My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Georgia
I work for an international aerospace parts distributor, which is headquartered in the Netherlands, but has an office in Atlanta. In January 2009 we got a new warehouse manager, and the company was going through a lot of changes, a new general manager, and complete restructuring of workplace tasks, and 2 decreases in pay. We had a black lady working there, that had a history of spreading gossip, starting workplace drama and trying to "take charge" of other employees. She even told us proudly of busting the window out of her own car when her and her husband got into an argument, in her second year, she had been warned anymore drama or issues and you are fired. I had been working in receiving up until then, and she had been in shipping. When they started making us move to other areas to work, one day I walked up to the team leader, a friend of hers, to ask what did he want me to do. She was telling him, to get me to check the outgoing orders, because she didn't want to do it. He didn't and sent me to do another task...but knowing this woman's attitude and history, I knew she was trying to start trouble. When I got home that night I wrote her an email on facebook, and simply told her to leave me alone, I wanted no part in whatever trouble she was trying to stir up (She had friended everyone in the place as soon as facebook became popular. A month later I walked up to the team leader and heard her saying the same thing, that night I again wrote her on facebook and told her to leave me alone. I did this because I didn't want an issue in the workplace. The next day, the new manager took me into an office with the hr woman, and wrote me up for harassment. Seems this woman still found a way to make trouble and took my emails to hr, and to the manager stating, "I made her feel intimidated, so she couldn't ask me for help during work". This lady never asked anyone for help, because she "knew everything, and one would be in charge", according to her. It seems this new manager had come in the door planning on moving up immediately. As soon as the hr lady walked out of the room, he told me, "Well, I guess now the company will know I'm straight across the board, I don't show any favoritism." He had also stated, he couldn't let me bring this into the workplace, even when I had said, I was trying to keep it out of work. Before this incident, another gossiping employee, a white male, had told the manager I was going slow on a certain task on purpose because I didn't want to do it, this was told to me by someone else. I confronted the guy and simply told him to stop gossiping about me, and causing trouble. I went to the manager and told him about it, and he confirmed he had been told that, and on the topic of us having a disagreement, I was told, "Be glad it wasn't someone else, or I would have to do something." I didn't realize at the time, he meant if the person happen to be black.
Fast forward to 2011, this same manager went into a rage on me and two other employees....he cornered me in an aisle, which is only 3-4 ft wide, so we were pretty much toe to toe. Red in the face, yowling that I needed to get a faster start in the morning, and I had better do this and that...blah, blah. We had a class later, saying if a manager is as close as 1.5 ft to you, it is harassment, this was definitely the case. When I told him, I came in, put my lunch in the cooler, which was right in the work area, checked my emails from international colleagues, which I had to because of the time difference, they went home at 11am our time, and did a quick run to the bathroom. I was told, if I needed to go to the bathroom, I needed to come in earlier.
I was outraged to say the least...so that night I wrote an email, 6 pages long to the CEO/owner of the company telling him of many things going on in the US office, including working employees overtime and not being paid for it, favoritism, managers skipping procedure and releasing quarantined parts without the proper certification/paperwork, having our pay reduced, and having our pay schedule changed so it varied all the time, sometimes getting 80 hours, sometimes 104, sometimes 72, and even 64, people were having to take money out of their pensions to make ends meet. I also brought up the right up, and the manager going into a rage on us...At first he replied back he would investigate, then he wrote back and said I should have went to the gm first, and because of the distance of where he was (Netherlands), so he had set up a meeting with me and the gm.
Well, I already knew what to expect from the gm, why I didn't go to him in the first place. I was told, as far as the right up concerning the black woman? "I have two words for you, black and female. We have had people try to get a lawsuit on us before, therefore we follow the law to the strictest letter to prevent such things from happening." This lady had eventually been fired for threatening another employee, and had also cut the tire of the same employee. She was a favorite of the hr lady, and I had mentioned this in my email, and that she should have been fired a long time ago, before my trouble with her. The gm agreed, yes she should have been fired a long time ago. Everything else was pretty much swept under the rug, except concerning the manager going off on us? "Haven't you ever went off on some one before?" I told him I had never, and now days I thought it pretty stupid, seeing as how people come in the workplace wanting to shoot everyone. Then, he went one step farther and starting trying to intimidate me....saying, "are you looking for another job?, it seems that's what you told the CEO. We can get up a severance package for you, if you are planning on leaving." I told him, that was not what I had said.
Well, in 2012, this manager was promoted to Director of Operations, and his ego grew along with it.....The gm was fired in Jan 2013, the company is about $10 million behind in their budget for the year, and we now have the 3rd supervisor of the year. The same guy goes off on them after exactly two weeks... he is relentless, in all his 4 years we have never been told we have done a good job. Last week, after Thanksgiving, we were swamped with more orders than we have had in a long time, and short on people... in 2 days we processed and shipped over 400 orders and all this guy could do was rage on the new supervisor about why the non-conformances hadn't been done, and why wasn't this done, and what are you going to do about this? We also have had several people fired, and not all replaced....partly because of a rule this guy came up with, if you make 3 errors in a month, you are written up, then sent home for a week with the next error, then terminated with the next. I usually average about 3 per month, out of checking 1000 orders, and he loves to come around me, and say, "better be careful and watch yourself, your getting close."
Now, for the fun part... I took this Friday off, because I had to use a personal day, by the end of the year or loose it. Thursday, the new supervisor comes to me, and says, "C'mon, I need to talk to you for a minute." We go all around the warehouse, up front, finally to the conference room, and there is the hr lady. I was told, management had seen me out of my designated work area and talking, and not all about work, some of it not in a positive manner. First of all, we don't have a designated work area, if I am in receiving, I might have to go all the way to the other side of the warehouse to find a place to put something. If I am in shipping, and there is something suspicious about a part description, paperwork etc, I have to go to the other end of the warehouse to investigate. Secondly, I told the hr lady and him, that since we didn't get any breaks except lunch, when people had complained, the Operations guy had told us, "when you are picking orders and stop and talk to your friend, that is your break." Thirdly, the Operations guy was not even in the place all week, the only other two "management", were the two black team leaders, one of which was the friend of the lady trouble maker and the other had been her boyfriend, when she was separated from her husband. I had no clue as to what they were even talking about....the hr lady asked the supervisor did he actually know because she didn't, the supervisor himmed and hawed around it pretty much. When we got back in the warehouse, before I could walk away, the supervisor said, "Come here a minute...do you know what this was about?" I said no, I didn't have a clue, I talk to a lot of folks, not necessarily long conversations, but since I am a senior employee, folks ask for my help, or to show them how to do things. He didn't know for sure himself, and said he thinks maybe it involved a new young girl we had... I said the only thing I have talked to her about is orders when she asked questions, and I did talk to her a short while about my honeybees, which she had a lot of questions about. I am usually quiet until I get to know people for awhile, and he said, Yes, I know that." He thinks one of the team leaders he has seen talking to the girl a lot might be jealous and reported this to the operations manager, and he was sent an email, that simply said, "Take care of this". The team leader he is talking about is the ex-boyfriend of the woman, and I have been told by other people and some of the other supervisors, that he has told the Operations guy, outright lies about me concerning my work....This is the same guy I told the Operations guy when he was warehouse manager, that had made a woman get him a drink of water, had many times said sexually inappropriate things to her, had told another employee to give someone work they didn't like doing, because he didn't like them....and all this was brushed aside too by the Operations guy, saying "Give me time, I need to get them more training."
I have asked the new gm to talk to him, about the Operations guy's rages, as it makes for a stressful workplace, and he is going to run everyone off....the majority of employees are looking for other jobs now. But I asked him before this warning I got Thursday. So far, he said sure let him look at his calendar and he will get back with me, this was Weds, and he hasn't responded back yet....
I also have many friends at Corporate in the Netherlands, and one has told me, she has already been talking to her boss about most of this, which is the Operations guy for NL, so he knows what is going on, maybe I should talk to him, and ask his advice as to what to do.. I am at a complete loss, and feel like I have been mistreated abused, embarrassed, you name it....

