Perhaps I went a little too far, but I’ve gotten quite fed up.
I work in blood banking and have always really loved the company as a whole, but I moved from the collections side to the laboratory side about 9 months ago to better accommodate my graduate school schedule. Boy was that a culture shock! Who knew different departments of the same company could be run so differently? For the most part, it’s my new manager driving me up the wall.
In the last month he has taken away all of our chairs (to optimize production) despite my shift coworker being six months pregnant, and said he would not be providing me a workstation fan I requested after I fainted mid-process (yes I have started a formal ADA request, but those take a while and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do that). These are all shitty, but perfectly legal, so I kept my mouth shut.
That changed today. For some background, blood products are required by the FDA to remain in certain temperature ranges, so all of our fridges and freezers have continuous temperature monitors in them and alert us if they go out of range. Our manager told us that we would be required to bring the on-call phone with us and answer any temperature alerts on our lunch breaks (30 minutes unpaid). I responded to him personally and linked him to the department of labor FLSA fact sheet which states that employees must be paid for their time if they are not fully relieved of their duties. He sent back an obnoxious response saying we could discuss this in person when he is there next week, but this is the expectation he is setting and that other departments have to do this as well. He also insinuated that my response was showing I cared more about myself than the safety of our products and patients (which he also does anytime someone makes any kind of good faith error). I thought about responding saying that I was fairly certain those departments have paid lunches, and if they don’t they have much bigger problems to consider, but I just said “fuck it” and filed a formal complaint with the department of labor.
It was shockingly easy with there even being an online form option. I decided to use the connections I have and place my complaint over the phone with my friend’s husband who works in the DOL. I’m unsure as of yet if I’ll also make a complaint with HR, or just see what happens since I’m looking for a new job anyway. All I know is I’m sure as hell not taking that phone on my unpaid lunch break. To all my fellow hourly wage earners don’t forget, your labor = your right to compensation.