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

tamms4

6/ 5/09 4:20pm

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

Megan Oltman

6/ 5/09 6:10pm

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

6/ 6/09 7:01am

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