Time to add Del Taco to the ever-growing list of fast food employers who did truly horrific shit to their employees, it looks like.
A Gresham, Oregon Del Taco is being sued by a former employee to the tune of $242,000, who alleges she was fired several months after becoming pregnant. Your initial reaction to this might be "well, she can't prove anything/that sounds like hearsay." Ohhhh, just you wait:
According to the suit, Melesio-Rojas had worked for Del Taco Gresham since 2005, and had most recently held a "shift lead" position, making $10.55 an hour. In fall 2013, the restaurant's general managers announced at a staff meeting that shift leads weren't allowed to become pregnant because "they needed to be present and available at any time in order to perform their duties," according to the suit.
After she became visibly pregnant, Melesio-Rojas was then fired, allegedly because "a customer complained that he did not receive all of his food." Sure, 'cause that sounds like a valid reason to fire a manager.
It's important to note that federal law prohibits most types of employers (but not all, because this is America and we're fucking awful about workers' rights) from firing employees for being pregnant. The Family and Medical Leave Act (aka The Probably Pretty High on Conservatives' List to Destroy Act) supposedly guarantees employees the right to take 12 weeks leave due to pregnancy (unpaid, of course, because 'Murica). The reality we both know is that corporations, being inherently sociopathic entities, will find any way around laws that benefit workers, and our corrupt court system and broken Supreme Court will find any possible excuse to take the employer's side. So that's fun.
You might be wondering why I seem to be so angry at America right now. I was just in Canada for four days and got to actually find out firsthand details about how their health care system works, and that every fucking drawback idiot Americans try to foist on it is complete bullshit. So yeah. Now that I'm back in the US, I'm angry.