Could I sue for mental health discrimination before I’m fired?
Hi everyone,
I work for a very well known UK-wide retail company and have worked there for almost 2 and a half years now. When I started the job, I let my manager know that I have multiple complex mental health conditions that fluctuate in severity and that I am managing as well as possible whilst awaiting psychotherapy. As far as I was aware, this meant that I should be allowed more sick days if they’re related to my long-term health condition. Nothing formal was put into place at this stage.
I don’t have the exact numbers right this second but an attendance meeting was held due to me having several days off as I was physically unwell as a result of my mental health being poor for several consecutive days leading to physical symptoms. Myself and my manager had a reasonable adjustments meeting and discussed what actions we could take to improve things at work - I said that I would need 2-4 consecutive days off each week rather than day on-day off pattern, and stepping back from more social elements of the role on days when I’m feeling particularly unwell. She wrote in the document ‘When possible, we will carry out these reasonable adjustments for OP’.
Since this meeting, I’m lucky if my reasonable adjustments are met at least one week out of each month. I have had to be signed off work once as I was overwhelmed with it and wasn’t being heard when I asked for fewer shifts at work and was scared to phone in sick due to the attendance meeting. As soon as I got back to work after being signed off, I was made to attend another meeting about absences. We reiterated the reasonable adjustments and my manager just said ‘I’m doing what I can’.
Since this I have been very careful with my absences and have only had one further day off due to having to go to hospital with severe abdominal pain that had me physically doubled over and struggling to walk. My area manager visited our store around a week or two after this final absence and came to verbally reprimand me due to not attending two disciplinary meetings with the regional manager and that I had been notified via email about the meeting and then the rescheduled meeting with plenty of notice. I had zero emails from the company and have manually searched every email in case it had been sent from an external source. I relayed this to her and she basically assumed I was lying and said that they definitely sent the emails and I’ve now been issued an official warning for non-attendance of the meetings that I had zero notification of. I did not receive a single email in relation to these meetings so how am I supposed to attend?? I also have not received any form of letter or email related to any official warning either. Area manager let me know I have 2 more sick days until I’m terminated. I have not called in sick since but have been told off at work multiple times for being ‘rude/snappy’ with colleagues as I’ve been overworked and my reasonable adjustments have barely ever been followed which is making it hard to manage emotionally whilst on shift.
To add: This same area manager has said disgusting things about mental health before - for instance she asked me what I was going to study at uni as I’d put in a student transfer request, I said psychology and she said ‘That’s what my daughter studied, you’ll have to learn about those ‘nutters who slice up their own arms’ - I have visible self-harm scars all over my arms. It was just myself and her in the room at the time but I let a colleague know about this after it happened as it upset me a lot, so there is some kind of evidence this happened if a colleagues verbal confirmation counts.
I just feel that the lack of understanding around mental health is not okay, and that if my reasonable adjustments had been followed correctly every week then I might be managing better at work, and that it’s unfair I should be scared of losing my job due to the negligence of my management.
Can anyone please let me know where I stand and any actions I could take, if any?
I have tried my best to make sense but please ask any questions if you need clarity or further info.