So my boyfriend and I work at the same factory. Last year, I had surgery and was off of work for 6 months. When I returned, I was on restrictions for the first 2 weeks, work was fine with it. That was November 2019.

In December 2019, my boyfriend had surgery and was off of work for 6 weeks. He returned today, with a lifting restriction of 20lbs max. His job is to operate a crane, and requires no lifting at all. Our safety manager let him work all day then talked to him right before he punched out and told him he wasn’t allowed to come back to work until he was off of restriction. He performed his job perfectly all day with no problems.

We have a coworker that has been on restrictions for over a year doing light duty, who is still working every day. Another coworker just got a shoulder replacement last month, and work told him he HAD to come back on light duty or he was going to get fired. He works 4hrs for 4 days/week in his sling, and can only use one hand. Neither of these people are able to perform their normal jobs, they sit around all day organizing stuff in our stock room. And as I said before, I came back on restrictions just a few months ago and they had no issues with it. I was able to perform my job with no issues, and my boyfriend can also perform his job with no issues. We have hundreds of employees, I’m positive there are more people here on restrictions.

How are they allowed to tell him he can’t come back when multiple people are doing the exact thing he was told he couldn’t do? And not to mention that the safety manager, HR manager, the aforementioned coworkers and I are all white. My boyfriend is black. We are both so pissed off right now 😒