More details to this question:
I worked Monday - Friday 9-5 in a local business in which I began receiving the benefits at he beginning of the year, such as paid holidays and vacations. The owner of the business told me I could take as long as I wanted for maternity leave. I informed him that I would take about 6 weeks. I've reached out to my employer within said time frame to try to return to work and have been ignored. There are other incidents where they've ignored employees and kept them in the dark when they were terminated. I was contacted by a coworker shortly after reaching out and was informed they did not plan to bring me back to work. I would like representation and am a single mother with no income at the moment. I worked at this company for 8 months, and never took a sick day.
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Unfortunately, there is no legally required maternity leave in North Carolina. Also, unfortunately, you were not entitled to FMLA as you had not worked for the employer for 12 months as requried to be covered. There is a Pregnancy Discrimination Act that covers employer with 15 or more employees. However, that law does not require the employer to provide any benefits to the pregnant employee. It simply makes it unlawful for the employer to treat pregnant employees worse than non-pregnant employees.
Answered on May 16th, 2016 at 6:08 AM
I am an experienced attorney focusing on employment law in North Carolina and Tennessee. This post/response is not meant to constitute legal advice.