Well just file that previous post in with the “People who only know four words…” thread! I hit submit to soon.
Grizz thats horrible! Your boss should be reported… or toilet papered! Preferably while at work:D
What rock have you been under?
Dickheads running companies go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back. 
How about you send a copy of this to the United Way and tell them you are not donating because of this tactic on your supervisor’s part?
I can’t believe it is legal for your company to force everyone to participate.
Don’t donate. Document your boss’s voice-mail and the fact everyone’s contributions were posted.
I would proudly allow them to publically humiliate me, and tell them that it’s the principle of the thing, and that I do NOT like United Way at all.
If they threaten me, I’ll threaten them with the local labor board or something.
This cannot be fucking legal!
There’s another log on the fire of my burning hatred of the United Way. Personally, I would have no issue at all with my name being the only one on the list of nonparticipation. I bet the list is illegal too. Maybe a call from a lawyer representing an anonymous employee would do the trick.
Haj
Yep. It’s called the “United Way Chapter Awards dinner.” If your company has a 100% participation rate (or the highest rate in your “company category” for the area) your CEO will be handed a nice, shiny plaque! And his picture will be in the paper! And everybody will say, “Gosh, isn’t Mr. CEO a swell guy? And isn’t his company so generous to the community?”
Sadly, that’s it. The CEO or other higher-ups in the company want to look “good.” Sometimes, it’s to cover their ass for something they’ve done that’s “bad.” And the best (and cheapest! 'Cause they’re not paying for it, are they?) way to do it is to get their employees to donate to United Way.
I work for a university fundraising department. Now, legally, I don’t know what somebody could be charged with for coercing a gift, but I do know what our trade organization (CASE) says about it: Don’t coerce a gift. Ever. Period.
I’ve said it before here, but it bears repeating: these kinds of tactics hurt us all in the fundraising business. Og only knows how many people have been turned off of philanthropy forever by UW.
The director of the department in which I work made sure that the UW donation forms were placed in each of our mail slots and made it explicitly clear that there would be 100% participation from our group, with no exceptions… explaining that he was only bowing to pressure “from above.”
Of course, he also paper-clipped a freshly printed one dollar bill to each of the 60-odd forms, fresh from his own bank account.
He did say that anyone who wanted to donate more, or establish an automatic payroll deduction as a percentage or whatever, was of course perfectly free to do so… He just didn’t want anyone else to feel strong-armed into donating even a dollar of their own money just for the charade of “charity” being practiced by so many large companies.
We got pretty much the same “suggestion” here regarding the Combined Federal Campaign.
Print out several copies of that statement, anonymously shove one under the boss’s door and hang the rest in various places.
I wonder what would happen if you filed an HR or EEO complaint against the CEO for creating a hostile working environment?:dubious:
Saddly, I would be shocked if this was illegal.
Todays phrase is: “Employment at Will.”
Ok, this is really just pathetic. I as a humble (reasonably well paid) worker bee can manage to afford $250 a year in charity, it’s $20 a month fer cryin out loud. Considering that a director probably has 10x my disposable income, $250 is a joke.
I agree with Jeff Olsen, adding to the printout “You really don’t want your message forwarded to the UW do you?”
If I were at a company where this happened, I’d be outraged, but not surprised. I’ve heard similar reports for years.
I’m not an employment lawyer (and this is not meant to be reliable legal advice - see a labor/employment lawyer in your state for that), but be aware that not caving in could put your job in jeopardy. As shocking as this is, I’m not sure that you would have a case if you are fired, and the express, stated reason is your failure to contribute. (And no company would be stupid enough to say this. You’d be fired or otherwise penalized for “not being a team player” or some other vague reason.) Remember, the general rule is that you can be fired for any reason, or no reason. (There are exceptions, but none seem to apply here. The only possible claim I can think of is that forced contributions which ultimately go to a religious charity violates your constitutional right to freedom of religion. Your state’s wage and hours statute might also be worth a look.)
One of our managers went around personally asking us to donate to the United Way, and I nicely told her that I do not donate to organizations that support religious groups. She was a little surprised, but never gave me any grief over it.
This conjurs up a hopefully unintended image…
I’d simply sit on my hands and ignore the whole thing as long as it is possible. It never pays to get in a pissing match with the higher-ups at your place of employment unless you are ready to move on. The fact that you are right and they are wrong means nothing, it’s a fact of life that some idiots are in positions of power.
But I’d be looking for another place to work, just in case. Not for fear of being fired, but because to me this would be an indicator of a lousy work environment. I’ve never given to UW, don’t plan on starting, and would not contribute if coerced by my company.
I’d say that’s a pretty good claim right there, frankly.
The United Way is not a charity, it’s a fundraising consortium. That’s not a moot distinction–essentially, the United Way does not perform any charitable work of its own, but rather passes monies it raises it on to other organizations. For many years, UW accountancy was pretty sloppy. They would raise money for one specific project, then donate the money to a completely different project, because they were keeping all the money in one “pot,” as it were. They, and the Red Cross, were caught out after 9/11 when it was revealed that money they were raising for the 9/11 Fund was going to unrelated projects.
I know United Way has gotten more careful with its procedures. But I do not know whether it is possible for someone to donate to UW with the proviso that the gift will not go to a religious charity. It is a point worth debating as to whether this is a violation of religious expression.
Unintended images seems to be my forte. 
Employment at will, indeed, however that doesn’t mean one can be fired not having sex with one’s supervisor, or being of a different race, or for not donating to a charity that funds religious programs, Etc.
I understand Texas(where I see you’re from), pits the employee against the employer quite a bit, rights-wise.
California is an at-will state as well, but you simply cannot can a person without being liable for repercussions resulting from an unfair canning.
Sam
P.S- AFAIK, IANAL, Etc.
What about if the very manner of contribution is against tenets of your religion? FWIW, I’m not observant, but was raised Jewish. They always told us in Sunday school that the Jewish concept of tsedakah (charity) is ideally given anonymously. The whole point from a religious point of view is to perform a mitzvah, not to get brownie points with your boss. Is there a legal argument to be made there for someone?
(Although this argument probably didn’t help me much when I used it on the HR director at my first job - at a religiously based nonprofit - after college, who strong-armed us for both United Way and Jewish Federation campaigns. I think at that point I was raking in a whole $16k, and was probably eligible for a fair number of the agency’s means-tested programs.) Co-workers told me to tape a nickel to my pledge card and send it back, but I wouldn’t, on principle, even when the HR director wrote me a nasty letter giving me a deadline to “join with my colleagues in the team spirit.” What if you choose to give to charities that are not part of UW? I’ve posted this before, but my mom once lost her job when I was a kid as a result of UW pulling funding from her employer, and she was an unemployed single mom with 2 kids to support for a significant period after that, so hell if I will ever support UW again.
It’s none of anyone’s business what I choose to do with my money, or whether I choose to donate time instead, or in fact pretty much anything I do when I’m not at work. And frankly, if I ever had adverse employment action taken against me for some BS like that, I’d be working elsewhere in about 2 seconds for someone who doesn’t try to impose their beliefs on me.
I don’t think that the religious oppresion angle is going to work because I am pretty sure that when you donate to the UW you can specify a charity you want it to go to.
You know how I know this? I used to work for a non profit that not only strong-armed us to give to UW, they also strong-armed us to designate our company as the recipient. Hello? How bout I just take a pay cut instead.