So, recently at work, I got cross-trained from my normal job responsibilities (helping park cars, working a toll booth, on-foot parking lot attendant basically) to a driving position. This, normally, wouldn’t be concerning.
They’ve taken my 7 am – 3 pm shifts at my usual locations and responsibilities and swapped me, with no warning, to 6:15 pm to 2:45 am shifts. I know my health, I know my body, by the time I get to work, I’ll have been awake for 13 hours and the time bomb will be ticking for me becoming more and more sleep exhausted, driving a 5-ft wide van (with other human beings in it) along a 6-ft wide road with numerous obstacles. It’s an accident waiting to happen and I told management so. They told me that, unless I had a medical accommodation that corporate would accommodate, they wouldn’t be doing anything as training me to drive was too expensive.
That feels like some kind of violation of workplace safety and my rights, but I’m not well-versed enough to say exactly what and why (or if I’m simply just being too emotional after a rough talk with management, talking to a brick wall). I’d appreciate different perspectives on this, as management is urging me to use my sick time (extremely limited) to simply call out of the shifts rather than accommodate the safety concern.
Additional context: I even offered moving the shifts two hours earlier. I was told that was unreasonable. We have 900 people in our department, many of them having been trained to do this driving. It doesn’t have to be me.
EDIT: I’m in California, USA. They are asking me to drive, man a PA system, and a personal radio (announce which stops I’ve stopped at, where I am, etc) at the same time, all while driving 14 mph in very old trucks in extremely narrow roads, with lots of obstacles (some of which being people, some of which being architectural). I only have so much cognitive function while exhausted and the two hands, so manning all of that equipment is hard and feels very unsafe (while also transporting passengers, none of which having seatbelts).