I need to know what a manager would do if an employee refused to work because air drafts are making them sick.

Question

The employee says that the air drafts are making him sick and refuses to do his job because of this. The manager calls the saftey director, who determined that the air duct is 25 feet from the work station and at a 45 degree angle. He explained that the technology used by the air conditioning system diffused the air as it came out of the air ducts. The manager ordered the employee to get back to work, but the employee refused because the manager was not a doctor and thought that he was not capable of deciding whether or not there was a problem. The manager discharged the employee for refusing to return to work. I am doing this for one of my college classes and need to know what other people would do if they were in the manager's place?

Answer 1

I have heard of people having problems with mold and/or bacteria build-up in duct systems that can create problems if you are sensitive to it. If I was the manager, I would move the employee temporarily to a different location and contact my local heating and air conditioning contractor to do an inspection and get the "all clear" in writing. If it is a valued employee, I would not be comfortable ordering him back to work in an environment in which he feels ill. If, in fact, the duct is clean and working properly, then I would try to work with this employee to either find a location that we could both live with or ask what his solution to the problem would be. Simply refusing to work would get him/her fired.

Answer 2

The manager has the right, unless the employee can actually prove that it is the vent that is making him sick, it's a hard case to prove.
regardless if the employee is not performing his job as required, he has not fulfilled his requirements as an employee.