Well, you got my point, Stark. But I wasn’t really speaking tongue in cheek. If you fire a member of any protected class for any reason, you are open to a lawsuit.
It my not be a just suit, and you may not be liable. But you will pay a lot in defense, suffer bad publicity and most likely settle out. In the mean time, hostile plaintiffs will be scouring your records and if there is anything that would look unfair to a jury and is admissable, you’re sunk.
The above scenario of denying telecommuting to lower income employees (assuming that people with lower incomes will be less able to rehab their houses) would be very, very bad to bring up at trial.
Looks like what I was telling you yesterday was right. The OHSA is repeating that this whole thing is overblown and that it was only a policy guideline meant to be sent to one particular company that requested guidance…
They are running around as fast as they can trying to undo the hysteria that the Washington Post hype created.
Apparently there were more than just a couple of people that failed to fully read and absorb the initial article before jumping off the deep end…
Some of those people turned out to be the United States Congress, which was specifically discussing adding an amendment to a bill up for passage which would restrict OSHA from having anything to do with home offices.
No offense, but if something comes up that seems such a risk that Congress itself gets off its butt and threatens to react within 36 hours- I doubt you can call those of us who felt it was a serious issue ‘overreacting’.
JMCJ
This could be YOUR sig line! For just five cents a post, JMCJ Enterprises will place YOUR sig line at the bottom of each message!
Oh yeah right. I guess the fact that it’s an election year doesn’t have anything to do with it either…plus I guess there’s no precedent for knee-jerk reactions outta Congress eh?
Fact is that yesterday, the same day that the Washington Post hyped the story, the information was already out there for anyone that wanted to read or listen closely enough that the whole thing was as I’ve been telling you all along…a single letter in response to a single company…
As a wise man by the name of Bloomberg once said…“I guess people will believe want they want”…
Of course, the DoL also intends to open a “national dialogue” on the safety of the home-working environment now that it has garnered sufficient publicity.
“Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away.”
And so, an entire agency has acted to preserve its mission in the face of a threat to move a significant portion of its realm of authority out of reach. Whole offices of paper shufflers are preserved into the new century! The system has protected itself! Bureaucracy adapts, and evolves.
It’s Alive! It’s Alive!
<P ALIGN=“CENTER”>Tris</P>
POLITICIAN, n. - An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive. Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?)
John Corrado, where did you learn that Congress as a whole was acting upon this policy statement? I ask because Congress is currently in recess and will be for another 18 days. I could understand individual congresspeople reacting publicly, but the body as a whole?
Krispy, not to say, “Nah, nah, I told you so!” but apparently OSHA’s policy statement was so poorly received that it’s now been withdrawn amid heavy criticism. The Washington Post’s article on the rescission is here. (To muddy the picture the bit, only the letter explaining the policy was withdrawn; since the letter was supposed to be an explanation of existing policy, the status of the policy itself is a little unclear.)
And to lend credence to my original argument,
That seems quite clearly to suggest that to many in corporate America, the OSHA policy was the beginning of the end of telecommuting.
Do you still contend that the now-dead (or at least dying) policy would have had no effect on telecommuting had it stayed viable?
~ Complacency is far more dangerous than outrage ~
OSHA makes a policy with such dreadful implications that the US corporate community immediately issues a call to arms. Osha itself agrees that the implications are so bad that it withdraws a policy that it spent two years drafting…
…and only Krispy, a person in no position to be affected by the policy, retains his composure, seeing that the policy is no big deal.
Obviously Krispy was right. The policy was nothing to worry about. Everybody else was wrong. Glad to get that cleared up.
And Stark, yeah sure, I really believe the vague statement you quoted from the Washington Post…(rolls eyes)…the Post is clearly spinning the facts to cover their butts for their embarassing mistake of two says ago…
…quote from a non-Washington Post news agency
…more:
and:
Try expanding your world of “facts” beyond the Washington Post eh?
Krispy Original – voted SDMB’s 19th most popular poster (1999)
Presumptuous? yes. Risky, No. Unless your former identity was…FORMERAGENT!
THe point you are not getting is that OSHA has admitted that it was wrong and that the implications of its “advisory” were destructive to telecommuting. Which is what I was saying all along. OSHA admitted they were wrong. You are left arguing on behalf of someone (something?) who has conceded. A tenuous poition at best.
(Emphasis added).
IOW, OSHA claims that these were powers that it already had and policies that were already official, and that it just hadn’t gotten around to using those powers to enforce those policies yet.
“Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away.”
I’m trying, kid; I’m trying really, really hard to remain civil to you. I’m doing my best to treat you like an intelligent, thinking adult. But time and time again you prove that my faith in your ability to approximate anything more than an upright monkey is extremely misplaced. I’ve even gone so far as to defend to other posters your infantile behavior and even promise them that with a little patience and guidance you might actually one day post something worthy of the bandwidth you insist on taking up.
And for this all I get is more abuse and sarcasm?
You just don’t seem to grasp why nearly every poster on this board heaps scorn and derision upon you wherever you go. You putter from thread to thread whining about how unfair we all are, never comprehending that the source of your misery is the misshapen, grotesque ego that leads you through life. Grow up and learn that it is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. Mature and learn that it is possible to attack an idea without attacking the person behind the idea. Look around and see that others here have no problem pointing out what they feel is faulty logic without resorting to eye rolling, sarcastic suggestions, and insults.
If you must continue posting to a board where neither your presence nor what we laughingly call your intellect are welcome - and I fear that indeed you must, as you have proven your unwillingness to find a place where you truly belong - then please take a moment to step outside of the suffocating bubble that constitutes your world view and think if only for an instant how your words might be taken by someone else.
I would rebut the point you made - wrapped though it was in useless sarcasm - but I feel it was well addressed by Akatsukami.
~ Complacency is far more dangerous than outrage ~
Nice how you managed to include 5 different insults into that high-horsed post.
I could really care less about gaining or retaining your respect, however if you want to continue to openly insult me, please take it to the PIT where I’ll be more than happy to give you a lesson in wit and flamage…
Oh BTW, you are completely wrong about the OSHA letter to that one Texas-based company…