I am going to make a real effort to keep the ranting out of this. I hope all that who reply to this can do the same;) .
The Facts:
It’s United Way time here at work. All employees were given a UW donation form. Even if one didn’t want to give, they were asked to turn in a form anyway where they stated that they weren’t donating. Everyone who turned in a form, whether or not they donated, were entered into a drawing for free movie tickets or something. I threw my form in the garbage and didn’t think anything of it.
Today the employee in my area who is on the UW committee came by my cube asking me to fill out the form. I told her that I didn’t care to do that. She said that they would just fill out a form in my name that said that I wasn’t going to be donating and put that form in my HR file. I told her that I didn’t want any such form in my file and she said that she would pass that on to HR.
I may be meeting with HR today. What are my rights here? Why would they put whether or not I donated to their charity in my file? I am leaning towards sending an email to HR explicitly stating that I object to that form in my file. Bad idea?
Please, no posts about how the UW is great, how the UW is evil or how this “battle” is a waste of time.
I also refused to donate money to a UW fund drive. I was working at an agency that received United Way funds. I thought it was pretty stupid to fund my own salary. But they still wanted me to donate. I quit that job for other reasons.
Why I stopped donating to UW at work (not a UW rant, but a silly HR rant): Every year we have a the UW drive. We have to sit and watch a video and pretty much shut down the plant for this. Fill out the cards, and repeat next year. However the salaried guys have the option to fill out the card for “automatic” donations that’s some small, fixed percentage of our income. This is supposed to be a “forever” type of deal as long as we’re with the company (you can cancel it by going to HR). The “benefit” to this was that in coming years we wouldn’t be solicited for donation nor have to attend the “rally” – everything was automatic. I signed on board, and a year later, got a new card and told I had to attend the UW rally. My cries of “I’m on the automatic plan” were pretty-much useless.
Oh yeah, the only other plans are for taking amounts from your salary twice a month. There’s not even a one-time donation option!
As long as the information in your file is factually correct and as long as the company is not barred by law from having or keeping the information I don’t think you can make them take the information out of your file. You have the right to have information responding to the UW black mark placed in your file although IMHO it won’t do a lick of good.
I just throw all of that shit away and have my email set up to delete anything that says “United Way” automatically. I tried to get taken off the distribution lists for the paper and email forms only to be told by the VP of HR that I was a bad citizen.
I spoke with the head of HR about this. She told me that I wasn’t the first one to complain to her about this issue. She is going to have a little talk with the UW team and tell them that they are not to fill out forms for people. Also, the UW lady gave me erroneous information. The forms were to go to payroll, not HR. This, of course, is totally reasonable since payroll has to do the deductions for those who decide to donate. The head of HR told me in no uncertain terms that as far as she is concerned, the UW is a personal and voluntary thing and whether or not one donates has no effect on their status.