Gabe's employee gets $66K after store fired her while on leave to bond with new baby
The operator of Gabe’s discount chain has agreed to pay $113,500 to resolve a claim that it improperly terminated a Vineland employee who sought leave to bond with her baby.
Under a consent decree, Gabriel Brothers will pay $66,000 to the woman, identified only as a “customer experience ambassador” at the chain’s Delsea Drive store.
The firm also is to pay $44,000 in attorney’s fees and $3,500 to the state Division on Civil Rights, the state Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.
Among other actions, Gabriel Brothers is to hold training sessions on the state’s Family Leave Act for staffers involved in the processing of leave requests.
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The Attorney General’s Office said the woman had completed her maternity leave under a federal law when she told Gabriel Brothers in August 2019 that she wanted to take an additional six weeks under the state law.
As she approached the end of her state leave, the woman visited the store to learn about her upcoming work schedule, the statement said.
New mother learned she'd lost her job
The worker learned instead that she’d been terminated a month earlier, “purportedly for failing to communicate with Gabriel Brothers about her return to work,” the statement said.
The women then filed a complaint with the state civil rights division, which found "sufficient evidence" that Gabriel Brothers had not met its legal obligatons.
The state law allows certain employees to take “up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave during any 24-month period to care for or bond with a newborn child, to care for a family member with a serious health condition, or in other specific circumstances,” the statement said.
It covers people who have worked at least 1,000 hours in the past 12 months and have been employed for at least one year either by state and local government agencies or by employers with 30 or more staffers worldwide.
“New Jersey employers should know that we will not tolerate violations of that important law,” Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in the statement.
A representative of Gabriel Brothers could not be reached for comment.
The West Virginia business, which operates 127 stores in 15 states, also agreed to comply with the state’s leave act and New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination.
Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Reach him at jwalsh@cpsj.com.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: State: Gabe's operator wrongly terminated new mother at Vineland store
