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Volt Asks Temps To 'Vote" For Microsoft Pay Cut
theodp writes "In an email sent Friday evening to its Microsoft temp workers, Volt Workforce Solutions asked the techies to 'vote' to agree to a 10% pay cut. From the email: 'We want to support you in continuing your assignment at Microsoft and respectfully ask that you respond by going to the upper left hand corner of this email under the "Vote" response option and select, "Accept'" by close of business Tuesday, March 3, 2009. By accepting you agree to the [-10%] pay adjustment in your pay rate.' Microsoft managed to keep the Feb. 20 email detailing plans to slash rates from leaking while it pitched its Elevate America initiative at the 2009 Winter Meeting of the National Governors Association, touting Microsoft skills as just the ticket to economic recovery."
Is there an alternative to slashdot? (Honest question)
I worked for Volt at MS for a year. They offer a 401k plan and match a small percentage which is vested after a year. My year ended (MS only lets you stay a year due to the perma-temp settlement, then you have to take a 100-day break), but the Volt match never materialized in my 401k. Volt explained that to get the match I had to work 12 complete months. Sounds like a year, right? No. Since I started in the middle of the month, my first month wasn't a "complete" month, and it didn't count towards matching.
I told them their policy was BS, since 1 in 30 employees must start on the first day of the month, assuming people's contracts are as likley to start on day 1 as any other day. They didn't respond.
But the really nice part is today, when everybody on Slashdot gets to read about it.
>>>You can vote anyway you want, the only catch is that there is only one choice.
That's true. My company has not done this yet, but I've heard from a neighboring company that the temporary Contract workers were told they must take a $10 cut, otherwise next week would be their last. A few stubborn persons refused, and were asked to leave, but most are still working with a reduced pay.
This "Microsoft vote" is mere formality; if you don't take the cut you may as well pack-up your desk and take a long, unpaid vacation.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Most companies with an employee handbook usually list the reasons and manner that you can or will be fired. US courts have ruled that those consist as a contract, so even though you can be fired by state and federal law "at will" the handbook probably restricts that right. So if he employee handbook lists reasons for firing, they would have to find a way to make "refusing to take a pay cut" something you can be fired for; probably just call it insubordination.
So what's wrong with singling out #1? Oh, that's right, because there are other companies out there doing the same thing, which means no one should call foul. People should be forced not to take advantage of the spotlight to rally for their cause. #1 would never do that... I'm sure. So, why can't these fucktards protect their own interests? Contract firms and temp agencies are in a powerful position. People should keep a close eye on the relationship they keep with the Corporations. They provide a service, but reap profits largely disproportionate to the gains they receive.
I was working as a Temp once for Adecco and was put into a position that required I see how much I was being billed out for. It was about 40% of my pay. I had been in this position for a few years without a raise. At this point the Temp agency was making 40% of my hourly pay for doing nothing but send me the check. I did not get enough hours to qualify for benefits. I had well compensated them fairly for finding this position. Now it's just a milking scheme.
So, sorry to say, but you're right. Everyone should protect their interests. Even these "fucktards"
It's easy to stand on a soap box anonymously.
Pay is irrelevant.
GM doesn't know how to build, sell, or market anything other than a truck or SUV.
The only division of GM with the potential to compete against Toyota, is Saturn. And they're going to shut that division down in 2012 because they've never managed to make money.
The decision makers have been spouting off bullshit about how they deserve to make that kind of money because of their vision and leadership. All they have proved is that they're nothing more the 2nd rate salesmen who's only talent is convincing other 2nd rate sales men of their own value.
The management have fucked themselves, the Corporate Officers, Board of Directors, and all former Officers and Board members withing the statue of limitations all deserve to be sued into bankruptcy by the shareholders and pensioners.
And after they have been bankrupted by civil litigation, and have no money left to pay even a second rate attorney, the FTC needs to go after them for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud, and anything else they can come up with and throw them in Federal prison. Then its the state's turn to go after them and make sure they finish out the rest of their miserable lives in the state pen with the gang-bangers and giving blowjobs for drugs. Because that the only thing they think will make their miserable lives a little more bearable.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I find it pretty absurd that a company should be "stuck" with the contract rates it offers.
A contract is a contract ... I'm not sure why not being able to back out afterwards if you change your mind is "absurd" - the whole point of a contract is that you stick with it.
(Now yes, in this case I suspect that temporary workers have zero rights, so they could easily fire them if they don't accept, but in general, I don't see how it's absurd that people are stuck with contracts that they enter.)
And considering how big salaries in USA are, it's a small miracle that they still manage to make a profit.
I don't think that follows - it's rather simplistic to assume that a company must be unprofitable. Given that many businesses with their "big salaries" have been staying in business for years, I find it unlikely that this is all chance. And whatever the cause of this recession is, it's not that salaries suddenly increased.
American workers take a 25% haircut and become competitive again.
During the great depression there were several major waves of pay cuts.
This service economy fantasy is not sustainable.
What's missing is the 75% pay cut for the executive class back to 1987 levels when they "only" made 50 times the average worker (instead of over 400 times today) AND raising taxes on dividends and capital gains from 15% back to normal income levels ( these extremely low tax rates on div and capital gains are why warren buffet averages 17% income tax rate while his secretary averages about 30%)
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I always find it interesting when you have an ongoing agreement between a company and an employee, whereby the employee works X hours and gets paid $Y, and then the company decides it can simply ask the employee to work longer for less money. Usually it's couched as a temporary thing but frankly, once the employee has agreed to do more for less, why would the company ever go back to the original agreement?
Something similar happened at my (now ex-)work, they ran out of funding and told people to go home until they could pay us. Then a couple of weeks ago they sent out an email saying "hi folks, we really need to get working again to keep the company viable, no we don't have any money but you'll start work again Monday right?". To which the answer was "um, no" for me, but a surprising number of people said "oh, uh, ok then".
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
I'm a Volt employee working at MSFT. I never got a Friday email from Volt about this. All I received from them was an email this morning asking me for what I thought was a test on the version of Microsoft Outlook that I was running. Volt has been rolling out new timecard tools, so I thought this was an attempt to collect information on software versions to prepare for a future update/rollout. It wasn't until I checked /. this morning that I learned what was going on. Thank YOU!
See my response to Volt this morning:
From: [name wittheld] (Volt)
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 12:19 PM
To: 'AskVolt'; [] (Volt)
Subject: RE: Non-viewable Vote button
Importance: High
I thought the email below was simply a test to see if Volt employees were running the right version of Outlook for some future tool roll-out. However, I've since read from the web an article which implies that I should have received an email last Friday night. I never received such an email, nor since. I was never informed on what I was voting on. Now I know that this email is for Volt employees to vote to receive a 10% pay cut.
I take BACK my "Accept" vote. I do NOT accept that at this time.
Why? Because I don't know enough about it. I don't know if Volt, the company, is also reducing their profit margin to MSFT for my billing by 10%, and further, I don't know if the non-MSFT Volt employees and managers are also taking a 10% pay cut. Truly, if I hear that the answers to my questions are Yes, then I will be glad to join in and take a 10% reduction in pay; but not until then. If it's important enough for Volt staff to do it, then I'm willing to join in.
On the surface, this seems like a sneaky thing for Volt to do; but I'm sure it's just an oversight.
From: [] (Volt)
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 10:47 AM
To: 'AskVolt'
Subject: RE: Non-viewable Vote button
Accept
From: AskVolt
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2009 9:41 PM
To: AskVolt
Subject: Non-viewable Vote button
If your version of Outlook does not allow you to view the 'Vote' response option in the upper left hand corner, simply reply by stating "Accept."
Meat. It's what's for dinner.