If the employees were willing to go AWOL like this, then what’s to stop them from doing it again in the future? (If the employer didn’t fire them)
Only if you assume that the ones who did this had a longer term problem with reliability and that the new ones won’t.
It’s kind of like biting the hand that feeds you.
You don’t like what Trump is doing to immigrants, so you are going to fuck over your employer who hires immigrants? You’re not hurting Trump any, he doesn’t care. You’re hurting and inconveniencing the people who do care.
Firing someone over political activity is unfair.
A company isn’t going to crash and burn because employees don’t show up for one day.
More and more, corporations are becoming feudal overlords rather than places of employment.
Who cares about the reason, the fact is they didn’t show up to work. As I said earlier, what if they didn’t show up for some other reason that was really important to them, like a music festival or a big football game?
The definition of a ‘place of employment’ is where a “worker actually performs his or her work”. So, I mean, if you don’t show up to work you really can’t call it your place of employment.
Now, if they had done this on their own time and been fired for attending, that would be very different, but it’s not the case. If you tell your boss you’re not going to come in tomorrow, the boss says he’ll fire you if you do that, then you do it, I’m not sure how you could call that unfair.
ETA: and as I was always taught growing up, if you don’t like the rules, go start your own business and make your own rules and see how you like it when people break them. Honestly, do you really think it’s fair to skip work and assume there’s no consequences for that? Do you think it’s unfair for someone that’s trying to run a business to decide he’d rather hire people that won’t randomly skip work?
Only the employees didn’t dare the company to fire them. They said “We’re going to skip work tomorrow and come in on Sunday to make it up, if that’s OK with you.” The company said, “No, that’s not OK. Work tomorrow or we’ll fire you.” The workers assumed they still had jobs.
They weren’t fired for their political activity. If they had taken part in the protest on their own time, the company wouldn’t have cared. They were fired for missing work. As Joey P said, it’s the same as if they skipped work to go to a Titans game. It didn’t matter why they didn’t go to work, they weren’t excused from working that day.
As I understand it, these were a bunch of painters? Presumably, if you have that many painters working for you, you have jobs lined up to fill their time. If you now have to go find more painters, you job schedule is going to slip.
From the article:
’
Now, telling your clients that there job is going to slip a day or two, because your largely immigrant workforce took a day off to protest is going to piss off your clients (who - generally - don’t give a damn about politics, they just need their building or whatever painted). But things slip by a day or two - sometimes norovirus hits the team and they are all out sick. Telling them that its going to slip by two or three weeks because you fired them and now need to rehire new people - that is going to get you on the project manager shit list. As someone whose been a corporate PM and as someone who has done vendor relations - that is a good way to see yourself removed from our vendor list.
Was it fair to the employees, yes. Was it wise? They know their clients better than I do, but if I’m the PM at the client, we won’t ever use them again. Not because of their politics, not because they fired people “fairly or unfairly” - because my schedule has now slipped by however long it takes to hire new painters.
I was going to respond that this was an annual event. But then I looked it up to substantiate that. And, from what I can tell, it was held in 2006 and then not again until 2017.
Since my life was (apparently) utterly unaffected by the lack of immigrants, I think I heard about it in 2006 and then again in 2017 and concluded that it must be a regular thing.
To me, this is the crux of the matter. Would they have been fired if they’d behaved in a similar way but for a different event (like a music festival or a sports game)? If yes, then this firing was fair. If not, if they were treated differently specifically because of the political nature of the event, then it was not fair.
Which is why I decline to choose either of the options in the poll, since we don’t have the information to answer that question.
In the case of the deli on Long Island (it was apparently a chain of delicatessens, not just one), I’d bet the rent money that at least some of their employees were illegal/undocumented.
If it’s fair to fire them for ditching work to protest, it’s fair that ICE have a look at the employer’s hiring practices and subject them to the appropriate legal penalties.
Miss work without requesting time off?
You get fired. It can be considered job abandonment.
Absolutely fair.
How would you like covering someone else’s job duties after they don’t show up for work?
Or maybe the owner called a temp agency and had 20 new people by lunch time that were willing to paint buildings for minimum wage for a few weeks while things got sorted out. And as the super amazing PM that’s always super amazing on top of things you’ll be amazed that even when the shit hits the fan, everything still moved forward.
IOW, how many assumptions did you have to make to figure decide that firing 20 people meant that all the jobs would fall behind by 2-3 weeks. If these guys really are just painters they’re not going to spend weeks pouring over each person resume when they really just need to make sure the person can hold a brush and will show up to work on time.
Well, we know for a fact the old ones do have a problem with reliability or at least insubordination. So there’s that.
And I’ll say it again, until or unless we find that this was actually politically motivated, pretend like all these people skipped work to go to a concert. Would that change anything for you? Would it have been unfair if the whole thing was exactly the same but they told the boss just got free Katy Perry tickets?
I think a lot of people that are defending the employees are only seeing it as a political thing. It may turn out that way, but unless you know, you’re just speculating.
In a certain sense, they did dare their employer.
Employees: “We’re going to skip work.”
Boss: “If you do that, you’ll be fired.”
Employees: Skip work
A point I think has not been mentioned: If the employer gave these employees a pass, the employer MUST be prepared to do so in any remotely similar circumstances in the future or the employer will be accused of discrimination. “You let the immigrants get away with not showing up, why did you fire us for not showing up when we went to the NRA rally?” When I worked in employee relations, it was absolutely essential that if you gave one employee a pass for, say, smoking on property, you had better be prepared to never, ever discipline any other employee for this infraction.
Not a problem. It’s perfectly reasonable to have a graduated disciplinary process in which a first infringement attracts a reprimand, a warning or other disciplinary action, but a second results in dismissal.
I didn’t make any, I said IF.
I didn’t know you could hire a bunch of qualified painters from a temp agency. I wouldn’t want them on my job. Painting isn’t highly skilled labor, but it isn’t unskilled labor - as anyone who has hired a bad painter knows.
You said " Telling them that its going to slip by two or three weeks because you fired them and now need to rehire new people - that is going to get you on the project manager shit list. As someone whose been a corporate PM and as someone who has done vendor relations - that is a good way to see yourself removed from our vendor list. "
I’m asking how you know it would take 2-3 weeks to get back to the job that was missed? The only “if” statements you made were ‘if’ you fire all your painters and ‘if’ you were the PM for the client, but your post was based on the assumption that your job would be pushed 2-3 weeks back.
Maybe you wouldn’t even know. Maybe they send a crew of 20 people to your place and 10 of them are the temps that never touch a brush.
But the temp thing was just something I tossed out there. It’s also entirely possible the owner worked everything out in one way or another and got everything done without bringing in any outside help.
I had my roof done last summer, they used a crew of, IIRC, 16 people. When I asked about that, the foreman told me that even though there’s 16 people, many of them are just starting out and spend the day cleaning up debris, sweeping, picking up nails, running supplies up the ladder etc, they never swing a hammer. They’re more of a support crew and the reason the roof was done in 4 hours instead of 3 days.
Also, just because you got someone from a temp agency doesn’t mean they’re clueless. It’s not like they were driving trucks for 20 years and now they’re pinstriping buildings. Go look at any temp agency’s website and search for painters. Many of the listings will ask that applicants have X years of experience. On top of all that, how do you know the people that were originally going to be sent to your project weren’t picking up a brush for the first time?
For something like this? Proud to.
Yep.
From an employers perspective, I wish my employees were more political. I give them time off to vote, but have to shame them into using the time.
If my employees took the day off, I’d lose money, but it would be well worth it. I’d try to get the local press to do a story, just so I could show off my pride in their choice.
But no. They didn’t even know about it, nor did any of them care.