Pregnancy Discrimination At KFC
So first off I am pregnant. I told my assistant manager yesterday. My manager Is out for a while with skin cancer so my assistant manager is taking her place. I work at Kentucky Fried Chicken and this lady is already rude to me. She assumed I was a rich spoiled girl whose mom does everything for. She says I’m slow and just mean stuff. Then today I called in sick cause I was throwing up all day. She told me over the phone I’m not for fast food and she is going to have to let me go. Is this right? Can an assistant manager fire me over phone for that reason? I think it’s cause Im pregnant she doesn’t like me. Can I do anything about this?
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2 Responses to Pregnancy Discrimination At KFC
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I would absolutely file a pregnancy discrimination claim with the EEOC. The timing from when you told her and when she fired you is like a nail in KFC’s coffin. KFC trains its managers about things like this and if the vaccination didn’t take for this particular asst mgr, then it’s time to get the big guns out. The EEOC deals with large corporations like this all the time and they can see through the “she wasn’t doing a good job” crap, especially if you don’t have a history of getting written up. Click here to download my free report “10 Things That Managers Do To Get Sued…And Lose In Court” It will explain how to document what happened. I would also contact your manager. If she’s unavailable, then go to your district manager and explain what happened and that you are going to file a pregnancy discrimination claim with the EEOC. If you have a decent DM, that should put a little fear into him/her and you could get your job back.
Check the employee manual and see how they handle discipline. If they have a progressive disciplinary process, but you got fired right off the bat, that will also land them in hot water.
The EEOC has sued KFC before. Alabama KFC Owner to Pay More than $1 Million to Settle EEOC Sexual Harassment Suit”
As has already been pointed out she can’t fire you for being pregnant. If the time you called off of work you didn’t have any sick leave available they could try to make a case that they fired you for that, but realistically they would have a hard time proving it. The courts don’t take kindly to someone being fired for pregnancy, and they generally assume any firing that happens close to a pregnancy was due to the pregnancy, regardless of what the person in charge said.
Now if there are documented cases of your not performing your work, being reprimanded, pay cuts etc then you might have a problem. Assuming you have been a good employee – or a bad employee and they just forgot to document it
– then they are going to have trouble making it stick. From what I hear it sounds as if the assistant manager took some liberties while the manager was away, she may not even have the authority to fire you. I’m sure if you speak to your manager about this, perhaps *politely* mentioning that one can’t be fired for pregnancy and you know she wouldn’t want to give the appearance of doing so, your manager will be quick to undo the fireing. Managers are generally very eager to not give the appearance of doing something questionably legal.
Of course then you would still have to work with the assistant manager….I guess you can’t fix everything.