I am so ANGRY

The contract witht he CWS Union and AT&T expires on 1 APR 2009. This means that people like me get to study hard to do a strike related task while the union workers are absent, should the union declare a strike. While I was out on disability, I was assigned strike duty as a faciliuty coordinator. The purpose of that job is to be face to face with picket captains in negotiations over how the strike would be conducted and still be considered lawful. It would be my job to arbitrate between workers and strikers, and to encourage workers not to retaliate against strikers as they cross the picket line. Further, I would be the coordinator of a team that monitors the picket line for any unlawful act - such as entering private property, not allowing passage through the picket line, vandalism and sabotage. I would be taking video, images and recording witness statements when such things occured so that the perpetrators would be identified if law enforcement was necessary.

I petitioned for a new strike assignement, and got all the letters from my health care professions in on time. I recieved an email confirming that my assignment would be changed.

Yesterday, they informed me that my assignment would remain the same. My normal reaction would be to get totally depressed and just let them take advantage of me. That is not what happened. I sent an email copied to 3 individuals iunvolved in the reassignment, and told them that I accept theiur decision but warned them that if I had a relapse, or if someone got hurt as a result of my inability to perform these duties for medical reasons, AT&T and these 3 people would bare some accountability for that result.

That got their attention.

It is obvious to me that they only listened to my primary care physician and ignored my psychiatrist and therapist completely. I have email confirmation that the case worker did recieve the letter from my psychiatrist well before the deadline.

The head of "Contingency Planning" was one of those I mentioned by name. She emailed back that if there was more medical information needed, it was my responisibility for providing it. I emailed her back that I already had confirmation from the case worker of recipet of the letter from Dr. Peris - and that I would bring it to work today and quote what I believe was being ignored.

The head of COntingency Planning emailed back - sounds reasonable.

I am so angry about this, I have a hard time containing it. I have awakened after only 4 hours sleep. Part me wants to believe that the ignorance of my psychiatrist's letter and my therapist's letter was done intentionally. The only thing that keeps me from screaming at the case worker is that I recognize she was propobably overworked, and forgot about the additional letters, since most petitions have only 1 letter - from a primary care physician. Since she didn't know what my strike assignment was, she may not of thought it was important to pass along his restrictions. In my brain, I do not believe this is the case - I think it was deliberate - but I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt - for now.