Do I have good cause - Possible Pregnancy Discrimination?

by Mara
(Muscle Shoals, Al)

I have been working for the same company for 2 yrs now. I have been currently working 20-35 hrs a week. A few weeks ago I informed my employeer I was pregnant. Since then, the amount of hours I've been getting dropped to about 1o hours a week and sometimes one day a week. No other employees hours have been cut. And they have been putting me outside in the heat for four hours at a time with out a break. I feel like they are wanting me to quit. I am just wondering if I could receive unemployment if I were to quit.





Hi Mara,

First, I would not quit yet. Remember I carry on and on about the need to try to preserve the employment, but ...

I want you to first read the following so you can find some solid ground to approach the employer about what is going on. Remember, the unemployment department is not the EEOC. They don't decide whether there was discrimination, but I can tell you that if you were to assert to the employer that they have been treating you differently since you told them about your pregnancy and then have to still file an EEOC complaint .. any behavior by the employer which smacks of an effort to try to get you to quit could then be linked back to you filing that complaint and would start to look like retaliation .. it is within this that you strengthen "good cause".

Document, document, document. You can not document too much in my opinion. Try to keep communications to emails .. because it is "presentable evidence". If they refuse and will only communicate verbally .. Immediately send an email back to whom you spoke with reiterating the conversation.

Keep copies of everything.

And read the following.

Pregnancy Discrimination

You do have the ability to control the employer in this situation .. if they have any sense at all.