Anybody else experiencing drastic changes in employer attitude?

[Wcross]

I work in a factory for a large multi-national company. I am considered "staff" but do not have any management responsibilities. I work on the equipment in order to keep production up. I work 12 hour rotating shifts.
Over the past year the company has started to make demands that I find unreasonable. They hired a "Training manager" and started a training department. In order to justify the department they have made it a requirement to attend quarterly training classes on our days off. Although they pay us for the time the classes are of no value to me in my job performance. Of the classes I have attended I walked away feeling like I threw away four hours of my life.
They attempted to require us to do a "volunteer project" on our off days. They did not give us a choice of what we could do, they directed us to do what they wanted done and told us what time we had to be there. They thought they could do this without paying us. They also thought they could make participation part of our yearly review. If we did not participate they said they could withhold 1/2 our yearly bonus. I called in the labor department on this plan and it was dropped.
This Tuesday afternoon they e-mailed us saying we had to come in for 10 hours today (Thursday) for an "important class" on safety and quality. They gave us 24 hour notice of having to give up our weekend. I e-mailed back that I had plans that I could not break with such short notice. I am thinking I will be suspended without pay for not attending but I am fed up.
They have also mentioned they plan on starting to do "hair drug tests" as part of their "Motorized equipment operator" plan. I don't operate any motorized equipment at all. They will not be testing any managers, just us lowly staff people.

It seems like they have shifted attitude from employer to "owner". Anyone else notice companies thinking they can demand your off days at the drop of a hat? How about violating privacy rights? Are they all becoming emboldened by the Bush gangs violation of rights that they think they can get away with it too?

[havocmom]

1. Co. my daughter works for has become downright irresponsible

Latest stunt: Payroll messed up. Lots of people shorted, some got no deposits at all...

Hmmm, take the $$ and run?

[Nickster]

20. Heh, mine too. Then they sent an email saying that if we noticed anything funny on our paystubs that

we should let them know because they weren't certain where the issues were or who was affected. Amazingly, they just started outsourcing our HR services. I wonder if there's a connection.......hmmmm

[havocmom]

27. Wondering what the payroll company is doin with the $$

And how many people they have working for them overseas.

[villager]

2. is there any kind of union in your workplace?

n/t

[Wcross]

5. Yes, the steelworkers.

But I am staff. We tried to organize because we really aren't management, I was told not enough staff people voted yes. (I do have a lot of idiot co-workers)

[iconoclastic cat]

3. Well, the public schools in Chicago have operated that way for decades

in spite of the union. That's one reason of many that I split. My current employer is pretty cool about employee relations, but it's not a manufacturing company, so who knows what else is happening out there. It sounds like time for a union to step in at your job.

[Scout1071]

4. I am often given unreasonable time demands.

I had a scheduled dinner with a boss and my co-workers a few months ago. The boss was flying in and we were given the date and told to etch in stone long beforehand. The dinner was on a Thurs. On Wednesday, we were informed that he had decided to come a day later and we would need to block out Friday night. Now, I should note that my job was going to require me to work all day Saturday as well. Not to mention the fact that my best friends in the world were moving across the country that weekend and I had plans with them on Friday night.

So, I said "No. I can't be there on Friday night. " The boss asked to see me on Saturday for a little one on one - which I had previously requested any way. He said "I didn't like it that you weren't there last night. I was very disappointed." And I said, "Well, I was disappointed that you didn't make it on Thursday when we had plans. But I had a prior commitment that could not be changed." He was a total asshole about it.

And that stuff happens all the time. I was recently asked to fill out a sheet that listed all of the events that we could have attended, although only some of them were required to attend. I asked why they were tracking which events we went to if they weren't required and was just told not to be difficult. So, I called our HR dept in big city, big company land and they put a halt to it immediately.

Don't put up with that bullshit. They can't make you do all that outside stuff off the clock or without some compensation.

[Wcross]

7. They do pay us but it isn't "that" kind of a job.

I basically turn wrenches and change computer programs. I am not in a "career" type job. I do not require nor do I want "professional development classes".
The thing that gets me is they have NEVER demanded the staff people who work m-f 8 hour shifts come in on a Saturday or Sunday for training. Just us 12 hour rotating people. Also, I feel sorry for the guys who work nights. They are required to come in on days for training. (heaven forbid ONE person is inconvenienced, better to screw 50 people)

[The Gunslinger]

6. It's this great ecomomy we llive in

I have the same problems. New manager decides to make (not getting more business) cutting some "FULL TIME" employees hours, and who gets the slash is more dependent on the good ole boy network than anything else. Also he plans to work 5 ten hour shifts in the summer, (outdoors in NC) and says he can get away without paying OT because the NC labor board doesn't bother big companies.


Why can they get away with this?
Why are they doing it.

Because they can. It's is really hard to find a job theese days. I get sick of hearing about this great economy.

[Wcross]

11. Call the labor department and make them aware of this plan.

You can do it without telling them your name. Anything over 8 hours is overtime unless you are "excempt".

[SheilaT]

17. No, he can't get away with it.

Those are federal laws, and contact the U.S. Dept of Labor.

Employers like him get away with it only because they manage to intimidate employees into thinking they have no recourse. Do not be that way. Report him. Call the local newspaper.

[conscious evolution]

29. Actually the poster should wait a few weeks after it starts before

dropping the dime.You can get a lot more money and the Labor department will come down harder if it has been going on for a while.

[Scout1071]

8. I am often given unreasonable time demands.

I had a scheduled dinner with a boss and my co-workers a few months ago. The boss was flying in and we were given the date and told to etch in stone long beforehand. The dinner was on a Thurs. On Wednesday, we were informed that he had decided to come a day later and we would need to block out Friday night. Now, I should note that my job was going to require me to work all day Saturday as well. Not to mention the fact that my best friends in the world were moving across the country that weekend and I had plans with them on Friday night.

So, I said "No. I can't be there on Friday night. " The boss asked to see me on Saturday for a little one on one - which I had previously requested any way. He said "I didn't like it that you weren't there last night. I was very disappointed." And I said, "Well, I was disappointed that you didn't make it on Thursday when we had plans. But I had a prior commitment that could not be changed." He was a total asshole about it.

And that stuff happens all the time. I was recently asked to fill out a sheet that listed all of the events that we could have attended, although only some of them were required to attend. I asked why they were tracking which events we went to if they weren't required and was just told not to be difficult. So, I called our HR dept in big city, big company land and they put a halt to it immediately.

Don't put up with that bullshit. They can't make you do all that outside stuff off the clock or without some compensation.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

9. My husband’s company sent out a memo advising that there will be “no raises this year” .

It seems the owner hired his child’s babysitter as a budget director. When people grumbled about the lack of raises, the new budget director let it be known that all salaries will be “reconsidered”.

[Wcross]

10. No bonus this year for us.

Our company came out with a plan that they would give bonuses rather than regular raises. They claim this year there will be no bonus due to something or another. They just bought up another company for 350 million dollars and the annual report said the profits grew. I am willing to bet corporate gets their bonus.

[hamerfan]

12. Just-plain-Kathy writes:

"It seems the owner hired his child’s babysitter as a budget director."

And management wonders why the workers believe they can run the company better. Is this not one of the most ridiculous (and all-too-frequent) occurrences these days by management? Good god....
dumpbush

[chaska]

13. Please keep your congress people informed about this stuff. All of you.

Holy shit, this is just disgraceful.

[alarimer]

14. In my job search I am seeing a lot of temporary positions

In the field of biology, it seems that a lot of state and federal agencies have gone to the contract-type positions. For example, they want someone with a Masters degree but will only pay 30K annually and not offer a permanent position. I am seeing an awful lot of that and wondering if it isn't worthwhile to just stay where I am and hope something opens up here rather than take any chances with an unknown.

[SheilaT]

15. If you are not salaried

they need to comply with Federal wage and hour laws. Contact the nearest office of the Dept of Labor. Do NOT put up with this kind of crap. And you should have unbreakable plans every single weekend. And if they suspend you without pay use the time to search for another job.

"Staff" by the way, is usually not a designation of management, but to distinguish between "Line" employees. It's most noticeable in factories, where staff are the white-collar office workers, and line employees are on the assembly lines. For airlines, line workers are those actually at the airport, the ramp, gate, and ticket agents, compared to the folks in the general office. I think reservations agents and flight crews are also line workers by this definition. Usually, possibly always, line workers will be paid hourly. They may be unionized. Staff workers can be paid hourly unless they are management, and there are various laws that define who is management and who is not.

[Wcross]

16. They do pays us.

I resent having my weekend plans ruined at the whim of some idiot. On the "search for another job" option? No thanks! I have come to the conclusion that the only path to true happiness is self employment. I have to do 18 more months to clean up all my debts (including house) and then I will be gone.
Two years ago I would have been content to continue working where I am. With these changes they have made I can't stay.

[SheilaT]

30. The essential thing is not to let them

bully you and ruin your weekend plans.

I think I know almost exactly what you are going through.

I worked as a ticket agent at National Airport in Washington DC many years ago, meaning I was a "line" employee. We were paid more than the staff in the General Office (GO) but worked nights, weekends, and holidays, although we did make overtime for every hour over 40 in a week, and were paid time and a half on holidays worked. There were four to six of us on the ticket counter, depending on what year we're talking about. We covered the counter from early morning to late evening, and our truly wonderful supervisor concocted a shift rotation that resulted in a four day weekend every fourth, fifth, or sixth week (depending on how many of us were currently employed). But when the flights were delayed we stayed. If another agent called in sick we stayed, or were called in on our day off. We were always paid, but we never got holidays off, because the airline flew and so someone had to work. It made me very, very protective of my time off.

You might want to rethink the job search option. If your current employer is truly taking advantage of you, you'd be bette off elsewhere. I do understand and sympathize with the cleaning up of debts issue, but do think this through carefully. One of the advice columnists used to say that the way to figure out if you should leave an unhappy marriage was to ask yourself, are you better off without the other person? In the job situation, ask yourself if you're better off without this employer. Good luck.

[fasttense]

18. A new thing going around for part time workers is stand by work

A friend who works about 20 hours a week (goes to college full time) at a well known popular retail clothing store was given a schedule (mostly weekend work) then told that Tuesday and Thursdays she was on stand by.

What is stand by you ask? Well it means that management may or may not call you to come into work. If they call you before 4 pm, you have to be in the store ready to work within one hour. If they don't call you, you are off. You don't get paid for stand by, only for the time you are in the store. If they call you and can't reach you or you are not in the store in one hour, you're fired. She quit one month later.

How else are those CEOs going to make the big bucks, if they don't steal it from low level employees?

[SheilaT]

31. Good for her for quitting.

Especially at that level, there are lots of jobs out there. She should not tolerate the stand by crap. I've been arguing with people for years now that they must be willing to quit jobs rather than put up with bullshit. At least at the entry level, employees can leave readily.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

38. It's illegal to put you on standby and not pay you.

This crap is what good labor/employment lawyers are for.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. My hubby had to go to a class in hand washing

:eyes:

[underpants]

21. Yeah in the late 90's the old men in suits said "ENOUGH!"

They had had it with painted offices and perks to lure the qualified. The tables had been turned with *gasp* employees making the demands.

This is of course just a conspiracy theory :-) but this went right along with the tech bubble bursting.

:-) - several times I heard the old guys just totally pissed off at these youngsters and their dotcom cars and lifestyle while they had to do all that asskissing and late nights and marrying the boss's daughter and then suddenly POOF the dotcomers lost everything.

Hmmmm

[bleedingheart]

22. My company division is actually preventing us from making money

sounds unbelievable doesn't it?

but it is really happening.

two years in a row...despite cut backs on staff and poor raises....we have...

22% increase in profits in 2005
36% increase in profits in 2006...

and yet they are trying to kill us...

We haven't been able to figure it out.

I have even begged people to sell our division to another company...one that would appreciate the hard work and it falls on deaf ears.

[hamerfan]

23. Point system?

My wife's employer recently went to a point system for the employees, where they accumulate points to absenteeism and tardiness. Enough points and they are terminated. Even though my wife is guilty of neither, the employer paints with a broad brush and this policy covers all employees. When I heard this, it reminded me of kindergarten or something.
dumpbush

[Scout]

26. I don't find anything wrong with that policy...

do the points "go away" if you go long enough without an infraction?

I have worked with people who would play the attendance game continually, and then right before they had enough points to be terminated would suddenly clean up their act until the points cleared, then start all over again.

As both co-worker and then later supervisor to some of these people, this behavior pisses me off. This kind of behavior is why management feels justified in putting draconian policies into place.

ETA: why shouldn't the policy apply to all employees?

[SheilaT]

33. I once left a job after ten years

with more than 100 sick days accumulated and never taken. Was I given even a thank-you for my good attendance? Hah! I hear complaints all the time about employees who use up all of their sick time, but as long as a company does not reward not taking sick time, then there's no incentive to good attendance. I will never again leave all that accumulated leave behind. Never.

I've been told, as a counter arguement, that the employee is running the risk of having some kind of serious illness and not having sick time in the bank to use. Well, that may be true, but if there's no reward for not using sick time, then why bother?

[Scout]

35. because it's your JOB to show up every day on time

unless you really ARE sick. Duh. :eyes:

Many companies now have PTO, and don't differentiate between vacation or sick time.

[SheilaT]

37. If there were some kind of a reward for

showing up every day, perhaps I'd feel differently. But in the end, after ten years, I left behind over 100 sick days, and I got NOTHING, not even so much as a thank-you from management. In that same period of time I had co-workers who used up every single day of sick time, and were they reprimanded? Were they in any way punished for using their sick time? No. In the end, I was a fool for not using the sick time.

I've had other people, when I talk about this, bring up the prospect of a long-term illness, a genuine need for all that sick time. And while I understand perfectly well what they are talking about, I can't get past the 100 days of sick time left on the table. There was absolutely no benefit at all for not using up every day of my sick time.

Of course, the other thing is that in that job there was no such thing as holidays. We worked holidays, and even if we were paid time and a half for working, nonetheless we worked five days a week, fifty weeks a year. What a difference from getting an extra day or two off almost every month for holidays.

[SoCalDem]

24. Supply & demand in a "market economy".

Employers who "own" you (through health care benefits) are free to abuse at will. They "know" you won;t be leaving anytime soon, so anything goes.

In times when jobs are plentiful and workers, scarce...things are very different then :)

This is the MAIN reason we need nationalized/universal healthcare. If people have care no matter WHO employs them, bosses won't be able to pull this shit. The will be able to assign a dollar figure to a job, and if it;s not enough to attract workers, they will ahve to raise the ante..

That's the way it SHOULD be.. a boss should NOT be in charge of your "volunteerism" or your off-hours activities, not should they "require" you at attend BS "training" sessions on YOUR time. If the "training" is so important, they can do it during your regularly scheduled time at work, and have a temp do your work for that timeframe.

Employers are holding workers hostage to the health care bennies, and they KNOW it.

[ItNerd4life]

25. This sucks!

I feel sorry for you, can you get another job somewhere else?

I hate when companies abuse people and their personal lives. I've been very fortunate, the company I've been with for the last 5 years actually treats it's employees with respect. 3 of the 6 VPs have been with the company for 30+ years, because it's a nice place to work.

[lonestarnot]

28. UNION UNION UNION UNION UNION UNION UNION

[Fierce]

32. What time is it? Time to organize.

nt

[Wcross]

34. UPDATE- LOL!

Nobody said a thing to me about not showing up. Of the five people I talked to who said "No way, I ain't showing, I was the only one that kept my word. I think I am going to try not going to the quarterly classes next. The ABSOLUTE worse thing that could happen is I get fired. The next worse thing is they could withhold the bonus if we get one next year.
I plan on saying that somehow the training manager was inadvertently placed on my "junk senders" list as I was showing a coworker how to block annoying e-mails.

[undeterred]

36. I work in IT at a manufacturing plant

and there have been a lot of changes in the last year, but nothing that bad. We did safety training on paid company time, and it was very good.

I do see people in production and some others working extra time, but no one has asked me to. The worst thing was that they laid off a couple dozen people one day in June and then rearranged the rest of the staff into their jobs, jobs that they didn't fit into. No training, no documentation. People thrilled to become managers, and didn't even realize they were being set up to fail. They were given no training, no authority, and still expected to make wondrous things happen. Some of the most ridiculous manangement decisions I've seen.

Curiously, they have monthly company meetings on paid time where the president talks to the whole staff, and there is a level of frankness I've rarely seen. Its as if the corporation is trying to keep the staff from becoming too angry. The thing is they listen, but they don't really pay heed to what the employees think.

Since I'm in IT, I am in the position to see everything people do if I had a reason to. If the higher ups were asking for that information or access I would know about it, but they don't- they still evaluate people the same way they always did.

Funny thing though. When the old company president left he deleted all his email... The new company president asked for it to be restored from tapes and we did it... I don't know what he was looking for!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

39. I quit looking for a job.

They don't want education and skills. I fell out of the middle class in the 1990s. They are threatened by competence.

Somebody I know was fired and was not paid overtime. Somebody in the office, who was not a lawyer, told him "Oh, you're management, because you have A TITLE". Whoop de doo.

Well, he sent them a letter, saying he really didn't want to sue them, with attached excel spreadsheet documenting five years of unpaid overtime, and after a few weeks they paid him all his overtime. This amounted to a goodly chunk of change.

They do what they can get away with. Your only defense is the Dept. of Labor and labor/employment lawyers.