I got asked a question the other day that seems to have an obvious answer but nevertheless gets asked a lot. A person asked me if she could be disciplined and ultimately terminated for being tardy and/or absent from work because she did not have a car and had to rely on other people to get to work. The simple answer is the employer can take adverse action against her.
Employees are expected to be at work. Generally, the only protections for absences and tardies provided by the law arise in medical leave situations. Protection for absences also exists in more narrow circumstances such as military duty and jury duty. Otherwise, employees are expected to get to work and do their jobs.
It is, of course, a catch-22 that individuals need to work to afford transportation but they may be unable to get to work consistently if they don’t already have transportation. This, however, is not the employer’s concern. If the employee can’t get to work, the employer neither has an obligation to subsidize transportation for the employee or to tolerate the employee’s unpredictable attendance. This is not fair but the law just provides no protections for transportation difficulties.
