Can I be forced to wrk overtime or be given the choice to take an unscheduled absence

I work a 830am-530pm monday-fri shift....my business has only employed one person to work the saturday shift which is a 9am-3pm shift. Well, the normal person who works that shift had to leave tues because due to pregnancy. he has taken all the week off. We received an email stating: and I quote...."Team," John Doe "will be off the rest of this week. Would someone like to volunteer to take his Saturday shift? It can be over time or we can arrange some flex time next week to off set. Thanks so much"

well as you can imagine no one volunteered. This was sent to us on 10/4/06 in the late afternoon. We come into day and since no one volunteered my manager personally approached me and asked if i would like to volunteer to work saturday. I said, acutally i have other plans.I explained to her of the plans that we may go out of town to a football game or if we don't make the trip are definitely having people over for the game. I said may go out of town as i explained to her we entered into a raffle to win tickets. Which more often than not you do not win tickets in things like this...or your chances are slim.... but in any case....i told her i would be entertaining. She said, well the others have already volunteered the last couple of times so i just wanted to see if you would do that for us. I told her again, i could not.

She then said... well we'll just have to draw names then. After I came out of the bathroom later on in the day right before 3pm I noticed one of my coworkers asking her a question about a problem she had with a situation and the other coworker just coming from outside and she asked have you drawn yet. She said oh yes i did that already and i'm about to send an email out. I got selected ... of course. But the drawing was not held in front of us -- no one else drew the name....it was all based on she saying that she did the drawing herself.

I went in and asked what if I can't do that. I really do have plans. She said I'm sorry we'll need you to work it. Like I had no choice. I said, so if I can't come in then your telling me..... she kinda smiled and shrugged her shoulders....and said well you'll have to find someone to work it for you or unscheduled absence. I said well I guess I'll have to take the unscheduled absence....Her smile dropped quick and she looked puzzled. She said, i wouldn't want you to take an unscheduled absence we just need you to work. I said, but as I've already explained I cannot -- i do not want to break the plans i already made. So, I'm telling you i guess i'll have to take an unscheduled absence then. I went to make call and before getting on the phone she said i need to know are you going to work or take the unscheduled absence. I told her I needed to make the call to get my husbands opinion.

After the convo...i went in and told her I guess I'll have to take the unscheduled absence then. she said okay (and of course looked very angry)

so my question is....1st of all is it really legal for her to say I would receive an unscheduled absence on a day that I'm not even normally scheduled which is in fact my off day and just because I could not volunteer to work it say if I don't then I get an unscheduled absence.

and 2nd, is it legal for her to say she is going to draw names and not even draw where we can see that she's actually doing just that?

Can I be fired in retaliation for speaking up for myself and going over her head to her boss or even HR ???

They normally cannot fire you for that. You could consult your nearest Department of Labor office to briefly discuss the issue with them first.

You may also want to ask the company to put what is happening in writing and explain to them that you may have attorneys review the situation. Try speaking to a higher level of management about the issue; they may override the other managers and force a more professional solution to the apparent scheduling issues.

If none of these efforts resolves the issue, let us know.

I was told that oklahoma is a right to work state and they can fire you for anything and not have to have a reason for it. Is that true? Because I have the best stats in my ofc and have that even to prove it. so if they did fire me in retaliation and was able to prove my stats are always better would I have a case?

also can your job make you work overtime. can they make it mandatory? And if in the future they say they are drawing names from a hat do they have to have a witness or can they do it behind closed doors and say -- it was such and such person selected? this might be something you don't know but if they draw your name - can they in fact give you an unscheduled absence if you can't work it when its not even your normal schedule - its mandatory overtime. What if you were going out of town and it couldn't be avoided? or family came in that weekend from out of town.

They can ask you to work reasonable overtime on occasion but it cannot become excessive. If it does become excessive you may contact your nearest Dept of Labor office to report and discuss.
Also if they fire you in retaliation for improper work procedures that you are objecting to, they may be sued, fined or sanctioned as well.