Doing What is Right Part I: Due Process and the Presumption of Innocence

How long must an employee suffer and be punished for making a valid, sustained complaint against a supervisory employee?

I recently spoke with a long-term employee of the county who has been put through the ringer for no fault of his own.  He has endured a financial punishment and been stigmatized at his work site. He and his family have been targeted and hurt financially and this punishment continues to this day. This is NOT right, this will get resolved.

And sadly-- based upon what I have seen thus far, and what has been presented to me thus far from this employee combined with information I have received independently from other sources--it appears as though the blackballing of this employee was done for reasons that appear to be retaliatory in nature.

This individual works in a job of high stress and tremendous importance.  As a matter of fact--we have a hard time hiring enough employee's with the certifications and abilities possessed by this individual.  In spite of this, the hours of work for this individual have been cut, along with his OT hours which in prior years accounted for a large portion of this employee's pay.

From what I have gathered, this individual has worked for us for the last 8 years and has NO adverse employment issues on his record prior to this whole episode erupting like a volcano last spring.  No counseling, no adverse or deficient evaluations, no complaints filed against him.

He was just an employee doing a good and necessary job for his employer-the citizens of Escambia County.

That all changed on May 1st of this year when this individual lodged a job site harassment complaint against a supervisory employee above him on the org chart.  According to this individual, with whom I have now spoken numerous times-"Suddenly the environment became toxic, and I felt I was being singled out because I stood up for myself and for those under me with whom I work."

Within two weeks, our HR department notified the supervisor about the complaint and named the junior employee who made the complaint.   A report was generated by HR that all but affirmed the facts outlined by this employee in his initial complaint, and this report had bullet point recommendations intended for the supervisory employee who was named in the complaint--in order to correct the workplace issues and improve the atmosphere.

It should have ended there, but it didn't.

The HR investigation ended and two days later, on May 16th, and the report was never provided to either of the employees. It was shelved for the past 4 1/2 months. the supervisory employee who was the target of the initial complaint subsequently filed a formal, state-level complaint


against the junior employee who filed his complaint May 1st.  I'm told HR and leadership at the administrator's office were not told of this complaint at the time it was filed to the state.  Major, serious allegations were made against this junior employee.  Serious, potentially career ending allegations.  (The county has rightly provided expert legal counsel for this junior employee because of the allegations made against him AFTER he made a validated workplace harassment complaint against a supervisory employee.)

A subsequent, independent review of the allegations made against this junior employee by the supervisory senior employee were not validated. The county hired a highly-qualified, expert-level independent specialist in the field and this expert submitted a detailed evaluation of the charges made --and this report apparently vindicated our employee of any improper conduct or violations of County procedures and/or protocols.  I have a copy of this and I read it all--page by page, centimeter by centimeter.  The report supports the actions and decision making of our junior employee and refutes the complaint (s) of the supervisory-level employee.  This report has been submitted to the state, where the investigation continues.

But the submission of this report to the county HR Department-together with all the other facts of the matter that have been established now-- should have halted the entire, ugly, continuing episode of punishment this junior employee is receiving.  This employee should have been allowed to resume his normal shifts and OT right then--pending the final disposition of a state complaint that all indications seem to portray as being meritless.  And this all happened MONTHS AGO--in early Summer!

But since this time, the junior employee in question has been further punished by being blocked from working OT or taking extra shifts; he has not been permitted to resume normal duties.  He has been prevented from earning the level of income he has earned in the past.  This has continued on since June.

"I don't want to sue the county and I won't--I just want to get back out there and work, and this whole thing has really damaged me financially--and continues to sting." he told me in a recent conversation.  "I calculated how many overtime shifts I have averaged the last 3 years to be around 45 shifts which are 12 hours each. So I just divided that in half since it has been 6 months - 45/2 = 22.5 shifts which are 12 hours long each = 270 hours of overtime. My base pay rate is $18.52 times 1.5 for overtime = $27.78 an hour. 270x27.78 = $7,500.60 dollars. This is how much income I have missed out on due to XXXXXXXXXXXXX's relataliatory behavior towards me. This has caused me to fall behind on not only my mortgage but also my car payments."

The appearance to me based upon what I have read and seen is that the allegations made against our employee by his supervisory employee have the appearance of being retaliatory.  At a minimum, it seems only fair and right for this employee to be returned to full duty status immediately, and reimbursed for his lost wages---and in the UNLIKELY event the apparently retaliatory state level complaint against him is affirmed----appropriate action could be taken upon receipt of that finding from the state at that time.  But meanwhile--in America and under Escambia County policy we are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty and we are supposed to afford the employees due process.

I do not blame this on our current administrator, Janice Gilley.  She inherited a lot of challenging and troubling issues--many of which I know she is working on correcting. Much of this happened before she arrived.  I believe she will look into the issue I am describing in this blog post because in this instance I feel we can do better.  I will be requesting that this individual be reinstated and reimbursed without further delay.

Given the circumstances, that will be us doing what is right.

We'll see how that works out.