Before I begin, this isn’t a debate why pot should/should not be legalized or the health effects of pot. The articles is from the Wall Street Journal, and is available only to online subscribers.
The article, about Lilly, says they are not the only firm doing so.
Lilly, IMO, is wrong to start refusing contract workers for old slips, but their blanket policy seems to be that if the record does not come back clean, they are out. Any misdemeanor is enough to get a contract worker disqualified, it seems. (Regular employees, the article implies, were not subjected to the same post 9/11 scrutiny). I understand Lilly backed off of motor vehicle record review and credit checks, but I’ve still think they’ve gone much too far in their pogrom (forgive me a little hyperbole).
Can anyone defend the extent to which Lilly has gone?
Your title is a misrepresentation of the situtation you are talking about. It should be something along the lines of “Why Committing Crime is Bad.” Or some such.
The only thing I have to say about Lilly is that this is America. Legal entities should have every right to do buisness or live life in any way that doesn’t cause harm to other entities right to do the same. If you don’t like the way Lilly does buisness then don’t work for them. I wouldn’t. But I do think they have the right to do what they are doing.
They’re only applying it to employees of outside contractors. I don’t believe they mentioned whether or not Lilly employees were subjected to the same stringency, although the article intimated they weren’t.
Lily isn’t the only company that does this and it isn’t anything new. It is just new to this particular company. My ex - wife lost her job at a retirement home for merchant marines after they discovered an 18 year old marijuana charge. I can’t imagine anyone outside of Lily that would feel the need to defend such actions.
I don’t have the full story, but if it’s a matter of lying on a job application (“have you ever been convicted of…”), then I can see why these people would be fired. It’s pretty automatic, actually.
It’s possible that the reason Lilly staff have not been through the recent background check is that they already went through it when they were originally hired.
This is contradictory because by your first statment the humans should have a right to do whatever they want because it is not harming Lilly. Lilly’s actions actually harmed the individuals they banned from the workplace.
The way I see it is the people that work for Lilly do not have the right to dictate to Lilly the terms of requirements that are needed to work for Lilly. This is Lilly’s right. The workers have the right to accept or decline applying for work or continuing to work for a company. If the employees’ don’t reach the minimum requirements level of Lilly, then why should Lilly employ them.
We wouldn’t even be debating this if it were something like, “Lilly fires 500 employees that are unqualified to handle Nuclear Waste.” Yet it is the same beast.
In this case, people think their beliefs and morals should be applied to Lilly, when Lilly’s beliefs and morals don’t correspond to theirs.
Sorry, if you think like that then you are bass akwards. At least from my beliefs and morals perspective.
The minimum requirements of a job will always be tailored to the economic conditions of the time. Why are these people contract workers to begin with? Because Lilly doesn’t want to pay them any benefits. And they can get away with it, today.
Cook up a depression instead of a recession, and our President won’t be able to work for some companies because he has a DWI under his belt, and I’m betting that’s going to be the next big “filter.” Turn that recession into a big enough boom and someone, somewhere, might be considering Charles Manson’s resume, assuming the guy ever gets paroled.
My answer has always been this: yep, it sucks, but think about it for a minute and ask yourself if you really want to work for these assholes in the first place. I wouldn’t if I could possibly avoid it.
Allmost. Federal law forbids employers from discriminating based on race, creed, religon, or sex, but it does not prohibit employers from discriminating based on criminal record, age, sexual orientation, weight, hair color, shoe size, whether you drive a Ford or Chevy, etc. Some states forbid discrimination based on age and sexual orientation, but, as far as I know, no states forbid discrimination based on criminal record.
I agree that Eli Lilly is being ridiculous, but this particular brand of ridiculousness is well within their legal right.
To get facts as fully correct as possible:
[ul]
[li]Lilly is not firing anyone; instead they are only denying access to Lilly facilities[/li][li]However, many of these contractors have no other work for employees not allowed into Lilly[/li][li]As a contractor (consultant), I can tell you different companies have different screening requirements, from non-existent to intrusive[/li][li]Legally right or wrong, the article mentions that Lilly is the main employer in the otherwise economically-depressed area. Contractors released will have great difficulty finding new work, especially work as lucrative as the Lilly assignment[/li][/ul]
Here in the UK, we have a system whereby convictions for minor offenses become “spent” after a certain number of years, so you don’t have to declare them on - for example - job applications (unless certain sets of conditions apply, depending on the attitude of the employer and the sensitivity of the job - I think you still have to disclose pretty much everything if you’re planning to work with kids, for example).
Do you not have a similar mechanism in the US? And do you think it might be useful if you did?
I don’t know if we do, although I think not. However, it wouldn’t matter if they remain on your official file rather than just not being stated on an application
It is Lilly’s right to decide whether a person is qualified. Not yours. Period. That’s why Lilly is doing what it is doing without your consent.
I have very Libertarian political views so my answer isn’t going to please you at all. Yes. You are correct. A company should be able to descriminate on any level they chose to. They own the company. They should decide. On the other hand, in my Libertarian world, this company wouldn’t last very long because people would chose to descriminate them right out of buisness.
You are very wrong here, with regards to a company not having morals or the like. A company’s morals are the morals of the people making the decisions for the company. Morals are simply a set of rules that tell something or someone what is right or wrong. Since companies make decisions based on what it thinks is right or wrong for it, it has morals. Also, in most company charters there are whole sections that outline these morals and ethincs.
Moderator’s Note: I have changed the title of this thread from “Why pot is bad for you”. In the future, please try to choose thread titles which actually have something to do with the subject of the thread.
