"Woman: I was fired because I have cancer"

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2284970,CST-NWS-eeoc18.article

Woman: I was fired because I have cancer
Claims Oakton Community College violated disability law
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May 18, 2010
By MONIFA THOMAS Staff Reporter/mjthomas@suntimes.com

Margaret Walsh says she thought she was doing the right thing last year when she told her supervisor at Oakton Community College that she had been diagnosed with cancer. Now, the former employee of the college's Business Institute believes her illness is the reason she was fired from her job after less than a year.

"I was very upfront with them from the beginning," said Walsh, 54, of Jefferson Park. "I didn't think in my wildest dreams that they would turn that around and terminate me."
» Click to enlarge image
Marge Walsh, with her husband, Don, at their Chicago home Thursday, says she was fired by Oakton Community College becaues she has cancer. She has filed a discrimination charge with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
(John J. Kim/Sun-Times)

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Check out Public Law 110-325 Signed into law September 25, 2008

https://njcourts.judiciary.state.nj.us/web0/legis/110-325_Law.pdf


Walsh has filed a discrimination charge with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She claims Oakton violated the federal Americans With Disabilities Act by not providing reasonable accomodation for her illness.

An EEOC spokesman said the agency would not comment until a decision is made whether to take legal action. Oakton spokesman Bill Paige declined to comment.

Walsh was senior manager of the Des Plaines school's Business Institute when she was diagnosed with advanced cancer of the ovaries and abdomen in February 2009. The college approved Walsh for an unpaid leave, which ended in May 2009, when she returned to work part time, according to documents Walsh provided to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Less than a month later, Walsh said, her supervisor told her she would have to go back to working full time. Walsh said she did so, against medical advice, until early June, when she became seriously ill. She said she took another unpaid leave for treatment, during which she received a termination letter from the college.

The June 25 letter cites "the unfortunate timing and length of your need to be out of work while serving in a probationary status" as the basis for the termination.

New employees at Oakton are considered probationary employees for 65 days, according to Paige. Walsh was hired in November 2008, but her time on unpaid leave didn't count toward that total.

Walsh said her probationary status was extended by 20 days. Oakton's employee contract allows such an extension, but Walsh thinks it was a way "to get rid of me because I had cancer."

The Americans With Disabilities Act requires employers to make "reasonable accomodation" for workers with disabilities unless doing so would cause undue hardship for the company.

Such accomodations include allowing an employee to work part-time or reassigning them to another job with comparable pay, according to Karen Ward, corporate counsel for Equip for Equality, an advocacy group for the disabled. Cancer qualifies as a disability under federal law when it or its side effects limit major life activities. Last year, the EEOC received more than 400 complaints of cancer discrimination -- about 3 percent of all ADA claims.

Ward, who isn't involved in Walsh's case, said an employer canceling a disability accomodation "without any reassessment or notice, in general that sort of raises a red flag."

Almost a year after her firing, Walsh said she and her husband, Don, a retired Chicago paramedic, are struggling to stay in their home while paying for her health insurance through COBRA. In January, she learned that her cancer had spread.

"Our whole life has just been turned upside-down, because we weren't planning on me losing my job. I was planning on working," Walsh said. "It's like kicking a dog when it's down."
Woman: I was fired because I have cancer
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Sometimes I think the world in which we live is really just one huge piece of shit.

I'm glad this made the newspapers.

Yeah, it's unfortunate she got cancer now, instead of some other time.

Whatever happened to compassion? When I had a new employee in my department diagnosed with breast cancer I granted her as much paid time off as she needed, arranged for her to work at home when she was able, and welcomed her back to the team when she had sufficiently recovered.

No wonder they fired me.

Even after we get rid of that legacy¹ of the plantationpaternalism, employers will be tempted to discriminate on the basis of whatever they can find out about you. When you can't carry on normally anymore because of illness --look out. However, keeping employers in between you and your doctor, which is where they are now, typically with full access to your health records, gives them a power that many simply can't resist using and abusing in spite of any laws. As for how frequently things like this happen, that's difficult to estimate: most employers know to be much more subtle than her employer was. They can let you go, or run you off, without stupidly handing you a letter that says, in so many words, "We think you'll be sick a lot".

1. First we must elect a slate of real Democrats, not corporatists.