I believe it is in “Right to Work” states as the government cannot tell you that you cannot work a legal job without due process e.g. the SEC telling someone that as a consequence of their fraud they cannot be an officer in a publicly traded company. It’s like the 1st Amendment. The government cannot abridge your free speech but private companies can. Same thing with working.
Did you find a job and a judge told you you couldn’t take it? Because that’s what happened here.
Right to work means that a worker cannot be forced to join a union or pay dues as a condition of employment.
No. The judge was seeing if the other hospital was using unfair tactics to poach. That is reasonable. The employees were free to do whatever, that other hospital had to wait a weekend to hire them.
No. it was the other hospital that was ruled against, not the employees. They had already quit. They were not forced to stay. The other hospital could not hire them for a day.
No. Right to work is purely union busting.
You’re right, I meant “at-will”.
That’s a contradiction. The workers were not free to start their new jobs until the Judge ok’ed it so not free to do whatever.
What evidence did ThedaCare present on Friday to convince the judge there had been unfair practices? The employees weren’t under contract. They were not recruiting on TC’s property or via TC email addresses.
IIRC the judge said he was giving the weekend to see if the two corporations could work it out with no definite timeline for the employees to work at their new jobs so in effect de facto forcing them back to TC or having no employment for an indeterminate amount of time.
ThedaCare was given a chance to match the offer over a month before and said they wouldn’t. How is that poaching?
I believe this judge was elected which is another ball of wax.
Hopefully not re-elected.
I say once he’s out he’s banned from working another job for a week (1 day + interest) after being hired.
The order wasn’t that they had to work for ThedaCare , only that they couldn’t work for Ascension. While I agree that it’s bullshit, let keep it to the facts and not try to portray it as something it wasn’t.
Unironically there should be laws about what jobs elected officials can take after leaving office, especially positions as powerful as judges.
I do not know the laws and common laws in that state as regards unfair business practices, but the judge does.
Right. Theda did not sue the ex-employees. Y’know, we keep seeing this come up as the whole discussion becomes bogged down, but it was already remarked upon before: the employees as individuals, although affected by the claim, were not one of the contending parties before the court, were they? It was all Theda v. Ascension coming before the judge with arguments about an allegation of unfair competitive practices, wasn’t it?
That being so, did Ascension as the putative defendant raise the issue of harm to the workers in their initial response? Because ISTM for the court to rule based on harm to the workers by violation of their rights, someone would have to make that argument to the court. “Your Honor, the granting of that requested relief would screw these workers over, violate their rights, and the harm would be harder to undo than for either of the companies”. Otherwise AIUI the court normally does not get to motu proprio decide to rule on an argument not made, or is that legally not so?
I mean the only argument Ascension ever needed to make at any point is that they had the right to make business decisions that make them the most money and Theda had no explanation for why they needed immediate relief against any alleged legal harm.
Theda never alleged any harm that would occur with a 1 day or even one week gap in staffing. They alleged that they would eventually lose an accreditation if the staffing shortage continued.
Right. And the judge after one single work day held a hearing and found their evidence lacking and dissolved the injunction. And the employees were paid their new wage for that day they were in court. Where is the outrage? Things worked as they should have, but people are accusing the judge of legalizing slavery!
I agree that it’s not legalized slavery. I think this case caused a stir for the most part because it exposes an attitude in our court system that supposed reciprocal protections such as at-will employment wind up being slanted towards employers in practice. I have no idea if ThedaCare actually thought they could get any more out of this case, but it’s hard to imagine “you can beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride” wasn’t a factor in why they brought this forward and the judge should have realized that immediately given how illogical the case and the injunction request ThedaCare brought.
@UltraVires I think where I disagree with you can be explained from my point of view as follows. Let’s say that ThedaCare was correct, and Ascension had illegally poached their employees. What would be the remedy?
You and I do not support orders 1 or 2 (I’m not trying to speak for you but your past posts certainly suggest that, if I’m wrong then please let me know). I could not see the judge ordering 1, maybe 2 but you would have to figure that would be illegal and would be overturned. So if the only possible outcome is order 3 (a fine), then why are the employees being treated like serfs in a squabble between feudal lords? If Ascension did something wrong, then punish Ascension, but the employees should not have been punished even for 1 day because they were never likely to be prevented from doing what they wish anyway.
Not saying you’re wrong, but Flying Spaghetti Monster I hope you are. I would hope a judge considers people’s rights when making decisions without the specific right having been brought up as a factor in court.
Everyone is saying the judge was obviously wrong here (and it certainly looks that way to me), but the order was issued after a hearing at which Ascension’s attorneys were presumably present. Could part of the problem be that they just did a really bad job presenting what should have been a slam dunk argument?
Or maybe that, from Ascension’s point of view, the inconvenience to the employees wasn’t worth making a fuss about?
Sadly “at will” is pure 100% employer benefit. It has always and only protected employers. It has no protections for the employee.
Absolutely correct.
The complaint stated that they had a nice little regulated health care system there. Thedacare provided the 24/7 stroke care in a relatively small community. The judge sees that 5 people are being hired away to another agency on the same day. This will cause DEATH and other Very Bad Things. It is Friday afternoon. You say “okay, let’s hear about it Monday.” On Monday the judge does what we agree was correct all along.
The employees were not “punished.” They have their new jobs and did not lose a single second of pay. TRO’s are just that. Temporary. And they mean a lot because, again, I would hope that you could tell your local judge to halt something that would harm you or your community. And he schedules a prompt hearing and throws out your case if you lied to him like ThedaCare.