More Employers Face Caregiver Related Suits

Today, more employees are filing lawsuits against their employers because they feel they have been discriminated against for having to take care of a child, disabled spouse or elder adult. We talked about this when we discussed the FMLA and Caregiving, but I cannot understand why there are companies out their that are just coldhearted in my opinion. The article in the USA Today tells readers it has been dubbed, "family responsibilities discrimination." It goes on to say that men are shown favoritism over women because of becoming a new mother. The sandwich generation is also feeling the effect of caregiving.

Lawsuits occur for three reasons according to the article: 1.) Denied leave or retaliated against for taking off to handle caregiving of child, which is covered under the FMLA, 2.) Employees were denied accomodations to provide care allege that employees are violating the federal law and 3.) gender discrimination. Employees have even went to the extent to hide caregiving duties. A few months back, my nephew was diagnosed with an illness and my sister has been taking off a lot of days for him to have routine checkups, therapy and for the hospital to run more test. My parents were telling her that she needs to provide documention because she has the right to take off because of the time she had saved up. Somebody recently told her she was going to get written up for the time she took off. I do not know if they feel as if she is lying but I have seen my nephew and I know for exact he is in a lot of pain.

More employers need to put themselves in that employee's shoes and then they will see the toll it takes on that individual. I want to make sure that I can provide the best of care for my mother, father or children if anything was ever to happen to them. With the demands of the employers being more stressful than ever, in my opinion it can make or break who has an aging loved one, disabled family member or planning to start family. The government wants to be in everybody's business, well this is the perfect time for them to get involved. Does this make you reconsider having a family? What would you do if you were faced with this situation? Do you think the government needs to get more involved?