Layoff then Fired

[Char]

I do not know the date of the notification. I do know they said I was terminated as of 10/16. I left town the morning of 10/06 and I returned 10/20 late evening and called on 10/21 asking if I was going to be called back.

The center manager claims they tried to call me on 10/03 which was a Friday. I left on 10/06, which was Monday in the morning, mail usually arrives at my house in the late afternoon.

I did not my have my cell phone for a few days as I had been waiting on a new handset as mine broke. I checked my cell mailbox and it was full but no messages from UPS. My wife says no one called the house from UPS let alone leave a message.

I talked to the Business Agent and she advised me to file a grievence for unjust termination as I have done so.

Does this mean as of November 1st my 4 month old and 20 month old will no longer be insured?

 

[drewed]

Every certified letter notification ive seen has a date on for the date left and the date it will be RTSd. I still think you would have recieved the notification between your two trips.

You guys should be insured under COBRA but the rates are drastically increased.

 

[gandydancer]

We don't send letters on three day absent no calls. Those are job abandonment discharges rather then disciplinary discharges. If no recall letter was sent then he should be able to return to work.

He should file an immediate grievance. Grievance based on the date of discovery of his discharge.

Can't make this into a three-day-absent job abandonment. It's one failure to return to work with no proof of service on the recall. Company can't be held responsible, tho, for his deciding to go out of town in the absence of an established and communicated protocol for recall, so that places an upper limit on any claims to be made whole. Looks like stupidity on both sides resulting in the opportunity to make a mountain out of a molehill. I'll want to lay out the timeline for myself before commenting further on the substance.

 

[tieguy]

Can't make this into a three-day-absent job abandonment. It's one failure to return to work with no proof of service on the recall. Company can't be held responsible, tho, for his deciding to go out of town in the absence of an established and communicated protocol for recall, so that places an upper limit on any claims to be made whole. Looks like stupidity on both sides resulting in the opportunity to make a mountain out of a molehill. I'll want to lay out the timeline for myself before commenting further on the substance.

Interesting......

 

[helenofcalifornia]

What kind of friends do you have at work that wouldn't try to get in touch with you and tell you what was going on back at work??? I do believe you are somewhat culpable for not staying in touch with UPS on a possible return work date. Did someone in management tell you you would be off work for weeks?

If I was layed off, I would have been calling them everyday to work. And if you worked 60 hours in October, you will have benefits for November, which it sounds like you didn't.

I think with a little grieving, you might get your job back. Lesson learned on what to do if layed off next time.

 

[drewed]

If I was layed off, I would have been calling them everyday to work. And if you worked 60 hours in October, you will have benefits for November, which it sounds like you didn't.

If he was terminated,i would be under the impression he wouldnt?

Also i dont want to hijack the thread but the 60 hours part, I was told by a shop steward that you "banked hours" for benifets so you have 90 hrs two months in a way if you only worked 30 the next month youd have bennies still bc you worked over hrs, does this sound correct?

 

[gandydancer]

If he was terminated,i would be under the impression he wouldnt?

Also i dont want to hijack the thread but the 60 hours part, I was told by a shop steward that you "banked hours" for benifets so you have 90 hrs two months in a way if you only worked 30 the next month youd have bennies still bc you worked over hrs, does this sound correct?

Nope. You need 60/80 in a month to get your premium paid. And UPS is always screwing up and not paying premiums and unless you actually use medical that month no one ever finds out about it. I'm convinced that screwing up that way is a major profit center for UPS around here, seeing how often I've had to fix it and how large the premiums are. And a major dereliction by the local to not keep an eye on it. Premium payments are supposed to be posted, but seldom are. It would be worth the health plans money to send out a postcard every time someone's premium didn't get paid so they would catch some of those screwups.

 

[brownmonster]

If I was waiting to get called back I don't think I would leave town for 2 weeks.

 

[Char]

If I was waiting to get called back I don't think I would leave town for 2 weeks.

Let me see if I got this right. I do not get any notice prior to layoff? They call me in on Friday and say "don't come in on Saturday" (I work Tuesday through Saturday). They say "We probably won't call you back till the end of October or early November". I am supposed to stop my life and sit by the phone and wait? Then they can fire me because while I was on layoff I had to adjust my life with my other job in order to make up for the shortfall?

As far as I know, I have to be notified to return to work. If I am out of town and did not get the notification to return to work then I was never notified.

I live 3 freeway exits from the building about a 5 minute trip, I have worked for UPS for 10 years, I am a vested employee, surely they could have sent someone to my house to check. What if I was in the hospital or something else happened? They can simply just fire me?

 

[drewed]

UPS isnt responsible to baby sit employees during a layoff.

 

[User Name]

Why if he was laid off from eam driving couldnt he worked another shift instead of being laid off. If you are laid off you dont have insurance do you? I probably would found out these things before i went on a two week vacation.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I have to agree that I would have either held off on the vacation or been very hesitant to go knowing that there may be a possibility I would be called back to work. I would think that he will get his job back on the basis of the miscommunication from UPS but I would not push for back pay or anything beyond getting his job back. Lesson learned.

 

[helenofcalifornia]

If you had someone in management tell you that you wouldn't be working until the end of October at the earliest, you may have a case. Try and get that management person to put what he told you in writing, or before another higher up management person. (Good luck with that!)

Have you been a problem child with UPS before all this happened? I would have thought too, that further attempts to contact you would have been made before they fired you. Didn't you have friends at work who could tell UPS where you were?

 

[Char]

Why if he was laid off from eam driving couldnt he worked another shift instead of being laid off. If you are laid off you dont have insurance do you? I probably would found out these things before i went on a two week vacation.

Who said anything about a two week vacation. I have a second job. I sell life insurance, annuities, and burial insurance. had to get retrained in order to be able to sell all life products. Before I was only selling burial insurance, not enough to cover an extended layoff. (By the way, if you live in Arizona or have family that do who is exposed to alot of risk in the stock market or has money in savings that is only making %2 or %4 I got an extremely safe annuity with great MINIMUM GUARANTEED growth.

I don't care if they pay me I just want my job back.

Besides, when I quit it will be handled way better than just a job abandonment.

Someone has asked if I were a problem employee at UPS. My management team do not like me. I am a part time EAM driver. They always want me to stick around to do execption air 1030 & 1200 air. I do it when I can but but the weeks preceeding the layoff I was doing it less and less till finally the week they laid me off I refused to do it altogether. I am not obligated to take exception air and $13.00/hr it isn't worth it. I would also get pissed because I am the only part time EAM driver in my center, the other guys that do EAM are all combo or full time people and on the days I would stick around to help the full time people would get back before me even if it wasn't a full 8 hour day for them. They get to have 40 hour weeks for vacation whereas I only get 20 and it is the same for all the other paid days. It just occured to me that they probably saw the opportunity to dump me in retaliation for not staying to do exception air.

I have heard that when I do take eception air I am supposed to get an extra $.50/hr which I have never gotten before. Anyone know for sure if this is true?

 

[gandydancer]

Who said anything about a two week vacation?...

You did. 10 days, actually. "I went out of town from 10/06/08 to 10/10/08 on the 10/09/08 I was home for a my son's baptism then my family left town again from 10/12/08 to 10/21/08." 10/12 to 10/21 is 10 days. The 10/10 and 10/09 dates doesn't make sense (how can you be home 10/9 and still out of town 10/10?) , and the implication that you were home 10/10 and 10/11 seems clear but is contradicted later when you write "I left town the morning of 10/06 and I returned 10/20 late evening..."

You say, "They said they informed me on 10/03/08...", presumably only by phone call or you would have had a certified mail delivery attempt 10/4, given how close you live. So at some point they had to send both you an the union, if your supplement is like mine and apparently the Atlantic, a certified letter recalling you from layoff. Not in time to reach at least your family by 10/11??? Then on 10/16 they sent you and the union a termination letter, again by certified mail. By the time you returned late 10/20 there should have been six yellow slips in your mailbox.

Anyway, according to my supplement (NorCal) I can be terminated if I don't respond to the certified mail recall within 72 hours, exclusive of SaSu/Holidays. Not knowing this is your fault.

On the other hand, if they didn't mail the union as well, that would void their right to terminate you. And the initial layoff by telling you not to come in the next day was probably improper. You have 45 days to grieve, so make sure your local amends its grievance pronto to raise that point. My supplement reads, "All employees are to be given written notice or notice posted on a bulletin board of impending layoffs not later than the beginning of the last shift worked..."

So, as I asked in my first post in this thread, WHAT CONTRACTS ARE YOU UNDER? And clarify for us why your first post was so confusing. Telling contradictory stories makes you sound like a weasel. Or, maybe you have a disorganized mind, and I should sympathize with the company for wanting to get rid of you. But the improper layoff should be enough to get your job back, and back pay too.