Ok I need some guidance guys! It’s kinda long but I promise it’s all relevant.
I was employed by, for legal reasons let’s call them employer #1. I am part of a labor union so I got the job through them. I started 8/3 and was told we were making more than everyone else on this project. Not to discuss wages at ALL. Like I was told not to talk about wages like literally 5 times. All the other employees from other companies were making way less than us and they have been asking for months for better wages. These are my union brothers and sisters who have been BEGGING for months now. People I work with for my whole career. Now this is my first day mind you, we are going through training and a few people I know come up and ask me what I’m making. I don’t tell them anything but my bosses see me talking to them. We go home and the next day, my second day on the job, I get told around 2pm I’m being fired.
Now there are multiple companies I work for. The client, let’s call them employer #4. The main contractor #3, their sub-contractor #2 and my direct contact employer #1. I work for all 4 of these companies just under different names. I have to go through their hiring in process and sign their paperwork.
Back to the present, they tell me I’m being fired for “working for employer #3 before and I was fired so it’s a conflict of interest and I can’t be onsite or work for anyone they sub to”. Now I have NEVER worked for this contractor before. I have never worked for any of these contractors before. I tell them this. They basically say oh well, we are still firing you. They give me a pre-loaded debt card refuse to give me a check stub or my discharge papers. I leave. Now I’m in a at Will state but that doesn’t apply to me because I’m employed through a union. We don’t do “At will”. They have to have a legitimate reason to fire me. I get escorted out by security. Get told they will “figure it out”. Yeah right.
I get home get a call from some guy from company #1 saying I was fired for talking about wages and for being out of my union hall. They didn’t want us (my union) out there and wanted their own people. Someone from my union called employer #4 and said I was talking about wages and they were pissed at me for talking to people. They wanted me off site by any means, to just come up with something.
I get a text next day from management that I’m being fired for “performance issues”. Mind you I was there for like a day and a half… And now it has nothing to do with the reason yesterday. Now they email a copy of my termination papers to my union and you can see where they used whiteout on the paper work and wrote a complete different reason than what they previously wrote. It’s SLOPPY.
It’s been over a month and they are refusing to make statements and participate in my unions grievance policy. Like they flat out refuse to let him come on site and they even moved everyone in that company to night shift the day he was supposed to come up there to get statements just to dodge him.
Now I already called the NLRB and they have 3 charges but they said I can get a lawyer because they can only do back wages. I’m having a hard time describing to attorneys what exactly it is I need. Like I had to pawn stuff and they walked me out in the middle of break for everyone to see. People I have to work with for the rest of my career. Back wages ain’t gonna fix that. So, what do I do? What do I tell these lawyers?
TLDR; fired for talking about wages, employers lied about why I was fired and falsified termination papers.