18 months later, the job offers back in that industry came pouring in - somehow, his name had been cleared. We never did find out. But if we'd complained, we would have. They had really milked him dry in that job, making him work often 12 hours a day (he was on salary, not paid by the hour) and he was exhausted.
The rules as they USED to be in Australia - if your boss is unhappy with your performance, he should call you in for "counselling". This involves a warning letter also, which is then followed up with a performance review within a few weeks - have you lifted your game? On the third warning letter within a couple of months, you're out. However, some 'crimes' could lead to instant dismissal - for example, theft; industrial espionage (which is also theft, in its own way). Failure to follow the rules would often lead to the complaint of the worker being upheld.
NOW - we have a government which has thrown all this away. We have "Workplace Agreements". Workers on contracts which give them, say, $25 an hour, 8 days sick leave a year and four weeks' annual leave are finding themselves sacked (no reasons now need be given; an employer can now sack someone purely because they can no longer afford that person, all they have to do is make a statement to that effect) and then finding themselves offered their old jobs back, but at a much lower hourly rate and often as casual staff (ie NO sick leave; NO annual leave; NO other rights).
Most jobs now, especially for young people, are on a casual basis. Our unemployment is running below 4% (government figures, which means they are a gross underestimate). To be considered "employed" you need to be working a minimum 15 hours a week, on average. And in a casual job, you would think this would make it easier if you have a sick kid - no way.
easy child 2/difficult child 2's jobs (other than her performing work) to date have both been casual. Her first job was in a bakery franchise, she had to work behind the counter. The boss KNEW about her acting/circus work when he hired her, it was on her resumé and on her application letter. I was also there and explained it to him (English not his first language; but his English is good enough to run a business). OK, if any performing work came up she would simply take the time off work at the bakery without pay. Then she got a BIG acting job, it kept her busy for a month, plus another couple of weeks' waiting time while they re-scheduled filming. The trouble with acting jobs, you don't always get a lot of notice about changes. She could be told in the evening, "Be at Farmer Bill's property past Penrith by 7 am tomorrow morning." So she told the boss at the bakery that she would be off work until a certain date. She gave him this in writing, along with the reason - she was making a film.
Then after a couple of weeks, the boss begins to ring me up. "When will easy child 2/difficult child 2 be well enough to come back to work?"
"She's not ill, we told you - she is making a film. It will be on TV early next year. She will be finished and ready to work for you by the middle of next month."
"Tell her I hope she feels well soon and to give me a call, OK?"
When she finally got back to work, he took her and and told her, "You were absent for many weeks. From now on when you are ill, I will need a medical certificate from you, even for only one day."
In vain she tried to explain she wasn't ill and hadn't been; that he HAD known where she was and what she was doing; that he DID know of her acting work before he ever hired her and that as a casual employee, she didn't have to provide ANY reasons or justification for taking unpaid time off work, especially if she gave plenty of notice (as she had) so he could roster someone else on.
So he then began to give her short shifts. She would check the roster book and find she was working only on two days, for three hours each day. It was costing her more to get to work by public transport, than she was making. She asked for more shifts and was told he'd think about it. Now, short shifts is a way a lot of bosses use to either push their staff into resigning, or to punish them and keep them in line.
easy child 2/difficult child 2 decided to get a second job. She knew a lot of girls from the bakery left to work at a nearby fruit shop so she went and talked to them (also telling them about her occasional performing work). They offered to train her to see if they were willing to hire her. So she began training - she trained with them for weeks. This involved two days a week (in between her bakery shifts) working, unpaid but supervised, in the fruit shop. They got free labour out of her but she stuck it out with the promise of more pay pr hour, if they eventually chose to hire her. But at this training stage - no certainty of a job at all. easy child 2/difficult child 2 was hoping to work in both shops, so she could have some variety.
Then the bakery shop owner found out. His wife went in to buy some fruit and saw easy child 2/difficult child 2 having training. Within minutes, the baker was in the fruit shop, screaming in his broken English at the staff there to stop stealing his staff, that they were behaving in an underhand fashion and they were bad businessmen to do this. All this in front of customers!
The fruit shop managers took easy child 2/difficult child 2 aside. "We cannot have this happening. You need to sort out who you're working for. We understand you hoped to work for both of us, but clearly he doesn't accept this. We cannot have him coming in here embarrassing us in front of our customers - go see him and sort this out."
So STILL without any surety of a job at the fruit shop. easy child 2/difficult child 2 went to see her bakery boss. He sacked her on the spot for being disloyal.
I rang the government agency that deals with this sort of thing. Our government's new laws made this situation possible, but because she had been employed BEFORE the new legislation came in, and for a number of years, the baker technically couldn't sack her. However, he COULD refuse to give her ANY shifts, which is what happened. She wrote to him (with my help) and explained in writing that it was illegal for him to sack her without any warning letters or any indication she was not doing a good job and explaining that she had all along intended to keep working for him; but to just pad out her shifts with a second job.
Now the baker denied (verbally) that he had sacked her. She got nothing in writing from him. Neither did she get any shifts.
And the fruit shop? They COULD have said, "get lost, you bring trouble when this man screams at us," but they didn't. They hired her. At half as much money again as the baker had paid, so she was happy. After some time,s the baker approached her (she walked past every day to go to the fruit shop) and asked when she would be returning hr uniform. "I thought I was still employed by you?" she asked him sweetly. "I've been waiting for shifts." But she did put him out of his misery and resign. She also gave up on her wrongful dismissal claim - at the low hourly rate he had been paying her, she wouldn't have got more than about $50 from him.
Now - she gets paid more but it's still not a huge amount. And when a supervisor got a bit annoyed with her one day, he cut her shifts back hard to punish her. She finally had to ask someone else to get her put on more shifts or she would have to find another job that would let her work more (because as a casual, she only gets paid for what work they let her do). So the person organising the roster did a check on the staff records and found that easy child 2/difficult child 2 has the highest accuracy on the checkouts, of all the staff in the shop. She used that to get her as many shifts as she wants and the supervisor could do nothing, without giving a reason to not do this. Which, since it was just him on a power trip, he could not do.
She has again been asked to provide a medical certificate for any absence where she calls in sick, but now this is legal - virtually anything an employer asks for is legal, by definition now. Luckily, we don't have the medical costs that you have in the US. So when she got appendicitis, she had to get certificate after certificate, each time she saw a doctor. More certificates for the time off for surgery. More certificates to say she was not permitted to lift anything heavy for six weeks. And so on.
She did another film while working at the fruit shop - rehearsal through January, filming on 25th. But no problems with them at all. She was even able to take in some photos from the film set to show her workmates.
So if a boss treats you badly, take action. Or at least, begin to - it scares the pants off them. It also leaves you with the option to continue or to drop it, as you choose. But if you leave it too long, it's very hard to go back a few months later and file a complaint.
We may have a better health system but right now our employment system is like a vacuum cleaner - it uses a certain method to pick up dust, and it's full of crud.
Have confidence in knowing that you don't have to work for someone this narrow-minded.
Marg
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