Miss work as a political protest, get fired. Fair?

In My Humble Opinion
1

"The 18 employees at Bradley Coatings, Incorporated in Nolensville, Tennessee told their supervisors on Wednesday they’d be taking part in the nationwide movement. Then, on Thursday, they were told they no longer had jobs.
…
The former employee asked to remain anonymous but had this message to his former boss.

“I would tell him he was unfair, after working for them for so many years, giving him our best. They could not understand that it was just one day. We were going to make up that day on a Sunday, but they didn’t understand that, and it was not the best way. They didn’t give us an opportunity and just told us we were fired,” he said. "

So - fair or unfair?

2

They were warned beforehand and still did it.

3

It depends on the policy for other unapproved absences. My impression is that most places give warnings and only fire after a number of warnings. Anyone know?

4

Red state contractor blows out its workforce, all of whom are apparently non-English speaking immigrants, and red state folk bombard the business with support. I love this. You wacky people.

Sure, it’s fair.

5

IMO, the reason immaterial. They skipped work and whatever policy (or lack thereof) is in place at the time would make the decision. Just because something is very important to you doesn’t mean you get to skip work to attend to it. Keep in mind that this political rally may have been very important to those employees, having employees show up to work may be just as important to the employer.

What if they had used a vacation day or otherwise requested off a few weeks in advance?

Also, does it say anywhere how many people (from that business) skipped work. It might paint a different picture if, for example, 40 people skipped work and only 18 were fired. But regardless, again IMO, if you skip work you have to deal with the repercussions.

I don’t know how that place operates, but having those 18 people not show up may have meant other parts of the factory couldn’t operate or other employees had to be called in (possibly on overtime). “Making it up on Sunday”…I’m not sure how that works. ISTM, that means either they knew everything would fall behind and they’d have to catch up, everyone would be fine and there’d be twice as many people working on Sunday or they’re closed on Sunday which means in addition to the 18 people there would also likely have to be at least one or two manager or supervisor types.

In the end, like I said, if you don’t show up to work (without requesting the day off and having it approved), it’s on you. I don’t see why you can blame that on anyone but yourself.

Just to take politics out of it, pretend the exact same thing happened because 18 people decided at the last minute not to show up to work and go to Burning Man or do a marathon or go to Vegas for a day.

6

Tennessee is an at-will state. Their employer warned them they would be fired, even though they had no obligation to do so. They can fire employees with no notice and without cause. The employees should have been aware of this. Justified firing, IMO. Attending a political rally is no protection from losing your job if you are expected to be at work. The workers did not give their supervisors enough time to cover their positions having given 24 hours or fewer notice.

7

Just to toss out a different example, imagine if you hired someone to lay a concrete patio for you. On the day he was supposed to show up, he wasn’t there, you call him and find out he’s at this rally and he’ll do the job next week which now means either:
1)instead of a brand new patio you have a mud pit in your backyard for the party you’re having this week
2)He’s going to send his friend instead, but it’s going to cost $2500 instead of $1500.

Are either of these okay with you? This rally is really important to him, surely it’s okay if that costs you more money or time, right? I’m sure plenty of people would just hire a new person that could do the work and tell this guy his services are no longer needed.

Yes, I understand that it’s not a perfect example, but the point I’m trying to make is that the employees that went to the rally cost the employer money AND have shown that they’re not reliable. What other days are they going to not show up for because there’s somewhere else they’d rather be? From the employee’s point of view, I get it. But from the employer’s POV, it’s not fair. It should also be noted that just about every business has fired employees for being a no show.

FTR, I’m generally very left, but my family has owned a business since before I was born and I (more or less) run it now so I see the other side of things. In a case like this, again, it doesn’t matter what the reason is, all the employer sees a nearly 20 people not showing up to work. Political rally, drum circle, calling in sick for the 3 times a week (legit or not), if I can’t count on you to show up to work, I’ll need to hire someone else sooner or later. When I have to do your work, mine falls behind. When I have to call someone else in on overtime, that gets very expensive.

On preview, I see cochrane mentioned that TN is At Will, so yes, they can be fired for nearly any reason (barring protected class type things). However, I’m curious if this is the first time the people who had worked there for ‘so many years’ had done this or if it’s happened before. And as others have mentioned, they were warned and it appears (at least based on the PR spin) they were really pushing deadlines because of it.

8

The whole point of being a “at will” state is that a firing doesn’t have to be fair. But the OP doesn’t ask whether the firing is lawful; he asks whether it’s fair. It’s possible to fire people unfairly in an at-will state; is that what happened here?

I’m with those who say we’re not given enough information. How were these workers treated compared with others who were absent at short notice as a matter of choice? Is everybody dismissed on the first occasion where such a thing happens, or is there a more graduated disciplinary process which involves lesser sanctions such as warnings, docking of pay or loss of seniority for a first offence?

9

To be honest, this sounds like a pretty standard experience with construction contractors.

10

I’m leaning towards it being fair. From the report, it appears they were fired for a reasonable cause ie not showing up for work. If they had all decided to take a day off to go to a football game and been fired, I don’t think there would be a dispute over this.

That said, I reserve the right to change my vote if additional information emerges.

11

As per the comments of others, not enough information.

For example, if this was the very first time the employees had missed a day or otherwise were not up to scratch according to their managers, then yeah, I would say it was not only unfair but politically motivated and therefore ‘not cool’.

Yes, Bricker, I understand that ‘not cool’ does not equal illegal. I get that, before you jump in! :wink:

12

Yes, I’m aware of that. According to the company’s statement, the eighteen employees were the only ones who were no-shows to work.

Again, they were given prior notice to either show up for work or to be fired when they didn’t have to be. The employees gave less than 24 hours notice that they would skip work, leaving their employer scrambling to fill their work shifts and fulfill their obligations to their clients. The clients who contracted with the company to get their buildings painted don’t give a shit why no one shows up to do their work. They probably at least paid for materials before the work was started, and the employees cost the company and its clients time and money and eroded the clients’ confidence in the company to get their work done on time. Dick move on their parts, fair move on the employer’s.

13

I’m way left but FFS have these people ever tried running a business? The idea isn’t you turn up when it suits you.

You have to do personal stuff on personal time, and I have no idea why a protest would be organised during normal working hours.

14

I voted “fair,” as well, but I assumed the whole intention was to do it during working hours as a sort of strike (although without the muscle of a union) and to disrupt business to show how dependent our economy is on immigrants, no? Or did I miss the whole point of it?

15

It was organized to illustrate the impact of undocumented workers on the economy and what would happen if they weren’t part of the work force. Having it take place during working hours was precisely the point they were trying to make.

That said, I still think it was fair of their employer to fire them for not showing up to work. They had contracts to fulfill. If you don’t uphold your part of the contract, I have the right to void it.

16

They were the only no-shows on that occasion. But how did their treatment compare with the treatment accorded to other no-shows on other occasions? Was is consistent? Because, you know, if the employer treats employees inconsistently, that’s not fair.

Again, that doesn’t dispose of the issue. If I tell you in advance that I will treat you in a particular way, that doesn’t magically make the treatment fair.

Well, call me a crusty old cynic, but the report doesn’t actually say that. It says that the workers concerned gave notice on Wednesday that they wouldn’t be working on Thursdays, but it doesn’t say that this was the first the employer had heard of it. Had there been previous conversations about this? When the employer scheduled the work for Thursday, did it know there was a possibility that some or all of the immigrant workers wouldn’t be available? If they did know that, then the difficult the employer had in honouring its commitments to clients wasn’t entirely of the workers’ making, was it?

I don’t know, obviously, whether this came as a bolt from the blue for the employer, or whether there were prior conversations. I don’t know why the workers didn’t give formal notice of absence until the day before. I don’t know whether there were poor communications here and, if so, who is responsible for that.

In other words, I don’t know the things you would need to know in order to form a judgment about whether this dismissal was fair or not.

17

And I shall continue to hold my opinion the firings were fair, if It’s all the same to you.

18

Of course. The thread is a poll; the whole point is to measure the different opinions that people hold.

That doesn’t preclude discussing the different opinions, of course; this is a discussion forum, after all. My point all along has been that we’d have to know a lot more than we have been told in order to form an opinion about the fairness of the dismissal, but I have never suggested that you need to agree with me, or that I am upset at the fact that you don’t.

19

From the information given it sounds fair. When I was a manager / business owner I would have been very supportive about people asking for time off if they would work with me, but would have been really pissed if there was a major deadline and they blew it off.

It also sounds like they informed the supervisor the day of the protests. Surely they knew in advance about it.

I wouldn’t have fired them myself, but thems the breaks.

20

Also have to consider that this was an organized “skip work day” instead of one or two employees calling in sick. A massive walkout proportionally instead of a minimal workplace disruption.