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COVID Recovery - Small Businesses Affected By Employees Abusing The System, With Jenn Brown Of Babylon Dental Care

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 19, 2021 / COVID-19 was devastating to small business owners nationwide. For those who are trying to make a comeback from the last 18 months, getting back to business can be a huge challenge. Jenn Brown is Director of Operations for Babylon Dental Care in Patchogue and West Babylon, New York, as part of the family business. Her husband has been a practitioner for decades, and together they run a wholehearted dental practice, focused on high-quality patient care and service. Brown hopes their story will open the eyes of other small business owners, and prevent them from ending up in the same situation they found themselves in.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020 Babylon Dental Care, just like thousands of other American small businesses, was forced to adapt. Facing the unknown, great care was taken to follow ever-changing COVID-19 safety guidelines and recommendations. Over 50 percent of the staff voluntarily resigned. Fears of employees and unknown circumstances of what COVID-19 would bring greatly changed the landscape of how the business could operate. Additionally, unemployment programs and government assistance made it more difficult to get staff to come to work. People were making more money from these programs than they were in wages and were happy to stay safe at home.

Following New York state regulations and operating with a team of essential staff, Babylon Dental offered only emergent and pressing dental care for several months. Brown stayed in touch with their staff, making sure they were okay, while gauging who might want to return to work when the business was able to reopen safely. When the time came to reopen for normal business, the practice was forced to start out a bit smaller, so Brown restaffed, looking forward to getting the practice back to a semblance of normal operations.

Once the business was back up and running, it was a shock to Brown to learn they were the focus of a discrimination complaint filed by two former employees (who had resigned back at the start of Covid) with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). (The NLRB is an independent federal agency that works to "assure fair labor practices and workplace democracy nationwide" created in 1935 by Congress.) Two female ex-employees claimed Babylon Dental Care had discriminated against them by refusing to bring them back to work, alleging the business blamed them for a dismissed and anonymous OSHA complaint filed in the very early days of the pandemic. This complaint was investigated and dismissed two days later. Babylon Dental Care had no idea who filed the complaint, as 55 of their employees had concerns about working in the early start of the Pandemic and subsequently resigned their positions with the dental practice.

Brown explains she felt Babylon Dental was targeted and taken advantage of specifically by these two ex-employees who willingly resigned their positions at the end of March. Both women started collecting and earning more money on unemployment. In early June, without penalty, they even cashed out their 401Ks. Clearly they were reaping a financial windfall from the pandemic. The two never made contact with Brown or even the Partners/Owners during late March to when the business was able to safely reopen at the end of July. One of the women even went forward to get her real estate license and is marketed on a commercial broker's firm's website as an agent. As Brown learned more about the complaint and what the women were doing, she increasingly felt that they were strategically taking advantage of both her organization and the COVID-19 relief programs in place.

From the beginning it felt like the system was stacked against Babylon Dental Care. In the NLRB complaint and during all discussion and/or proceedings, the two former employees were referred to as "discriminatees" which, as Brown points out, casts an immediate assumption of guilt towards her business. As the year went on, to Brown and her legal representation, this seemed like a clear case of two individuals deliberately trying to take advantage of the system. There was no way Brown or anyone at Babylon Dental Care could know that these ladies filed the OSHA complaint. Therefore, how was this a case of discrimination? Brown went through a long process of trying to resolve the issue and have Babylon Dental Care's truth heard, to no avail. Even subpoenaing OSHA to prove they had no way to know who filed the complaint did not work, as the agency would not answer the subpoenas. After spending over $50,000 in attorney's fees, due to personal and professional pressures and a system that did not seem to give this business a fair shot, Brown settled the claim on advice and pressurings of their attorney. She was warned that continuing the fight would have cost Babylon Dental Care much more. Ultimately, the whole process cost them over $100,000.

The settlement paperwork was signed and the women were paid "back wages". Brown shared that in this settlement agreement the business was instructed not to notify Unemployment agencies, therefore ensuring the women are able to keep all their unemployment pay, plus this settlement money.

Brown shares a conversation she had during a settlement hearing with the judge from the NLRB that encompasses why she felt like there was no chance of clearing Babylon Dental Care's name or intention. "I finally just looked at the judge and said I didn't understand. We did nothing wrong. They were bad employees before the pandemic who decided to resign their positions, and his response to me was ‘Ms. Brown. We never have people in this forum that are considered good employees.'"

Brown feels quite taken advantage of, and never thought this could happen to her business. Now, she hopes to move on and to open the eyes of other small business owners who may face the same struggle. She has always strived to act professionally with integrity and being in service to others while placing the safety of their staff and patients as top priority. As a small business owner who tried from the start of these uncharted, challenging times to do the right thing, Brown feels as though there must be a better process when it comes to resolving issues like the ones Babylon Dental Care faced.

"I want business leaders or owners like me to know they are not alone; this is a corrupt system, and the NLRB in particular does a poor job, if any, in balancing the rights of business owners with that of employees. The ability that these two ex-employees had to take advantage of the government and of our organization is horrific. It boggles my mind how during such challenging times like this, business owners are made to suffer more because people are smart enough to find a way to work the system…the same system that is created to protect them," said Jenn Brown.

Knowing how complaints with the National Labor Relations Board work is something Brown advises all business owners to learn about. Business owners may benefit from understanding these processes before they end up in a situation like the one Brown faced. Brown hopes that no one else will find themselves stuck the way her business was and that no one would find themselves taken advantage of by ex-employees in a system that assumes wrongdoing from the start.

Babylon Dental Care has been serving patients for almost 40 years, providing top-quality care for dental patients at every stage of life. They are known for their commitment to care and creating an experience for patients that exceeds expectations.

Contact:

Company Name: Babylon Dental
Contact Person: Jenn Brown
Phone Number: 631-983-2937
Send Email
Website Link: https://www.babylondentalcare.com/

SOURCE: Babylon Dental



View source version on accesswire.com:
https://www.accesswire.com/668752/COVID-Recovery--Small-Businesses-Affected-By-Employees-Abusing-The-System-With-Jenn-Brown-Of-Babylon-Dental-Care

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