Slave labor

Do you know that if you are working in an "at will" state have no rights at all? One day my boss decided she didn't want me to work any more. If she had just fired me that day, my life would be much simpler now.

After working in the same hospital for 20 years, I complained about working conditions. I gave her a complaint memorandum in May. In June I handed her a stack of complaints about harrassment by medical interns. I told her that I had complained to no one else and that my complaints to her were in confidence.

She sent my complaints upstairs and they suspended me without pay in June. At the end of August she fired me, after telling me the day before that I would be reinstated.

I had a 'hearing" this Tuesday which declined to reversing my firing. I am not eligable for unemployment since they said they found a wine bottle in my locker, the day after the suspension. If I ever get any job doing anything it would be amazing. If I ever work as a nurse again, it would be a miracle.

Throughout my career every lawyer I talked to about harrassment at work received the same answer, "When they fire you, come and see me." I am 57 and have been working since I was 14 and have never been fired from any job.

So now that I've been fired every lawyer tells me the same thing, "As an at will employee you can be fired at any time for any reason, or for no reason."

My experience proves that there is no reason for the employee handbook/ policies and procedures manual should exist. I always thought that both of these documents were at least "gentlemen's agreements." NOT SO!

Every lawyer I've seen asks to see the employee handbook. Why? As a non-union employee in an at will state it is totally meaningless.

Junior and his friends now want to save money with a law that says your supervisor can make you work 16 Hrs, seven days and not pay you any over time pay.

WELCOME TO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENUTURY! :roll