Slashdot Mirror
Employees Rights in an Emergency?
Waiting-for-Ivan asks: "In Florida in the past month and a half, we have survived 2 hurricanes. During the last one I was within the areas with a hurricane warning (i.e. hurricane conditions are expected within 24 hours). My company (who will remain unnamed) wanted everyone to come in. Those who did not come in had their pay docked (salary or hourly didn't matter) and threatened with loss of their pay for Labor Day. We are not an emergency facility whose services are required during an emergency. Is this legal? Can they make us come in during a hurricane warning (or any other environmental emergency) and if we refuse can they punish us for not doing so? Do we as employees have any rights (and can they dock salaried employees so easily)? What laws are in affect explaining these circumstances?
My company has a policy that we're "always open." Last year, we experienced a blizzard so severe that the city issued tickets to any non-emergency vehicles on the road. The power at the building was also knocked out. Yet when we got back to work, we were expected to make up the time or use Paid Time Off. The excuse made by management was, "Sometimes you have to use you PTO benefit for the company's benefit." (!)
I'd been working there all of a month, or I probably would have contacted a lawyer. If it happens again, I'll definitely be exploring a class-action suit. In a state of emergency, when it's not safe to go to work, it's completely unreasonable to expect employees to come in. If it's not illegal, it ought to be. If I were you, I'd contact a lawyer.
Right...
I live in Florida in an area that was sure to be hit by Charley, I left Thursday and got a hotel room for me and my family ( I live 1 block from the Gulf in a low lying area). My work was open that Thursday until 3PM when the "Official" notice came to leave. The hotel I found was full that night and had I waited to leave until I was Allowed to by my employer I would've had a tough time finding a room and may have had to sit in an evacuation center for a few days. Anyhow, I did get a "Written Notice" from my employer for not coming in that day which I signed with a note saying that my family comes before my job.
The good news is that I hated that job and I quit today anyhow. (they're sleazy snakes) all in all, F any employer that asks you to stand in harms way so they can make a buck. If more people took this approach employers would have to be more considerate. I'd guess your employer is a publicly traded company, where Money is the only diety.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
here is something
Employers Could Face Civil, Criminal Liabilities
POSTED: 6:17 pm EDT September 4, 2004
MIAMI -- Some employees concerned about being forced to go to work have contacted Local 10 for answers.
Local 10 has received e-mails and phone calls from people who say they are being forced to leave their homes to go to work even though the area is under hurricane evacuation order.
Saturday, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle and Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas addressed those concerns.
Penelas reiterated that no one should be out on the highways and no employer should be forcing employees to go to work unless they are "essential" workers such as medical care workers or law enforcement officers.
Fernandez-Rundle told Local 10's Michael Putney that employers who ignore the county's request and won't do it "for good will and to protect others" should obey the request because they could face both civil and criminal liabilities if an employee is hurt due to being out in th
e storm.
I'm not sure what the exact laws are, and they may vary from state to state, but at least where I live there are laws against traveling on public roads during a state of emergency unless it's required for public safety/service. If you're caught, you'll get ticketed or fined or whatever.
Somehow, for Y2K, my employer managed to convince the county that all of us in IT were "critical" should there be any emergency, and we got stickers to put on our company IDs stating that in the case of an emergency, the police were to allow us to travel. What a load of BS. Nothing happened, fortunately.
My route to work now takes me through one of the most snow-prone sections of the state twice a day. I've already told my manager that once winter comes, if things look ugly, I'll be working from home or taking a PTO day. No job is worth putting my life at risk trying to drive through white-out conditions. Lots of employers like to say "take care of yourself and your family first" - let's see if they actually mean it.
Docking people for not coming in during a hurricane? That's just underhanded & sleazy. Get out of that job, management clearly doesn't consider the employees people, but rather slaves.
This happens in NY a few times each winter. Public schools are closed (due to snow), but the faculty and staff are still required to show.
But not every time (or even most times) the school is closed. Most of the time it's closed and no one is supposed to show up.
Find out your employment stats by talking with your HR department. They can tell you if you are classified excepmpt under the "Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)".
If you are exempt, and your pay has been docked, you have a clear legal case. If you are non-exempt, then your employer is just a jerk.
Why aren't you going to name the company? Is that because there's another side to this story that you don't think we should have? It's not like they wouldn't know, since the article was submitted with your name on it.
I just went through Frances too (see journal) and my employer has decided to pay all the salaried people and not pay all the hourly for the days the company was closed (three - Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday); the worst is that the hourly people are the worst paid in the company, so this affects them even more than it would affect anyone else. Needless to say, there's a lot of complaining, and when the economy starts to turn and get a little healthier, I suspect the company will lose a lot of valuable staff.
The positive side is that there is something you can do about this that doesn't involve lawyers - contact FEMA. FEMA has an emergency assistance program that covers lost wages through hurricane related office closures. My employer is "helpfully" encouraging its hourly staff to do this. I don't think it's ethical, especially as my employer isn't in the line of work where it'll lose business because of this (it'll force everyone to have stress attacks for the next month to catch up, but if you think anything's going to be delayed...) but there is that option.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
In preparing for Y2K my boss and company arranged many contingency plans not only within business centers, but to the point where I had a complete development environmet set up at home. When 9/11 occured and access to NYC was restricted we were all told to stay home until further notice unless critical customer facing support required us to return to the office. My entire department covered their jobs from home.
Several hurricanes and nor'easters and snowstorms have limited access to our offices. Even last weeks Republican National Convention was considered a severe enough inconvenience that policy was "work from home if you can" and I did. I put in at least 2 12 hour days because without the commute I had no reason to get up from the computer.
We have reached a point where everything possible we can do from home instead of the office has already been arranged thanks to broadband, VPN, instant messaging, VOIP, and VNC. We are at the point where it is a simple question "Will I get more accomplished if I work from home today?"
You live in Florida, Hurricane country, but the same would apply to wildfires, earthquakes, tornados, flooding, and any of the newsworthy weather that comes from the Atlantic Ocean.
If local, regional, state or federal authorities have ever restricted travel or access in your area for any weather or "act of god" reason, or really anywhere for Homeland Security reasons, your company should have a stated policy about those possible events. The company should also have business contingency plans for such events.
Remember, your family and their safety and comfort is your real first priority job. Where you go to work is just what you do to pay for it. Let your fight or flight reflex guide you.
As I have been composing this I have received an e-mail notice for "National Emergency Preparedness Month". Check the Homeland Security web page for details.
Just because a state has "right to work" laws does not mean that employees cannot sue for wrongful termination. Even without a discrimination claim, companies can be sued for terminating someone in a way that can be proven to be retaliatory or extremely unfair. Normally when such suits are filed, the company will settle with the employee rather than take their chances in court where guilt is presumed and they have to prove themselves innocent. Employment law generally works this way. With a settlement, companies can also buy things like a non-disclosure agreement that they wouldn't be able to get in court. If the submitter of this story contacts a labor lawyer and has a letter sent to his employer, they will likely pay him for the lost time because, if nothing else, that will cost them a lot less than responding to any lawsuit. Sure, they might try to fire him afterwards but he needs to find some place else to work anyway.
I work for HP. When we had the wildfires last year, the entire San Diego site got 2 days off, paid. We weren't expected to come in, and were told not to (the fire and police wanted us off the roads).
Of course, they lose all that goodwill by forcing us to take Christmas week off unpaid (or take FTO) every year. Its nice to have the option, but I'd rather take my week off some other time.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
THe natural move of the employment market is to fuck over employees at all opportunities. I see no trouble with hindering that. Employers do NOT have the right to treat their employees like dirt, and should be regulated against doing so. And forget slap on the wrist fines for doing so, give them jail time (this goes for all corporate crimes).
Problem with market competition? One simple law fixes that- if you want to sell goods or services int he US, you must follow US labor, polution, etc laws (or higher) at all your production facilities worldwide. If you don't, the US market is closed to you. Would it raise domestic prices? Yeah, it would. But it would just be piercing an artifical bubble, the same will happen when eventually the 3rd world gets similar legislation or we run out of cheaper and cheaper places to outsource to anyway.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
In quebec, because the workers movement have been strong at some point, there is a lot of laws to protect workers, and the company is supposed to protect their worker from all kind of problems. Also, there is a sorta 50% unionization rate in here, which mean that you'll probably be part of an union if you work here, and can use the money from your union to sue the company.
Otherwise, a solution can be to join the local branch of the IWW , which is mainly an open membership union, which can help you for free, if you demonstrate some interest in the labour movement, by showing up to meetings and stuff. This is also a good way of learning a lot about your state labour rights.
The very existence of corporations is a state intervention.
If a bunch of people want to form a business, and draw up some contracts to that effect, all well and good. But creating an artifical immortal legal "person" with all the rights but few of the responsibilities of genuine humans, that shields the partners from liability for their actions? That's a huge intervention in the marketplace. It's just one that's been around so long we don't even notice its presence.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
It sounds like you work for Wells Fargo. To be fair, they did call me up and told me NOT to come in during a particularly cold blizzard. However, some companies think that they will lose global business if they aren't physically at work. However, the truth was (as Wells Fargo found out) is that just because NY is open does not mean that we need all 100 data operators to process deposits when Twin Cities is in a blizzard that is shutting down everyone else. They had to pay for 100 employees to process what a small handfull of employees could have done in no time. The only deposits that came in was what peole got ot the banks before the blizzard hit. I am almost willing to bet that the CEO who ordered the work during Hurricane preparation, was in another state or otherwise safe from ever having the hurricane reach him and his precious little body.
I am in Tampa, and I felt the effects myself. As long as your place of business is not in a mandatory evacuation zone, they can operate as normal. I luck out since my office is on the water (manadatory evacuation zone A) and my home is not in an evacuation zone.