Asking for a friend, also first time posting on Reddit in general, also long time fan of the page. Anyways, my friends mom works for a plumbing company. She recently had to take time off from a work accident and got workers comp for the time off. She’s ready to return to work, but her boss says there’s “no work” for her right now. From what we can tell, she works hourly so if she doesn’t work she doesn’t get paid. She’s been told by coworkers that the company has plenty of work, so we think this is a result of her taking the workers comp time off. We haven’t been able to locate her contract with the employer. Legal action is not really an option and we wouldn’t even know where to start with that. IMO if she goes to her boss and can state some law or federal guidelines around this it will be enough for her boss to stop messing around.
TLDR: does an employer need to tell an employee they are laid off if they aren’t giving them hourly work? Does an employer need to fire/lay off an employee if they don’t have enough work for them to pay their workforce?
Thanks for the help.