If Gronk is out , go Bennett . If he plays , I ' d go Kelce . <| sep |> But the punishment stems directly from your use of FMLA leave , which is what makes it retaliation . Intent to retaliate is not actually a requirement under the law , only that they took a negative work action against you as a result of FMLA use . If they can show that they made it abundantly clear that you were specifically instructed to call a certain number and you refused to do so then they might have a defense , but even then they have the problem that your supervisor in effect cleared you by knowing about your leave and not telling you that you had to call in to that number . It would also have to be the case that employees taking FMLA are treated no worse than employees taking other kinds of time off . If you had requested time off , say , to go to a funeral and you entered it into the system and let your boss know about it , would you still have been considered a no call no show ? If not , then your company has a legal problem on their hands here . I can ' t believe your HR rep doesn ' t recognize this as an issue . Also , your union sucks . When those fail , though , that ' s what the labor board is for . It ' s free and easy to make a complaint , you don ' t need a lawyer , and something like this should be resolved quickly without depositions or courtrooms .