Unemployment Fears

[coeceo.livejournal.com]

So I was curious if anyone has heard stories of employers taking advantage of their employees' fears of losing their job.

My employer recently pulled a last minute cancellation of our Presidents Day paid holiday. A blatant disregard for our employment contracts, but nonetheless, everyone is too afraid of losing their job to say much. I'm sure other companies are doing even worse things.

Comments

[dianamp04.livejournal.com]

My last job cut our salaries twice...in one year...although that was more due to the economy screwing with nonprofits. But I feel like they felt the fear of having no job at all (or loyalty) would keep us there. Didn't work for me.

Wow...

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

If EVERYBODY is working today, including the CEO and all managers, then I think it would not be so bad since it would seem like the company is really trying to stay afloat. Otherwise it would seem like shameless exploitation.

[spud.livejournal.com]

Personally, I would contact the Attorney Generals Hotline on that one. (617) 727-8400

If you file a complaint with the Attorney Generals Office (or with the Labor Division, or a court of law, etc...) you are protected by law if that employer tries to terminate your employment.

Call the hotline and explain the situation. They can guide you on the best course of action.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Seconded, if it violates your contract (and read it closely, they might have an escape clause in there), bring in the law.

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

I would question whether the OP has an actual contract. If it's only contained in the employee handbook, there is almost always a clause that allows the employer to change the terms of employment without notice or compensation.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

True, about the handbook. But if they do have a contract...

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Best place to look for those is probably Consumerist, although I've been thinking about firing up an employment blog to collect stories like this one.

[frederic.livejournal.com]

It might be time to polish up the ol' resume and send it out. It's often easier to find a new position than fix your current one.

One of my jobs at a start-up would routinely cancel our holidays. It either helped us to make deadlines or to show solidarity to our coworkers in another group so they weren't there alone. Yes, it was annoying but part of the territory of some companies.

To specify

[coeceo.livejournal.com]

For this case, its pretty solid, no major disclaimer, handbook is referenced in the contract, no disclaimer on schedule, etc... But my concern is not in loss of a holiday, its what is next? With the economy in the pits and unemployment on the rise, companies can get away with anything because people are afraid to lose their jobs.... Is this something we are going to see more of? I mean will I lose healthcare now to help reduce costs, 1/2 of my vacation? Do I have any protection? And do the books really warrant this type of cost reduction? My understanding is we are doing just fine I think its a knee-jerk reaction and am scared that I have no protection from more of them.

[tober.livejournal.com]

Er, IANAL but are you sure you have an employment contract as such? If you work in Massachusetts this is extremely unlikely unless you are either an executive of the company or you work in a non-management position at a union shop (in which case the contract would be the collective bargaining agreement). If the latter then you should be talking to your shop steward or other union representative. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that you will find that any agreement you have with your employer that you think is an employment contract contains verbiage that makes it clear that, whatever is written there notwithstanding, you are an employee at will. In any case... if you are a non-exempt (hourly) employee and you are required to work today then you may be entitled to overtime. Also, if your employer had previously stated that you did not have to work today and then did not give reasonable notice of the change (e.g.- if the first notice you received that you would have to work today was on Friday) then you may have a cause for action. Other than that... if they told you to work today and you didn't show up and they consequently fired you, that firing would probably be legally defensible.

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

There's no legal requirement for overtime pay on President's Day (under the Blue Laws, you don't even need a permit to operate). But it depends on the wording of the contract and the handbook.

IANAL squared.

It is sad that there is nothing in between....

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Either Unions that tend to be supergreedy, irresponsible and inflexible (I'm not going to mention the groups in MA that belong to these Unions, not to offend anybody) or no protection at all. Why cannot we have reasonable Unions that nonetheless offer decent protection to their members?

Re: It is sad that there is nothing in between....

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I work for a unionized non-profit and we are fortunate to actually have protection and flexibility. When we were looking at a major budget shortfall at the beginning of our second fiscal quarter, we successfully worked out a plan with management where we all took voluntary, temporary pay cuts (graduated according to salary level) so that no one would have to be laid off. We also agreed not to take advantage of a relatively minor, but nice personal improvement benefit for the remainder of the fiscal year. It's working so far.

Re: It is sad that there is nothing in between....

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

That is a good example. Do you think there is something specific about the Union's rules that makes it successful? Or it just happens to have good leaders?

Re: It is sad that there is nothing in between....

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

In our specific case, I think that it's mainly a combination of:

1) good stewardship in our local (with good advice from our business manager at the main office);

2) an organizational commitment to having a unionized workplace (we're a human rights and social justice organization that focuses in part on workers' rights, so it's a case of putting its money where its mouth is);

3) a staff of people who are very committed not just to the work we do, but to the union and to our ideals;

4) management that recognizes #3 and doesn't view us simply as drones or the union as merely some obstacle to be overcome.

This is not to say that we don't experience tension at times. We totally do! Especially during contract negotiation time -- holy crap, does that get ugly sometimes, because it's an inherently adversarial process. Still, we all worked very hard during this time of fiscal crisis to find a solution that we could all buy into, and I'm really proud of our whole organization for doing so. I just hope that we continue to do well enough that our solution holds fast while this economic mess lasts.

Re: It is sad that there is nothing in between....

[elements.livejournal.com]

I am officially jealous of your union. I work at Harvard. We have a lovely group of people who run our union, but there's an official policy against ever getting adversarial, which means we end up having a largely ineffective union when it comes to real problems. We're currently being threatened with layoffs etc. and the union hasn't spoken up against them.

Definitely, but not necessarily cynically explicit.

[jimmyfergus.livejournal.com]

In my job (software dev), workload has increased dramatically, expectations are up. I don't think it's even completely cynical exploitation by upper management.

I think everyone's scared, and high up in my (fairly large) company, they're thinking about how to be in the best situation to weather it and to kick off profits when (if!?) things pick up. This translates into more ambitious projects and timescales, and everyone lower down is too scared to push back.

Certainly I know a few people who've been laid off and they are finding nothing...

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

Word is the big racket is in things like denying/contesting unemployment benefits after a layoff, to keep unemployment insurance premiums from going up.

unemployment insurance premiums

[mjrocks98.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know my employer is looking at cutting a lot of us back from 12 months to 11 or 10 months instead of laying us off for the summer. If they change our work descriptions to 10 or 11 month employees then we can't collect unemployment in the summer & therefore the premiums won't go up. I should say I work in education. Having the summer off would be nice, but losing 2 months of pay without enough time to prepare for it will suck. It's not like you can even find another job right now to supplement - I've been looking.

Re: unemployment insurance premiums

[ron_newman]

What is the difference betweeen "cutting back from 12 months to 11 or 10 months", and a 1 or 2 month layoff?

Re: unemployment insurance premiums

[mjrocks98.livejournal.com]

If they change my job description to 11 or 10 month that means I will only be paid for 10 or 11 months; thus losing a month or 2 of salary & unable to collect unemployment because the new job description states my employment as 10 or 11 months. If I were to get laid off for a month or 2 I could collect unemployment.