My mom works at a retail store. She doesn't speak that much English, but enough to get by. So far, at work, they have been targeting her often. They always call her to tell her not to come to work anymore because they're “cutting hours”. For example, she was supposed to come into work on Thursday. On Wednesday at 10 pm she got a text in a group chat telling her “hey ___ we are cutting hours so please take the day off tomorrow”. They only sent her that. They didn't text anybody else in the group chat, just her.
Another weird incident was when my mom was scheduled to go into work on Saturday. Then one of her managers left her a voicemail on Friday to not come into work. This manager is not the same one that hired her. So she didn't show up because they told her not to. The next day she had work, the manager that hired her told her “why didn't you show up???” Then my mom explained that another manager called her to not show up.
ANOTHER time, my mom showed up to work, and they sent her home. They told her they had called her but she hadn't answered. They left a voicemail telling her to not show up to work. My mom was like ??? She didn't get a single call. They looked into what phone they had dialed to call my mom, IT WASN'T EVEN THE RIGHT NUMBER. The guy was like “my bad”. Then after this incident, the manager that hired my mom told her, next time this happens, where my mom shows up and they send her home, she should get paid for the entire shift anyway.
My mom applied to this job with open availability. Well, mostly, she just doesn't want to work on Sunday mornings because of church. They never call her into work. She gets put in the schedule like once/twice a week and on those two days, one of her manager calls the day before to tell her to not show up. Oh and on top of that they keep giving her work on Sunday morning.
Is it illegal to give work in the United States on Sunday if the worker specifically takes it off of their availability due to religion?
Is it normal that they keep targeting my mom, cutting her hours? My mom had a conversation with a few of her Spanish/English speaking coworkers and they were all wondering why she hasn't worked anymore.
The thing is, this retail job requires little English. My mom usually gets assigned to the fitting room, or to clean up the clothes lying around the store. She also knows basic English enough to have a conversation. But she doesn't know a lot.
It is wrong for them to keep doing that to her. It's humiliating. Plus it's very disrespectful towards her time. She can't plan out a solid schedule because they're so unpredictable, always telling her to not show up.
I am getting fed up and I want to show up to speak with them, especially because my mom can't defend herself well.
So some of my questions are…
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Is it illegal to schedule an employee, then ask them not to show up, constantly? (Every week they do this).
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Is there a minimum amount of hours they are required to give my mom by law?
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What can I do to help her?/What can she say/do?