Judge Rules Boss's "Firing Contest" Created a Hostile Work Environment 314
Branded the "boss from hell" by his employees, 57-year-old William Ernst lost a court battle with ex-workers over unemployment benefits. An Iowa judge has decided that Ernst's "firing contest" memo wasn't the best management strategy, saying, "The employer’s actions have clearly created a hostile work environment by suggesting its employees turn on each other for a minimal monetary prize. This was an intolerable and detrimental work environment.” The memo reads in part: "New Contest – Guess The Next Cashier Who Will Be Fired!!! To win our game, write on a piece of paper the name of the next cashier you believe will be fired. Write their name [the person who will be fired], today's date, today's time, and your name. Seal it in an envelope and give it to the manager to put in my envelope."
KMART? (Score:2)
Damn...I was hoping he'd be from KMART but he was employed at some no name place called "QC Mart".
Oh well guess I'll have to wait for KMART to die some other way than on its own...
The problem with the "I'm an asshole" boss (Score:5, Insightful)
I had a boss like that once. He thought his "openly asshole" style of management was helpful because it "encouraged competition." In reality, the only thing it encouraged was hatred. It brought us closer as a team, but only in hating him. Half the employees were stealing from him, the other half were actively plotting against him. Basically, he created an environment where retaining talent was impossible, and only the dregs who couldn't get hired anywhere else stayed behind. He thought he was being clever, but he was only costing the company all its promising talent (including me).
It's one thing to be a no-nonsense boss with high standards, it's quite another to be an obnoxious asshole who drives away all your best employees.
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Nixon: Sobel's a genius. I had a headmaster in prep school who was just like him. I know the type.
Winters: Lew, Michaelangelo's a genius. Beethoven's a genius.
Nixon: You know a man in this company who wouldn't double-time Currahee with a full pack just to piss in that man's morning coffee?
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That sounds a little like how military boot camp works. The recruits bond together against the drill sergeants.
Something tells me you haven't been thru basic, or you had a really bad individual experience with someone in the chain of command being completely bonkers (which does happen).
They try to get the recruits to bond with each other (... get your mind out of the gutter). All about cooperation, working together, etc.
Respect them, yes. Actively plot against them, heck no. IF as a group, you were squared away, frankly they were pretty cool people.
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More accurately, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath [wikipedia.org], is the appropriate description of that employers business style.
One rather humorous thing about this story, taking the bosses behaviour as classically symptomatic of psychopathy any investigator out there be it taxation, health, labour or even criminal can pretty guarantee an easy investigation and conviction for a range of crimes.
Non of his employees will cover for him and would likely all leap at the chance to testify against him and that kind
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Something tells me you haven't been thru basic
No, I haven't. My opinion of this comes from documentaries I've seen regarding basic training.
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Whatever...
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If I'd watched a bunch of hollywood movies on something and that's it I certainly wouldn't put forth an opinion on it.
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I have been through basic training 20+ years ago, and "Full Metal Jacket" is very very close to reality. Minus Private Pile's going nuts, and the actual physical abuse was stopped sometime in the 70s/80s. My Father joined the service in the 60s and there was tons of physical abuse that he saw. Though he remained below the radar and didn't receive any himself.
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You do know that Hollywood mostly makes FICTION right??
also im certain from my time in Fort Lost In The Woods Misery and Signal Center that any DI that wanted to make recruits actually plot against him would find himself thrown under a very literal BUS. A Great DI will drop a recruit for pushups OVER THE PHONE and know that said recruit was actually doing them (one handed even).
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You do know that Hollywood mostly makes FICTION right??
Did I say Hollywood?
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Mostly getting an easy joke in but my point does stand that most documentaries are 1 heavy on fiction 2 meant to show a specific event.
besides there is know real way to for a DI to get a platoon/company of recruits to plot against him without causing "splash damage" on the part of the other DIs in the training.
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Part of the idea is to get you used to following the orders and directions of someone you just plainly do not like.
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there is a difference between hating your drill instructor and hating the chain of command.. while your there he is an asshole - you band with your fellow recruits - after you pass you realize the other officers are not nearly as bad, and you respect them because 90% of them will respect you, and you know that other 10% can be at least as bad to you as the drill instructor.. (a growth of respect with a buried seed of fear, keeps people in line)
Re:The problem with the "I'm an asshole" boss (Score:5, Informative)
I've been in boot camp, the "instructors" (who were about our own age) were verbally abusive non-stop and humiliated people as much as possible, including name-calling and mocking people in front of others to make everybody giggle (like teachers do in school when they should be teaching).
In my opinion the idea behind it is to break your spirit, make you realise that you're not going to enjoy anything, hate every minute and (somehow) make a good soldier out of you. It's pretty much the same as: ...
1. Break one's spirit
2.
3. Profit!
I'm glad it was pretty short, but I seriously hated every minute of it. There was no bonding, no teamwork, nothing. It was simply a bunch of people humiliating another bunch of people just because they could.
me too (Score:2, Funny)
How can I submit timothy as the next Slashdot editor to be fired? Please please please.
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Text of the memo (Score:5, Informative)
To win our game, write on a piece of paper the name of the next cashier you believe will be fired. Write their name [the person who will be fired], today’s date, today’s time, and your name. Seal it in an envelope and give it to the manager to put in my envelope.
“Here’s how the game will work: We are doubling our secret-shopper efforts, and your store will be visited during the day and at night several times a week. Secret shoppers will be looking for cashiers wearing a hat, talking on a cell phone, not wearing a QC Mart shirt, having someone hanging around/behind the counter, and/or a personal car parked by the pumps after 7 p.m., among other things.
“If the name in your envelope has the right answer, you will win $10 CASH. Only one winner per firing unless there are multiple right answers with the exact same name, date, and time. Once we fire the person, we will open all the envelopes, award the prize, and start the contest again.
“And no fair picking Mike Miller from (the Rockingham Road store). He was fired at around 11:30 a.m. today for wearing a hat and talking on his cell phone. Good luck!!!!!!!!!!”
Wow. What an asshole. In a better economy I'd hope that he'd have trouble getting workers. Unfortunately, in the current economy it is probably much easier to find desperate people willing to put up with crap.
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Wow. What an asshole.
He was only threatening to fire people actively intentionally breaking some fairly simple rules. I LOLed when I read it. All I have to do, is not talk on my phone when I'm supposedly working, not violate the dress code, not violate security rules. I would not exactly break out in a cold sweat of terror.
Now a Real toxic A hole, much worse than this guy, would threaten randomly, based on totally random arbitrary "attitude" or if female how hot she was.
Being the hacker mentality the first thing I though of
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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It didn't seem like spying was involved. You know which ones of your coworkers don't follow the rules. The hat, cell phone, talking folks. He wasn't talking about turning them in, not even placing a bet. Based on what you know, you pick who you think will fail and put it in an envelope. When the next person is caught breaking the rules, the envelopes are opened and the winner determined. They get the 10 bucks. Now the boss does get a list of folks who might be breaking the rules for the next go-round but he
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Not arguing with whether it's a shitty game or not. Just that what everyone (or most people) seem to be replying to isn't what seems to be happening.
And my wife and I did the secret shopper thing once. It was ok but we had to go to fast food places most of the time and we really don't do the fast food thing all that much.
[John]
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Perhaps. Most likely I was taking the message at face value. Envelopes are sealed and put in the guys mailbox to be opened when the next person is fired. At least for me, I'd sign the seal but I'm used to doing such things. Again, as I said, that does give him a list of folks that might be an influence the next time a secret shopper comes in as to whether the guy's fired or not. I can't believe that wouldn't be somehow influential.
[John]
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But I don't see how, if the boss isn't using the output of the envelopes to determine who gets fired. Per the article, he's using Secret Shoppers reports to determine who gets the axe. He's certainly being an idiot for trying to make a game of firing someone but as far as I can tell, he's not actually collecting envelopes, opening them, tallying up the votes and then firing the guy (or gal) with the most votes.
And it's not like he couldn't be influenced by the names during the first vote as long as he's tak
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spying on your coworkers
Secret shoppers are never coworkers... that would kind of defeat the point?
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Welcome to the extremely shitty world of minimum wage graft. Rather than try to create a pleasant work environment where people are motivated to work (not least by the money) all this guy can do is babysit his staff and crack the whip.
Everyone has to work and even at the very bottom these people deserve some humanity.
Contest Prizes (Score:5, Funny)
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The leads are weak!
Re:Contest Prizes (Score:4, Informative)
The leads are weak. The f-in' leads are weak? You're weak. I've been in this business 15 years ...
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Mine went missing, I thing one of the slashdot trolls snatched him.
and whats so bad about a quick mart cashierkilling (Score:2)
and whats so bad about a quick mart cashier killing time when it is slow?
Re: original subect (Score:2)
The original subject read "and whats so bad about a quick mart cashierkilling". According to the boss in TFA, apparently nothing is wrong with killing employees at all.
Ineffective (Score:2)
A much more innovative and effective strategy would have been to fire everyone and then hold auction-style interviews. Whoever agrees to work for the lowest wage gets a job.
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> Whoever agrees to work for the lowest wage gets a job.
All job hiring has been done like this since... forever.
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A much more innovative and effective strategy would have been to fire everyone and then hold auction-style interviews. Whoever agrees to work for the lowest wage gets a job.
Doesn't every employer already d.....
Oh, I see what you're doing. Well played, Maestro. Well played. :>
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that assumes they all don't pick some number higher than their current wage and refuse to work for lower... a little "collusion" if you want. Boss can always do the job BY HIMSELF until he finds and trains more workers!
unilaterally firing everybody like that would also count toward Unemployment Insurance for the employees that didn't "win" the auction as they were "capriciously" and "unilaterally" let go. Unilaterally cutting pay by more than so many percent kicks in unemployment as well.
very bad idea for the boss (Score:2)
there is a reason that a Night of the Long Knifes type of thing is done at a District Level and not at a Store Level
most of the time if you have to fire more than say Half of your employees then YOU AS A BOSS are a spacial anomaly known for high Gravity (aka an African American Aperture).
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Anyone need a local? (Score:2)
I mean, there are QC marts scattered throughout town, I could probably go get some statements/rants from his current employees.
Personally I get a kick out of any time the Midwest gets mentioned on Slashdot. This is downright hilarious. Especially since I just left a place due to a boss.
This is why labor laws exist... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for workers' rights, and also can see things from the employers' side, but man, when you see a piece of work like that guy, you realize that there's a reason for all these labor laws and regulations. Just like everything in life, one chunk of idiots messes up things for everyone else. That happens on both sides of the equation - from the labor side, think about the people you work with who actively avoid doing anything, even going out of the way to be difficult. Or think about tenant-landlord laws -- they are slanted in favor of tenants because a fraction of landlords abuse their influence, regardless of how nightmarish a tenant might be. If people were rational on both sides, there would be less need for regulation.
My experience with small-to-medium size business owners and managers has been mixed. For every decent, hardworking guy working his guts out to make a good place to work, there's the Napoleonic, reactive, stressed out crazy guy who creates a hostile work environment. It's not limited to small businesses either, but you see more of these types in small businesses because they're typically more invested. Some of it can probably be traced to the personality type you need to have to be a business owner -- combative, competitive, driven, etc. There's no way to succeed in small business without having at least some of those traits.
In this case, it sounds mainly like ignorance of the law or willful disregard of it. The guy probably thought he was being funny, making a joke of what he saw as a major affront to his view of the world. I'm guessing the thought process goes something like this:
- I am Master of Convenience Stores, King of the World.
- I've got a bunch of kids who aren't doing everything I tell them.
- I can fire anyone I want, and I will keep firing until I have a set of perfectly obedient employees.
- Since the economy is lousy, I can scare my employees into doing what I want.
- Hey, I know, let's make this fun! Heh heh heh, that'll show those idiots.... ...and the contest is born.
In my opinion, people who subscribe to the "I can fire anyone for any reason and treat them like slaves because they should be paying ME to work here" attitude are left with the people who can't get jobs with normal bosses. Most people don't want to work for an unpredictable tyrant. Demanding good work is one thing, but being unreasonable is another. He just probably figured that his employees are either kids or people who really can't get better work and thought "motivation" like this was appropriate.
Same thing goes for things like sexual harassment. I'm sure no one *wants* to be treated like that, but business owners abuse their power because they can.
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I've always tried to treat my employees fairly. I treat them like thinking adults. I give them clear rules and instructions and try to give them as much authority and discretion as they can handle. I have yet had one make a mistake that could not be fixed or a mistake that was so serious the world ended; I look at mistakes as part of the learning process. I also realize that their world does not revolve around my business and I do show appreciation to them for the work they do, the service they provide my c
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If people were rational on both sides, there would be less need for regulation.
If people were rational on both sides we wouldn't need war, military, government, currency, or swear words.
But yeah, it'd be nice if people were more rational.
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The t
from reading the judges statements.. (Score:2)
I have to wonder. would he consider it deplorable if say the monetary gain was say, half of the fired employee's yearly salary? because to me he is objecting to the low prize value rather then the contest it's self.
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Well, to be fair, they really don't. At will employment is at will employment, and there are pluses and minuses for both employers and employees. And note that this actual practice was not found illegal in any way. All the case determined was that if a person quit rather than be subjected to this, they were eligible for unemployment benefits. And to be honest, it's pretty unlikely this ruling would be upheld on appeal. As an employer of an at will employee, you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you
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Re:I'd do it (Score:5, Informative)
I can only speak from my own experience here, which is limited to jobs I've had in Canada, and which has no concept of at-will employment beyond a probationary period that must always be of finite duration. IANAL, of course, but I've had a disproportionate amount of experience with employment law (because I have had the misfortune on more than occasion of being employed by people who either lacked ethical conduct or else were actually violating regional employment standards).
Anyways... even if you are under contract, you are still free to quit, but there may be penalties for doing so which were outlined in the original contract. If you do not agree with those penalties, unless they are in actual violation of any laws, then you probably shouldn't take the job unless you know for sure that you aren't going to quit. If you do end up quitting, you cannot argue that you were unaware of the penalties because they were laid out when you took the job. Even then, however, you are still free to quit, but you could still potentially be sued, but the employer would have to show actual damages if the amount being sued for was to retract any already awarded wages. The things that an employee generally forfeits if they quit prematurely in such cases are things like hiring incentives... not their actual wages. Unless actual damages can be shown that the employee was responsible for before they quit, the employer cannot ever sue for wages that are already paid for work that was actually done.
An employer, meanwhile, is always perfectly free to discharge any employee who is not an effective worker. Not having at-will employment in this case isn't about guaranteeing jobs for people who can't perform jobs effectively. It is about ensuring that companies that hire employees behave professionally and responsibly when hiring and firing individuals.
The closest thing we have to at-will employment is an employee probationary period - which begins when an employee is first hired, and lasts for a finite amount of time that is outlined when the employee is first hired. Generally, this probationary period is 3 months, although sometimes it can be as long as a full year. It is the responsibility of every company to evaluate an employee's suitability with a company during this period, and there is generally a semi-formal process which happens at the end of a probationary period to put an employee into permanent status (they generally do not receive any employee benefits such as extended health or dental services during the probationary period either). After the probationary period has officially ended, firing a person involves more paperwork - an actual reason must be given, and the reason must be one that is verifiable in some way. For example, if the employee is no longer performing adequately, then the employer must advise the employee of this, and have the employee sign something stating that they have received such a notice. If the situation continues even after the employee has had sufficient time to correct the shortcoming (in a judge's determination, if it came to that), then the employer can generally terminate the employee immediately.
It is unfortunately not unheard of for employers to, under the radar, abuse the "probationary period" for employees as a means of being able to easily fire people for arbitrary and entirely unfair reasons... or so that they won't have to start paying employee benefits. Difficulty in proving such cases in court allows these companies to continue to get away with such practices.
If you are fired from your job, for any reason, you may be ineligible for unemployment benefits, unless you can show that the reason for being fired was unrelated to any sort of professional or ethical misconduct. Even then, getting fired from a job introduces delays to receiving benefits that would not normally happen. After the probationary period, an employer is required by law to state the general reason for any termination of employment on a record of employment that both the employee and the government each receive copies of. During the probationary period, it is typically assumed that the employee was simply unsuitable if they are terminated in that time.
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Hear that? (Score:2)
WOOOOSH!
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it's called "the brown rocket"...
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it's called "the brown rocket"...
I'd love to receive one of these. Instant huge cash settlement.
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Now we just need to force their management to live in China too. Then they can harvest the fruits of their choices!
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That's why a lot of businesses are in China.
Rail all you want against the trend, but the more rules, regulations, and taxes on businesses, the more they'll move to a more hospitable country.
Like it or not.
Many people in this country would applaud Wallmart moving all of its stores to China. Since all their goods are made there, it seems only reasonable.
Re:Sad. (Score:4, Insightful)
You really need to read up on some history to understand why there are labor laws.
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If it shits itself, it won't have been caused by the labor laws.
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And history will be reading in 50 years about why we got rid of many of them once the entire world economy finally shits itself for good.
Wow. I always knew that libertarians are like the communists of yore, but I didn't expect that they would just wholesale rip off the communist manifesto.
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Employment is a contract between employer and employee, and violation of terms of the contract bears repercussions for the violating side, whichever it is. It's up to the court to enforce compensation for violation of the contract if the violator refuses to do so willingly.
Imagine: You're to be paid after a month of work, and you work hard, but at the end of the month you're told you won't be paid after all. Now you are free to go work somewhere else if you don't like it. Is that okay in your opinion?
Re:Sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Be careful calling libertarians' bluff. Until relatively recently, none other than Alan Greenspan (an Ayn Rand acolyte) maintained that government should have little or no role in policing fraud [moneyshow.com]:
So, yes, some of them are that crazy. Yes, Greenspan has since recanted, but as they say, a sucker is born every minute... Rand's books still sell like hotcakes to naive college freshmen.
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Be careful calling libertarians' bluff. Until relatively recently, none other than Alan Greenspan (an Ayn Rand acolyte) maintained that government should have little or no role in policing fraud [moneyshow.com]:
I'm curious, have you ever called the police on somebody for a bad eBay transaction?
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So if you don't want to hire minorities that should be ok?
How about child labor?
Should you be able to pay the parents for a child's labor until it turns 18 and keep it as an indentured servant?
Employment has to be regulated because of the lack of perfect information and the relative power differences between those that enter into these agreements.
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Europeans kind of understood the madness of these aristocrats and present law tries to protect the workers right to make a living for himself.
This does not mean a European boss can't lay off or fire a worker, it means there have to be proper grounds for denying someone the chance to feed his family.
The legislation of the young USofA was also very anti-aristocracy, don't forget this all happened around the same time, yet many Americans
value is now OBJECTIVELY DEFINED by the market (Score:5, Funny)
the free market is infallible; whatever ends up happening is BY DEFINITION THE FAIREST OUTCOME POSSIBLE
And you can take my word for it, 'cuz I'm above the poverty line!
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whatever ends up happening is BY DEFINITION THE FAIREST OUTCOME POSSIBLE
Yes, actually. Just as a frictionless surface by definition requires no force to maintain velocity.
The fact that neither exists in the real world without external energy being fed into the system escapes most people, sadly.
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Oh, no, it is worse than that actually: the market actually tries to solve an NP-complete problem. Thus, markets can (in theory) be perfect if and only if P == NP. In some cases, it is an OK heuristic.
So the frictionless surfaces has properties well defined by theory. Perfect markets may well be impossible, even in theory.
Re:Sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be why there are so many nations in the world which managed to lift themselves up to first world status by eschewing the ideas of labor laws, right?
History is replete with examples of libertarian paradises where the job-creators built wealth unfettered by regulation and the fruits of their labor enriched everyone! Why, there's Somalia, and Libya, and...
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Why, there's Somalia, and Libya, and...
Surely you've done your homework on relative economic growth rates of Somalia when compared to its neighbors in the first decade of the century. Right?
And Libya? Huh? Surely you meant somewhere else...
Re:Sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. And the result of only a small proportion benefiting was laborers rioting with shotguns because they can't feed their families, children working in deadly mills because it's the only way to get fed, poisonous products and manufacturing processes, higher education out of the reach of 90% of the people, and unregulated unsafe healthcare for the vast majority. Those abuses resulted in the current regulatory environment and only liars, fools, and republicans say that removing those regulations wouldn't return us to those dark times.
Just because the 'invisible hand' wields a knife and a gun does NOT mean that it's attached to Indiana Jones! All of our regulations are the result of the market adjusting; that's what it means to be a democratic republic with a capitalistic economy. Workers vote. It's only the current batch or republicanized libertarians that want to unbalance the system towards corporations by denying workers any benefit of in fact comprising most of the market itself.
The labor market is NOT infinite, there are NOT always opportunities to leave abusive employers, and in many cases, survival depends on having a job (even now; if you don't have insurance to cover health problems, you AND your family stands one illness away from losing everything). Not all items are luxuries, and just because we represent values in terms of dollars does NOT make everything fungible; not all actions are reversible in this world.
Be honest now: What each righty wants is to return to some of the darkest, most evil periods in our history, in the vain hope that they would be one of the few at the top who benefit.
Tell the Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
This statement is intellectually dishonest. The GILDED age (not Guilded) occurred around the turn of the Century. The regulation that this poster talks about arose after the GREAT DEPRESSION.
The Great Depression followed the excesses of the Gilded Age.
Republican trickle-down economics doesn't trickle down water.
Re:Sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
ROFL on the exaggerated part. You MUST be a 'republitarian'; you just deny history in order to make your goals seem more laudable; you excise whole market segments that don't 'behave' the way you want a free market behave, and the economy you admire is one that never existed! Your dogma says that you can always get another job, even though reality disagrees... You think that I was trying to make US workers seem more 'desired'? Hahahaha! And folk with dogma like yours would take everything away from us, even hope for our children (unless you could afford a good school) because THAT would make US workers more 'desired'. I suppose it's true though. No corporation WANTS to pay any more expenses than they have to, and if you get your way, since the jobs don't exist, supply and demand would 'adjust' wages to third-world levels. And that would be a GOOD thing that would return us to days of gilded glory, right? RIGHT?
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But in the Earlier history of the US we have an example of how a small amount of regulation coupled with strong individualism created in a very short time a very powerful and rich country.
Would that early history you are talking about be before or after slavery?
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Let's hope you get into this situation, have two kids to feed, along with loss of your employer's medical coverage. Maybe have a car loan and not have any income for payments.
I can honestly say that I would not wish that on anyone.
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It's always great when a sociopath finds his soulmate. Maybe you and this Ernst should hook up.
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The lack of back-talk may have been partly due to the fact that some employees got cocks forced down their throats.
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Well, not likely 'forced'...but if the little lady wanted a promotion over the other girls in the office...doing that voluntarily isn't.....err...wasn't a bad idea exactly.
Winners on all sides!!
Re:The importance of being Ernst (Score:4, Informative)
Indirectly, through unemployment insurance contribution rates. Companies with higher turnover rates pay more into the fund that is used to pay out benefits. Accordingly most (all?) states deny benefits to individuals who "voluntarily" leave their job, though I suspect most use this same definition of "hostile work environment" to catch when an employer tries to push people into quitting rather than firing the employees.
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Yes, the employer has to pay into the unemployment fund for each employee.
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it counts against THEIR unemployment insurance premiums. Typically for WORKERS it counts how long you've worked since you drew unemployment last. For employers it counts how many people you let go without "cause".
Effectively, the judge is saying he caused them to leave by creating a hostile environment rather than being a man and learning which ones were valuable and making for-cause terminations.
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Do they rate them on a scale of 1 to 10? Maybe QC Mart also has an Employee Hot Or Not contest going on. I'd rate them all!
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Okay, go back to Digg now.
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They had Hot or Not back then?
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Even better:who will kill him, where he will be killed, and with what deadly instrument.
You know...I'll be this would make a really cool board game; I wonder if Hasbro wants to do a prequel? ;-)
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The cashier in the office with a swingline stapler
Janitor in the alley with a liquor bottle.
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Obligatory link to theory [outpost-of-freedom.com].
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Drip...drip...drip...
(I know of a similar situation in a company, but it occurred before I arrived. Everyone would check their emails first thing, because the IT staff would freeze the accounts the night before. They said it was really, really bad. I stayed 2 years and the company was okay, but I didn't really enjoy the science behind what we did.)
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decided to cut staff and for the next several months followed a policy of two people got laid off every friday.... the 2 out on Friday policy was murder on morale.
Been there done that.
Talk to legal. Each state has a different law about "mass firings" and "mass layoffs".
In some states there can be fines if not reported, severe negative publicity if reported, line entered on business creditworthiness report.
It is admittedly a really stupid 19th-20th century law assuming all employees are on the assembly line, so layoffs can only be done by line shift, which is completely unrealistic in the 21st century, unless you live in China I guess.
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Whoops almost forgot the most important reason, fired during a mass layoff means 100% approved for unemployment compensation, fired outside a legally declared mass layoff means the boss can fight the benefits. There's a huge financial motivation to do this because the UE bill is based on previous layoff records...
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Given the boss's tone, he'd probably say that since you're not an employee at the time of the drawing (if you're fired), you're ineligible to win.
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It's not illegal. It just means that employees leaving the company in this specific situation are treated as if the employer terminated their employment for the purposes of unemployment insurance, which means the employees get benefits and they are counted when determining the employer's contribution rate.