I was wondering, at my work they took away our stick time and now we just have PTO time,
I was wondering, at my work they took away our stick time and now we just have PTO time,which include vaction, personal and sick all rolled into one. If we run out we will only get three warning and then bumped to subs from 40 hours, no matter how long we've been there etc. Is there any thing I could do to help protect my job incase I would run out of time before I would earn my time. ( ihave to earn the time, so many hours per time I work)Tammy
Dear Tammy -
I want to make sure I understand the problem. You don't have sick time, you have one kind of paid time off, called PTO, which is for vacation, sick leave and personal days, and you have to accrue a certain number of days per days worked before you can use them. Is that right? Then the issue is that if you are out sick and you use more time than you have accrued, they will give you three warnings and then move you from a 40 hour per week schedule to being a substitute?
If I've got this straight, it seems to me there are a couple of things you could do. If you are missing work, or need to miss work, due to Migraines, and you can get your doctor to certify that you have a medical condition (Migraine disease) which requires you to miss work, and if your employer has 50 or more employees, you can apply for intermittent FMLA status. I will be posting an article about the FMLA on this site next week, but basically if you are granted the status you can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave out of every one year. Many Migraine sufferers use intermittent FMLA leave to take a day or half day off when they need it - you don't have to take the time all at once. Your employer can't fire or demote you for applying for or using FMLA.
The other thing you might do is to let your employer know you need accommodations for your disability (Migraine disease) under the ADA. You could request a modified schedule or some kind of comp time to make up for days off due to Migraines. The problem there is that although they do have to make some reasonable accommodation for you to make it possible for you to work on the same standing as people who don't have the disability, they can propose a different accommodation. See
Working with Migraines: Rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Good luck to you! Let us know how you make out.
- Megan
- Thank you for your input
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tamms4
Friday, June 05, 2009 at 04:20 PM
Megan Oltman
Friday, June 05, 2009 at 06:10 PM
Yes, unfortunately sometimes there isn't a way to accommodate around the need to be off work for our Migraines. Some people have asked for extra time off as an accommodation and gotten it, but your employer isn't obligated to grant that.
FMLA might be your best way to go.
- Megan
tamms4
Saturday, June 06, 2009 at 07:01 AM
Thank you Megan you were very helpful. I had used FMLA before in the past for an accident but didn't know I could use it for my migraines.
Tammy
Yes Megan, you have it right. I also work with devolopmently disabiled adults in their home. So also, if one of my ladies gets to go home, we also need to use our ownpto time to make up our 40 hours.
I read the article about the ADA, I am not to sure what kind of accomadations they could make for me at my job.
Tammy