A diet specialist used to be fired in August 2021 after reporting the childcare center’s kitchen and different house had been infested with rodents and bugs.
DALLAS — A Dallas church has been ordered to reinstate an worker who used to be fired after elevating issues over unsanitary and bad prerequisites at its childcare center in 2021.
The United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) introduced an investigation after a diet specialist for a childcare center operated through New Mount Zion Baptist Church alleged the ability had rodents, spiders and different bugs in its cafeteria, kitchen and different spaces.
As a results of reporting the allegations, OSHA mentioned the diet specialist used to be fired through the church in August 2021.
After the investigation concluded, OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Programs in Dallas mentioned the church violated the Food Safety Modernization Act when it illegally fired the diet specialist “in retaliation for exercising their protected rights to report unsafe and unhealthy conditions.”
“New Mount Zion Baptist Church’s actions toward the employee are unacceptable and deeply concerning,” OSHA Regional Administrator Eric S. Harbin in Dallas mentioned. “The existence of rodents and insects in food preparation and serving areas poses a health hazard. The employee had the legal right to express apprehensions about the unhygienic surroundings and should not have been fired for doing so.”
OSHA order New Mount Zion not to handiest reinstate the worker but additionally to pay them again their wages, passion and compensatory damages for the wrongful termination.
New Mount Zion used to be based in 1946 and now supplies each on-line and in-person products and services to over 2,500 participants. It operates each the childcare center and a credit union.
Other North Texas headlines:
tale through Source link