i work at a hospital and i work every other weekend. so on my weekend to work(this weekend) there is a really bad snow storm and i couldnt make it to work because public transportation was cancled due to the weather. i tried to make it but it was impossible without public transportation. and walking 25 miles in the snow isnt the easiest thing to do when your 7months pregnant.Now the hospital is trying to fire all employees who didnt show up on the weekend due to the weather. They said it was mandatory to attend work and that we put the patients in danger by not showing up. its not like they didnt have any employees, the employees who worked on friday had to spend the night because they had no way to get home and it was a state of emergency. the state called an emergency about the weather. the last time i stayed overnight they made us sleep on the cold floor with a sheet(not even a blanket). thats not comfortable when your pregnant. can they do this??????its just not fairsorry its so long!
Because we don't know what your attendance record is this could have been the straw that broke the camels back. Are you Union? If you aren't Union and you work in an at will state, they can fire you for any reason.
If the governor declared a state of emergency, that would suggest that traveling 25 miles to work would be difficult, if not impossible. However, in an at will state, your employer can fire you for any reason or no reason at all. Many employees take advantage of bad weather and other events to skip a day of work, so employers are understandably suspicious when someone doesn't show up during or after a major snow storm. However, if you are seven months pregnant, you should talk to an administrator at the hospital and see if he/she will give you a break here. If walking was the only alternative to public transportation, you should get a pass. That's true even if you weren't pregnant. Walking 25 miles in heavy snow is dangerous and most people are physically unable to make such a journey. You don't have any legal recourse here, but if the governor declared and state of emergency and the police urged everyone to stay at home, you have a good common sense argument. Besides, by the time you could walk the 25 miles in deep snow, your shift would probably be over and you would be too exhausted to work.
I work at a hospital also and state of emergency does not apply to hospital workers. Patients don't go away. They still need care. Hospitals don't shut down just because we're in a state of emergency. We knew about this storm almost a week ahead of time. All the hospitals in my tri-state area at least usually provide transportation in cases like this, 4-wheel drive to pick up workers to make sure everyone that needs to be there gets in. You really did have enough time, especially with all the prior notice and warning we had of the storm, to make other arrangements, to find some way to get to work. Jobs are too hard to come by these days and people are too easily replaced you need to do what you can to hold on to your job if it means anything to you.
