[pegasus]

I checked with someone at a new client of mine that advocates for people with disabilities. She said that diabetics are covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you can fulfill the core tasks of your job, even with accommodations that they are required to make, they cannot legally fire you for being diabetic. You don't have to disclose to the employer; you do have to disclose to the insurer if there is insurance, because there may be pre-existing conditions clauses in the plan. I didn't ask about the insurer telling the employer, but I'm also fairly sure, as others here have said, that it would be a violation of HIPAA for them to disclose to the employer.

If anyone thinks they've been discriminated against about this, she says, they should talk to a lawyer who knows something about disability rights, which is probably a pretty small group but they exist.

Those group physicals sound godawful, Hammer. There's probably something illegal about them, but I haven't a clue what.

[Scrabblechick]

I know, I shuddered when I read Hammer's post about those physicals. I agree: there's got to be something illegal there. Maybe HIPAA violation, since others are privy to his medical information? I don't know. Something, for sure. And I thought I had to be careful. Wow.

[Hammer]

Oh yes, those group physicals are illegal. If you notice, when you go to a doctor, dentist or any health professional's office, they have various ways that they use for you to sign it to let them know you're there. Most places now have removable strips where you sign your name on the strip then the receptionist peels the strip off of the sheet so that the next person who signs in doesn't see your name. If they don't have that, they may have you approach the receptionist's window so she can see who you are, and the receptionist writes your name on a sheet on her desk, that way, it's kept private from other patients who come into the office.

This level of privacy is a result of the HIPAA regulations. The mere fact that having your name visible so that others might see it is a violation of the HIPAA laws. The reasoning is that if you go to say, an oncologist (cancer doctor) for treatment and you sign in on a clipboard (as most doctors offices did at one time), then hours later, if another patient came there and went to sign in and saw your name, they might know you and figure that you must have cancer too. The doctor could then be blamed for revealing your medical condition by allowing others to see your name at his office.

If just signing a clipboard is a privacy violation, then having to take a physical in front of fellow employees is a major violation. The problem is, when I went to complain, the person in charge of handling the complaint was a company stooge. If you lodged a complaint, they'd just throw it in the trash, and tell you they sent it to the proper government agency. You have no way of knowing if they filed it or not. There isn't anywhere you can complain to outside of this company stooge. There's no address or phone number that an employee can can go to with the government to lodge a complaint. The employee must go through the employer's agent.(the stooge) Believe me, I tried.

It was only through refusing to take a physical with others around, and threating a lawsuit that the company finally allowed me to take the physical in a private room.

When they first started forcing you take these physicals, they had so many employees to administer to that they hired an outside firm to do the physicals. The firm brought in a hospital van which contained all the necessary equipment to do the tests.(it was more like an RV.) The van was parked directly outside the building near an exit door. You would stop before you went out to the van and sit at a table where they had a technician hand you medical forms that you had to fill out, and urine test bottles. These forms and urine bottles were stacked in rows and were arranged by name. That means that each bottle and form had all your personal information already typed on it. You name, address, age, date of birth, social security number, everything. These bottles and forms were laid out on a table in plain sight of anyone who walked by....not to mention that this technician frequently left the table to go out to the van to talk to the workers there. Your personal info was left unattended. When I saw this, I picked up my forms and blacked out my personal info with a magic marker, and tore the label off the bottle.

It's no wonder identity theft is so easily to perpetrate.

[pegasus]

Originally Posted by Hammer

The problem is, when I went to complain, the person in charge of handling the complaint was a company stooge. If you lodged a complaint, they'd just throw it in the trash, and tell you they sent it to the proper government agency. You have no way of knowing if they filed it or not. There isn't anywhere you can complain to outside of this company stooge. There's no address or phone number that an employee can can go to with the government to lodge a complaint. The employee must go through the employer's agent.(the stooge) Believe me, I tried.

It was only through refusing to take a physical with others around, and threating a lawsuit that the company finally allowed me to take the physical in a private room.

I have contacts in both health care and labor advocacy organizations. If you want to look into this further, I'd be willing to do so. I'd need to know what state you're in to start with.

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by pegasus

I have contacts in both health care and labor advocacy organizations. If you want to look into this further, I'd be willing to do so. I'd need to know what state you're in to start with.

Thanks, but it's too late. The plant that I worked at shut down three years ago. The property has been sold, the buildings knocked down, and a new industrial park has been built there.

[pegasus]

Originally Posted by Hammer

Thanks, but it's too late. The plant that I worked at shut down three years ago. The property has been sold, the buildings knocked down, and a new industrial park has been built there.

Oh, man--outsourcing hits again? Hope you've managed to find a new, more amenable environment in which to earn a living.

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by pegasus

Oh, man--outsourcing hits again? Hope you've managed to find a new, more amenable environment in which to earn a living.

Actually, I'm still with the same company. They're an international company that has divisions all over the world. When they closed, they offered us a choice to either relocate or retire. I was going to retire, but the pension would be too small to live on, so I decided to relocate. I'm now waiting for them to tell me where to report to. I should know in a month or two. Where ever they send me is fine with me....well okay, except for China.

[RobiJo]

I don't hide it at work but I also never went out of my way and told them either. Generally speaking most do know because of vitrectomies I had last year. The teachers around me all know a lot more, and I read a book to my students during the first week of school. The rule is if I fall over whoever sits closest to the door runs to get 2 of the teachers near me. These teachers know to get me juice/regular pop asap and also have my husbands phone number.

There are 3 teachers at my school including me that are Type 1's and have pumps as well. 1 teaches in the other building, but the other is right down the hall. Either would be easily reached if I had a problem.

[pegasus]

Originally Posted by Hammer

Actually, I'm still with the same company. They're an international company that has divisions all over the world. When they closed, they offered us a choice to either relocate or retire. I was going to retire, but the pension would be too small to live on, so I decided to relocate. I'm now waiting for them to tell me where to report to. I should know in a month or two. Where ever they send me is fine with me....well okay, except for China.

They haven't reassigned you after 3 years? Wow. Well, hopefully they won't be trying any more group physicals wherever you end up.

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by pegasus

They haven't reassigned you after 3 years? Wow. Well, hopefully they won't be trying any more group physicals wherever you end up.

Yeah, I know three years is a long time to sit around and wait to hear from them. I'm hoping the physicals at the place they relocate me to isn't run by the same idiots that ran my old place. If they are, you'll probably hear about it in the news because I'll make a whole lot of noise.

It really bugged me if you had to go to the company "hospital" as they called it, if you had a problem. If you needed to see them because you cut yourself, or had a strain or whatever, you'd sign in on a clipboard outside the door to this hospital and then you'd sit in a chair outside the open door and wait to be called. When you were called you walked into the hospital and had a seat at a stainless steel table, which was close to the front door. Anything you said could be heard by anyone else who was waiting in the chairs out front.

To make matters worse, they would call the next patient in and he/she would sit next to you at this table and get examined right next to you. The nurses would take your medical file open it up, then lay it down on the table so both you and the other patient could see it. Sometimes they needed to take you to a back room to administer to you. When that happened, your medical file stayed on the table for anyone to read. They had employees medical files laying all over the place. Anyone could pick one up and walk out with it, and the nurses wouldn't even notice. I know because I did it once, just to see if anyone would say anything.(I brought it right back without opening it, and they still didn't say anything.)

I would have loved to see someone walk out with another person's medical file and make the person's medical condition public....especially if the person had something serious like aids. If this had happened, they would have closed down the hospital and fined the heck out of them...not to mention the lawsuits that would have been filed by the employee. Unfortunately, this is what it would take to get them to change their ways.

[pegasus]

Wow! That's gotta be a HIPAA violation. And there are probably other laws predating HIPAA that it violates. Like some part of the ADA, as my client said. I'm assuming this company is not unionized?

[Hammer]

Actually, the company is unionized, but the union doesn't seem to care that much about the employees. They just want you to pay your union dues, shut up and don't create waves.

[JediSkipdogg]

Originally Posted by Hammer

Actually, the company is unionized, but the union doesn't seem to care that much about the employees. They just want you to pay your union dues, shut up and don't create waves.

That's the way most unions are....

****Me goes and hides as he's in a union that is pointless as his employer finds ways to punish it's employees for being in a union that are 100% legal.

[Hammer]

Yes, the union does whatever the company wants, then turns around and tells you how hard they're working for you. Whenever an employee goes to the union for anything, their most used comment is, "Our hands are tied". Even if you research the union contract about a particular issue and show it to the union, the contract might indicate that you are right, but the union always comes back with, "Oh, we have a side agreement with the company on that issue." The side agreement always favors the company, not the employee. Plus, no one can ever produce a copy of this side agreement.

[pegasus]

Originally Posted by Hammer

Yes, the union does whatever the company wants, then turns around and tells you how hard they're working for you. Whenever an employee goes to the union for anything, their most used comment is, "Our hands are tied". Even if you research the union contract about a particular issue and show it to the union, the contract might indicate that you are right, but the union always comes back with, "Oh, we have a side agreement with the company on that issue." The side agreement always favors the company, not the employee. Plus, no one can ever produce a copy of this side agreement.

I've been involved with unions, and there's a few possible reasons for these responses: 1) labor law sucks in many ways (esp under the current US govmt, which has appointed a National Labor Relations Bd that has set us back about 30 years); 2) the union was set up by the company to do exactly what it's doing to the two of you; 3) it's a really crappy union.

The *idea*--and in some cases the reality--of unions is great: the employer has more power than the individual employee, so the employees get together to change that power imbalance. Making it work is the challenge.

The response to (2) above is, decertify the sweetheart union and get a real one, and to (3) is: get more involved and get new officers. If people you work with have similar problems, you've got an organizing committee. If one's gonna be working at the same place for a long time, the question is, which is worse: Submitting to the **** management hands out (and those group physicals come to mind) or submitting to what the crappy union hands out.

At least in the latter there's some semblance of recourse.