A federal class action lawsuit alleges that Class 1 railroad CSX wrongly discouraged workers from taking leave under the Family Medical Leave Act and retaliated against workers who used the leave.
The complaint, filed last Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, alleges that CSX inflated the amount of time employees were charged for FMLA leave, punished them for taking the leave, and terminated or suspended over 100 employees since 2017 on the allegation that they took FMLA leave fraudulently.
U.S. Department of Labor regulations generally require employers to account for FMLA leave using the shortest period of time that they use to account for other forms of leave. The complaint alleges that CSX, however, accounts for FMLA leave by the day instead of by the hour. So, for example, if an employee takes FMLA leave for four hours from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., CSX calculates the leave as two days instead of four hours, according to the lawsuit.
Beginning in 2015, CSX implemented an attendance policy that gives negative points for absences but allows employees to remove those points through subsequent uninterrupted attendance over a specified period of time, according to the complaint. It alleges that employees who take FMLA leave during the remediation period are deemed ineligible to reduce their points, meaning employees who have taken FMLA leave are treated less favorably than those who have not.
The suit also alleges that CSX’s allegations of fraud by employees were baseless and that workers provided evidence for their entitlement to FMLA leave but were terminated or suspended anyway.
Plaintiffs listed in the complaint are Brian Click, Harvey Ferran, Nicholas Ingrodi, Brad Jackson, Jeremy Likes, Chris Straight and Antoine Thompson, representing themselves and others in similar situations.
According to the complaint, all of the plaintiffs suffer from serious health conditions covered under FMLA. Click, Ingrodi and Jackson were each fired after CSX accused them of abusing FMLA leave in regard to their health conditions. Thompson, Straight and Likes were each suspended for five days without pay after being accused of abusing FMLA leave. Ferran was suspended 32 days.
Nicholas Thompson of Casey Jones Law Firm represents the plaintiffs.
“Time and time again, CSX has demonstrated that profit is what matters to it,” Thompson said in an email to FreightWaves. “CSX will jeopardize the public’s safety if it thinks that will increase profit. CSX will ignore its obligations to its customers if it thinks that will increase its profit. And CSX will abuse its employees if it thinks that will increase its profit. This includes by getting rid of them if they dare get sick. If they need time off to care for themselves or their loved ones, CSX will fire an employee, no matter how long they have loyally served it. CSX’s actions violate the law and, perhaps more importantly, common decency.”
FreightWaves reached out to CSX for comment, but the company said it does not comment on pending litigation.
Kevin M
Why don’t you ask the people that actually work with them (like myself) and watch the nonstop abuse that goes on with it. Also look at how often and when they are take the time. Often times many of us affected feel it’s questionable as to the timing and patterns. The work that is often missed is not the trains that others care to work either but are forced to so as to cover their fellow employees. I completely understand those that need it should get it. Many do I am sure at times. But long before this option of time-off came about the retired employees somehow protected the work without it. We were all told the railroad works 24/7 it wasn’t a surprise. I am affected daily by those that use FMLA. It seems more times then not when certain trains are about to get ordered (the work nobody cares to do because it’s long or a pain in the ass) those that have the FMLA can circumvent call procedure and mark off to miss the work. Amazingly enough on weekends and holidays also (shocker). I say bravo that it is being finally addressed. Stop drawing conclusions about this issue and stop making martyrs out of those that abuse the system. There are MANY. They talk freely about it in the crew rooms or on the locomotives. Is anyone surprised that something like this gets abused??!!!! Give me a break. The rest of us that don’t have FMLA have to constantly cover those that do. It’s tedious.
Big Boss Man
Typical union crybabies. Want the money but not the work.
James carter
Most of these asshats deserve to be fired for abusing fmla. Pattern layoffs before or after rest days or vacation days, weekends, holidays etc. The rest of us have to fill on for these douce canoes. Fire their sorry useless asses and hire people who arent afraid to work.
Nmad conductor
I understand the whole fmla issue and for the non abusers of it I agree something should be done but can I ask why is it that most of the employees in my yard only use it for Friday threw Monday off or they only work 1 day a month in return because of this abuse they have taken most of our road work away from us we have lost yard jobs which hurts my pocket the Friday Monday leave act should be handled appropriately but if you have a condition and its not only on the weekends that it exists then you should be fine without consequences I know this will make most mad and im sorry we are supposed to be brothers and sisters instead we are against eachother and screwing the person next to us be better people