Retaliation is not common in the US. Stop spreading misinformation.
Why would an HR department from any reputable organization fire you if your wife is expecting?
Why would an HR department from any reputable organization fire you if your wife is expecting?
If a company thinks it can get away with it, it will. Saving money is more important than a hypothetical, minuscule and temporary hit to their reputation. There will always be consumers looking for a bargain at any real cost, workers desperate for a pay check, and shareholders worshipping the bottom line.
That’s why we need unions
Sometimes, absence of evidence is because the evidence isn’t readily available.
But for every big tech company there are thousands of smaller non-tech companies, where they do not treat employees well. Also common != majority.
Just read up on how Walmart treats their employees, for example. I just read an article earlier this week about Walmart systematically under-reporting OHSA violations, and retaliating against employees reporting workplace accidents to OHSA.
Just recently here a restaurant was fined for not paying overtime by employing dishwashers and kitchen staff as "salaried" exempt employees.
At large companies with in-house legal and HR teams? It probably doesn't happen much, but even there they will know what they can get away with.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if there was quite a lot of exploitation and retaliation at lower-skilled, lower-income jobs in the US.