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.
Ronald Clay Braxton
I was marked off to FMLA and fired me for 15 days back in 2015 had a lawsuit going but never pursued it cause I didn’t want that big target on my back
Susan Privette
Every railroad is doing this. Unions used to back up employees but now rarely fight for rights. I say the only way we are going to be heard is by strike. You take away that right n we have nothing that fights for us anymore. These companies are making record profits by walking on sick, fired, suspended, n DEAD employees!!
Mike
CSX is not the only class 1 rr doing these things.. the big orange is just as guilty. They do the exact same thing with inflated hour usage and being punished by not earning your points back if fmla used or losing multiple days of guarantee if you use a single fmla lay off. I hope csx loses this case along with big $ and then lawyers start coming for the other class 1s. The higher ups that come up with these BS policies should have to live by them.
JB
I was wrongfully terminated on October 30th of 2021 by The Belt Railway Co. Of Chicago which is owned by all the Class A Railroads including CSX, Union Pacific and more…I was terminated for 5 Sick Days in the 3rd quarter of 2021 in which the company lied and said I didn’t turn in my doctors documents excusing me from work in the amount of time that we are allowed in which they said was suppose to be 15 days from each day I was off sick, but yet we had a policy in place that said clearly 15 days from the day we were notified of any questionable absences from a certified Attendance Advisory letter in which they had always informed us through for over 20 years but they intentionally didn’t send me a Attendance Advisory letter this time in order to stick with the story of me being too late and even tho I turned in all proper documents excusing me immediately after being informed that I was being forced into investigation they still wouldn’t except my doctors notes and terminated me with a clean record of no discipline, no suspensions, no time over my head or anything that would justify a termination for 5 sick days and too late with documents from a 20 Year employee! In addition to this after having to wait for 2 years in 2023 they admitted in my arbitration that they actually changed the policy after they terminated me to say that documents were to be turned in 15 days from each day off and that I was right about it saying 15 days from receipt of an Attendance Advisory Letter but they lied and said it meant what they said it meant, they also lied and said that I had a verbal agreement for 30 days over my head that they placed in my file after my termination that never existed, there’s no such thing as a verbal agreement with the employer, they demand a signature of agreement for any such disciplinary offer or else you would be terminated for being insubordinate and not signing the document for their proper way of having a discipline record on an employee, all employees with disciplinary records had signed signature of agreed discipline and no such thing as a verbal agreement! But somehow this particular Arbitraitor excepted everything thing the employer said against me without any proper documentation to prove and yet my union and myself had all documentation showing how these false accusations were just outrageously untrue! But yet I found myself in loss of a career that I dedicated my services to for 20 years with no back pay and not even my job offered back to me as an employee with no discipline record not even a suspension before termination.
Ryne
Other class ones are doing this as well. Unfortunately our union threw FMLA people under the bus in regards to using days on guaranteed extra boards. I doubt any of the National people gives a rats ass about us.
Dusty Rhodes
BNSF does this all day, I was fired after 17 years service for getting by a red board in kansas city, Mo. But what they won’t say is they fired me for Fmla usage, still don’t have my job back after 4 years
Jim
Jim
I was terminated in 2018 from Jacksonville CSX for using my FMLA. I tried to fight it at that time but was unsuccessful.
James Scott Powers
FMLA was a monster that CSX created. When they came out with absenteeism policies that wouldn’t even excuse Dr. notes. You could literally be stabbed, go to the ER and get a note, but still have points assessed to you. The only recourse was FMLA.