A recent report from RH Reality Check says that Hobby Lobby fired an employee for being pregnant. The employee could have been fired after she asked for time off to give birth to the child, according to Salon. The firing came even after the employee was reassured her job would still be there when she came back following maternity leave.
The employee, Felicia Allen, said, “They didn’t even want me to come back after having my baby, to provide for it.”
She began her career at Hobby Lobby as a cashier working part-time in 2010. Not long after she began working at the chain, she found out she was pregnant. She asked her supervisor if her job was safe even though she had not been employed too long at the store to qualify for the Family Medical Leave Act.
“I asked her would I lose my job due to me being four months and only having five months before I have my child. She told me ‘no,’” Allen told RH Reality Check. “I felt like everything was OK. I had talked to my boss, and she let me know that everything would be OK. I would still have my job.”
Allen was fired when she was ready to leave to give birth. She said that she even attempted to return three weeks after giving birth, but was not rehired like she was promised she would be.
“I was like, I can’t get fired,” Allen said. “She can’t terminate me because I have to go have my child. I started asking everybody on the job, ‘Can they do this?’ And even the assistant manager who had just got hired [said,] ‘No, that’s not right.’”
Allen has also claimed that Hobby Lobby fought her on her unemployment benefits. She claims Hobby Lobby told her she could have taken personal leave, but opted not to do so. Allen won her claim, but feels she was discriminated against due to her pregnancy.
Allen cannot sue the store either because she signed paperwork that all employees sign there that says they will not sue the franchise.