Hostile work environment

I am looking for advice with a situation I am encountering at work currently. The situation goes like this. I am a Sergeant at a state correctional facility. About a month ago I had an incident with a female subordinate employee being very disrespectful and down right nasty when I attempted to correct behavior of hers that was unacceptable per our policy and procedures. As soon as I wrote an incident report on this issue I was approached by my supervisor and was told that I should consider dropping the issue as the female employee told that supervisor that she would file sexual harassment complaints if she were to get any discipline from the incident. I regretfully did as was asked and dropped the issue on the advice from my supervisor. There was some backlash from this incident from other employee's that saw this as a sign of weakness. About 3 weeks ago I again had another incident, only this time with a male subordinate employee who happens to be a different race (black). This employee after being concede by me for not following policy became extremely angry, started yelling, using profanity and threatened me with physical violence (there were several witnesses to this). I immediately reported this to my supervisors. That situation went without being dealt with. Three days later I again had to address this employee on not following policy and again he became angry and attempted to hit me. This was reported and he was finally restricted to work outside of the gates while it was investigated. At the conclusion of this investigation I was informed that I would be transferred to another rotation for my own benefit. After filing a merit complaint on the move I was approached by my supervisor who attempted to justify the move as being beneficial to me because they felt that I was ineffective as a supervisor on that rotation. I was also told that if I stepped down from the supervisor role that they could probably keep me on the same rotation. This male employee has claimed the race card and now all of a sudden I am being placed in a situation where I am basically being told to drop it or these changes will be made. I feel that this employer (State of Indiana) is attempting to soothe these two employees based on their sex and race by punishing me while saying it's for my own good. The shift they are wanting me to move to is supervised by the male employees cousin. Who should I call, contact, or what should I do?? On a side note I am currently on 'light duty' for an injury received during a takedown at work and have now been written up for not coming to work because my medication for the injury was making me sick. ANY ADVICE??

[Bricks41]

It seems like you are in a dicey situation. My previous experience tells me they are trying to terminate you... hence the write up. Did or can your doctor provide an excuse that says there are times when the medication makes you ill to the point of not being able to do your job? If he/she can then if they then term you for attendance for the same issue, they will appear to be terminating you due to a work related injury. That will not be good.


When doing the counseling for the two employees was the situation discussed with HR prior to sitting down with the employee? Also, did you have any one else present during the counseling session?

Department of Labor is always a good place to start when feeling out your options.

I followed our policy for both employees. Witnesses always present when handing down discipline. My supervisors are weak and dont like confrontation with minorities so I am taking the brunt of all of this and I am suppossed to like it.

[Bricks41]

It sounds like there is something wrong with the upper managment based on what I'm getting, but you never know.

It is possible they have had something of a legal nature in the past happen and they had to pay out money. If this is the case, it might explain their one sided reaction to the situation.

Call the Department of Labor to see what recourse you may have.