I'm Sick, I'm Afraid, & I think the system is against me. Advice? Lawyer Dopers?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I am a state employee in Tennessee.
Several months ago, after repairs on our heating/cooling systems, something started coming out of our air vents at work.

It may be insulation, or, as it is an old building, it may be asbestos.

The boss won’t do anything.

He never maintains the building. Sometimes, we’ve even gone for years without a janitor.

Some other employees went to building maintainence for the state with a sample. The boss there asked “Has anybody died yet?” When we said no, he threw the sample in the trash.

Nothing has been done.

My father is quietly asking a lawyer what to do, but State employees are forbidden to sue the state government. The Feds won’t act, due to State’s Rights issues.

My boss gets away with racist actions on the job, sexual discrimination, & anything else he wants. He has been with state govenment for almost 50 years. He is “connected”. His superior is a “pal” of his. This guy writes his own rules, & gets away with it.

I’m afraid to quit. There have been times when I have been unemployed for years, and the state gives job security in uncertain times.

And , I’m afraid of a fight I can’t win.

Advice?

Please help.

I’ve developed a nasty cough, though I don’t know why.

2

Hey, Bosda, have you thought about calling the local television stations “community affairs” type person. I don’t remember which station it is in the Nashville area-I think perhaps ABC is the one that runs it, but it’s got the guy that helps people deal with somewhat shady businesses.

Like [url=http://www.clarkhoward.com]Clark Howard** in Atlanta, is what I’m thinking of. (yeah, I know clark can be kind of a jerk, but he will usually get the job done.)
Otherwise…hmmm, do you have coworkers with the same problems? If so, can you all get together and do make a complaint to someone other than your boss’ boss? Or, your profile says you’re in the boro-could you talk to someone at the university and get them to test the stuff coming out and send the results to your boss, keeping a copy and sending and additional copy to someone outside your chain of command.

Let me think some more and do some searches and see what I can think of.

3

Nobody in town like that, right now. The guy left about a year ago.

Everybody at work is too demoralized. TN state government has very low morale, & nobody wants to go up against this guy.

4

It’s a blessing and a curse, ain’t it? You have job security, but then again so do all the idiots, too.

Don’t have much in the way of advice, but I know what you’re talking about, in a smaller sense. I used to work in the University of North Carolina system - the office where I worked had a carpet, which, judging by the ugly mustard color it must’ve originally been, has probably been there since the 60’s or 70’s. Another clue to the carpet’s age is that they won’t replace it because they suspect there’s asbestos under it.

After any major storm, the office would flood after big storms, because of poor drainage by the front door. The solution to drying things out? Fans. Antique fans. So the mold spores find a happy home in the carpet, where they settle down and raise families, year after year.

After one flood, I was stuck in the office all day for several days straight, and… well…

[TMI ALERT]
[sub]something um… fungal… started growing in my throat[/sub]
[/TMI ALERT]

The dentist I saw got very very worried that I had contracted a very nasty disease (isn’t that a symptom of AIDS, or am I wrong?), but I knew where it all came from, that awful carpet. Everyone complained about it, but nothing has ever been done.

Then there’s the staff I worked with - the evil psychotic (in)Human Resources manager, the guy who sits in his office and plays computer chess all day instead of working, the sexual harasser (who’s been reported once or twice), oh and the director who blithely ignores it all and refuses to make decisions about anything.

May you have better luck!

5

Do you really think it may be asbestos? May I email you privatly about this? No, I am not a personal injury lawyer, I just know a little about asbestos.

6

I hate to quote Ann Landers, but she has one litmus test for problem spouses, that works for jobs as well. Are you better off with him or without him?

7

I hope that you can at least get your cough checked out by a doctor. You don’t want to mess with respiratory diseases,
and environmental factors are certainly a risk.

As for crappy work scenes…I am the “new kid” in my office and things disappear from my cubicle every frigging day. I wonder if it’s the cockroaches scurrying about who take my stuff at night??? We haven’t had any janitorial service since forever. Yuck.

8

I think if you took a sample to your local University, they’d probably run test or whatever they do to find out if it is asbestos.
Then if it is send the results to the local newspaper, “power of the people” and a lawyer sounds like the best ammo in this situation.

9

how about a very detailed latter to the gov? preferably with as many sigs as possible

10

Mail away.

Oncle Bière–I am looking for another position in state government. But that takes time. And luck. I’ve put in for some local gov. positions, but not much luck so far.

11

If you think it’s asbestos, you can call OSHA.

http://www.osha.gov/as/opa/worker/index.html

According to this, your workplace should be covered - “Public sector workers in states that run their own OSHA programs are covered by those states. Public sector workers are not covered in states under federal OSHA jurisdiction.”

12

You mean to say that you don’t have a Labour Union whose legal folk are already paid by your subscriptions ?

13

What, even for breaking labour laws? What kind of fucked up system is that?

pan

14

In Arkansas, we have State Building Services that is responsible for all State buildings. If you have such a Division, you could contact them. Might get a little more attention. Maybe the Tennessee EPA or some other Department if that doesn’t work.

As far as if you get sick. Eventhough you can’t sue the State, The State should have a Claims Commission you could file a claim with and receive compensation for any illness, provided you can prove its work related.

15

You said it is against the law in TN to sue the state government, correct?

Read the regulations regarding this. It will most likely NOT say anything about suing individuals that happen to work in state government. That is the angle of attack in Florida in similiar cases. I know a lawyer that specializes in these “impossible” cases down here, who wins awards and settlements in the millions. For instance: The cattle and dairy industry used their lobby in the past to get a law through that makes it illegal for anyone to sue a cattle farmer due to an accident with an escaped cow. So, this farmer does not maintain his fences adequately, a bull escapes and someone dies hitting him on the road. Legally, you have no recourse against the farmer. So the lawyer sued the farmer’s INSURANCE COMPANY and won big. A ground breaking case here. Setting new legal precedent seems to be this guys’ personal hobby.

Email me if you are interested in talking to him, or have him refer a friend: oicu812@q3arena.com

16

I would be talking to my union rep so fast…!
That’s the sort of thing that they’re there for.
I can’t imagine that you don’t have a union. I work for state government in Vermont, and we have a great union. Actually, I’ve worked for three departments, and none of them would have stood for this.
I think that it’s horrible. I hope that you get a new position soon, too!

17

My mom is a public school teacher and had tons of health problems because her classroom is right above the “industrial arts” shop and the building was not properly ventilated. (They found out later that the exhaust from the shop was not piped outside–it was going into the building ventilation!) She wasn’t the only one who was sick–the teacher with the room next door was also having similar health problems.

They tried all kinds of things–asking nicely for the administration to look into the problem, asking not-so-nicely, threatening to call OSHA, etc. The two magic words turned out to be “WORKMAN’S COMP.” As soon as she mentioned to the administration that her doctor thought that her condition was clearly due to a bad work environment, and that she was planning to file for compensation for all the unpaid sick days she was forced to take, they were falling over themselves to identify and fix the problem. That very day they called the gas company and had a guy in with a detector of some sort to make sure there were no natural gas leaks–and this was after they complained about odors, fumes, and general bad air quality for a year.

IANAL, and I have no idea if this will work for you, but it might be worth considering: If you are sick, go to a doctor. If the doc tells you that your illness may be due to conditions at work, you could be entitled to compensation. Your workplace will quickly discover that paying out workman’s comp to all their employees is much more expensive than fixing the problem.

Disclaimer: this is the tactic that happened to work with the tight-fisted assholes my mother works for. Your tight-fisted assholes may vary.

Good luck.

18

In much of the US (and nearly all of the South), state employees are not allowed to unionize.

Or rather, we’re allowed to hold meetings, pay dues, and call it a union (freedom of assembly and all that), but legally forbidden to bargain collectively, which makes the union a bit useless. The best we’ve been able to do at my university is have a nice friendly march on the administrative building, absolutely NOT a demonstration in any sense of the word, no ma’am, just here to have a friendly chat about the fact that we haven’t had a pay raise in six years, and we have high hopes that you will see things our way because if you don’t we can’t do anything about it…

It’s insane.

19

The guy we took our complaint to is in charge of our building maintainace and our OSHA equivalent.

It’s like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

In Tennessee state government, we have a bunch of 70 year olds as a bitter & hostile middle management class. Many of them are redneck jerks who don’t believe in things like occupational health hazards. They don’t believe they exist, either because of ignorance, arrogance {“I know it all 'cause I been in my job 20 years”}, apathy, or a desire to suck-up to their bosses. Tennesse is in the middle of a budget crisis, and the state legislature is playing “let’s pretend the $100 million + deficit can be cured by cutting the fat”. Like cleanups & wages & insurance.
I went to the Doctor today, & he said it was allergies, compounded by prolonged illnesses. I’ve been sick several times this year, injured in a car accident, & the stress I’ve been under from family troubles hasn’t helped any, either.

I’ve got a prescription for an inhaler.

20

I hope this doesn’t come across as self intrest but…

I work at a environmental lab and I have to say “Take a sample and get it tested” It shouldn’t cost very much. I’m sure that you can find a local lab that will do it for under $50. If not, well I can find a lab up here that will. (Sending it to Seattle for testing seems a bit much, but if that is what it takes…) I think when I’ve subbed out asbestos samples they’ve charged me ~$15-20.

If you spend the money and get it checked you will either find out that it is not asbestos and feel better; or you will find that it is and know that sometime must be done. And you will have a lab report as proof.

Look in your yellow pages under asbestos and you should find a number of labs, I just did and saw about a dozen.