Bobbie Harmon is exactly the type of woman that Republican
lawmakers were hoping to avoid this session.
When her teenage daughter twice tried to kill herself
last year, Harmon found herself spending more time in
the intensive-care unit than at work.
A medical supplies saleswoman for Zee Medical Service
Co. in Lake Oswego, Harmon tried to juggle her duties
to her employer with the extraordinary needs of her
family.
"I felt a lot of pressure to choose between going to
work or being with my daughter," Harmon says. "On one
occasion when my daughter was in intensive care, the
owner told me I needed to get my paperwork in from the
previous day's sales and suggested I locate a fax at
the hospital." (John Schmidt, Zee's owner, denies asking
her to use the hospital fax.)
Such absences eventually cost Harmon her job. Her story
might have ended up as just another sad tale, but Harmon
chose to fight for the rights of other workers. Last
week she appeared before the House Business and Consumer
Affairs Committee to make a compelling case for an unpopular
idea. Instead of weakening the Oregon Family Leave Act,
she says, legislators should be strengthening it.
Harmon says she was consistently one of Zee's two leading
salespeople, but her production lagged when she took
frequent unpaid days off to care for her daughter.
Earlier this year, Harmon says, her numbers started
to improve, and she was again a top producer. Then on
Feb. 4, suffering from a migraine, she stayed home sick.
The following day, she received a written warning that
her attendance must improve.
That same day--Friday, Feb. 5--Harmon's daughter began
suffering brain seizures. Harmon rushed to the hospital.
The girl had surgery on Feb. 8. Harmon was at the hospital,
she says, having previously been granted the day off.
When she arrived at work on Tuesday, Feb. 9, she was
fired. She was told she had been absent too often and
wasn't submitting paperwork promptly.
Oregon's Family Leave Act did not protect her.
Passed in 1995, the law provides 12 weeks of unpaid
leave for workers at companies that employee more than
25 people. Because Zee employees only 16 people, it
is exempt from the act.
Harmon says the exemption is unfair. "I don't think
there should be a minimum number of employees," she
says. "If there's a family emergency, you should be
able to leave."
More than 90 percent of Oregon companies employ fewer
than 25 workers, according to the state Employment Department.
Employees of those companies face the same risk Harmon
did. "The law wasn't there for us," Harmon says. "If
it were, I'd be able to be by my daughter's side and
still have my job."
Legislators have no plans to expand protection, however.
In fact, the House Business and Consumer Affairs Committee
is considering weakening the law.
House Bill 2486 would change the provision that allows
an employee to get her old job back when she returns
from leave. The revised provision states that the employee
can have an "equivalent job" with "substantially similar"
duties.
For a saleswoman such as Harmon, the terms "equivalent"
and "similar" could spell disaster--the difference between
getting her lucrative metro-area customers back and
being assigned a territory stretching from Antelope
to Klamath Falls.
Supporters of amending the leave law say that changing
the language would simply give employers more flexibility;
they wouldn't have to disrupt operations by holding
a job open for an absent employee. "We haven't talked
a lot about commission salespeople," says Betsy Earls,
a lobbyist for Associated Oregon Industries, "but when
you look at the criteria, the employee shouldn't be
hurt."
Harmon, however, says proponents are moving in the
wrong direction. "If you make any changes," she told
legislators, "expand the law so no family has to go
through the hell we have endured."
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Willamette Week | originally
published March 31,
1999
