Employee won Grievance Hearing

maryfmurray

I'll try to make this short, in the middle of January, one of our program directors terminated an employee for what they thought was unruly behavior. This employee filed a grievance with our board and the DOL for wrongful termination and wished to be reinstated. The grievance committee met just the other night and decided the employee was in the right and should be rehired back into their original position. My question is how do we pay this employee? Do we now go back to the date the employee was terminated and reinstate as of that date or do we use the reinstatement date of April when our board made the final decision? No one in our agency has ever dealt with this type of situation before and I want to benefit the agency and the employee the best way I can. Has anyone had a similiar situation or suggestion on how to handle? Any help will be gladly accepted..

Bizee1

Did the ee file for back-pay with the DOL? If so, you need to go back to the actual term date in Jan and calculate the earnings for this person, which could be more difficult if they are non-exempt, hourly. In that case, you will have to calculate *approximate* hours based on the ee's history. You should also contact the board and ask them for direction.
If on the other hand DOL has not contacted you regarding back pay for this person, the above is moot. It doesn't seem appropriate to me that this has been dropped into your lap without specific direction on how to approach her/his pay. Take the burden off your shoulders and go back to the decision-makers regarding this issue.

Crout

What did the EE want from the DOL? And which DOL...State or Federal? The only context that I know of for "wrongful termination" is discrimination of a protected class and that falls under the EEOC. In regard to back pay, I think that the concept of "making whole" applies here. In Labor Relations, to make an employee "whole" is to make up for ALL lost wages and benefits due to the termination, so the date of back-pay would be from the date of termination.