Friday, June 25, 2010

What Happens When The Company Plays Games...

We have all been there; working at the company that insists on playing games and lowering morale. We feel powerless at times and frustrated, we wonder what can we do. Well, after you go through all the normal channels at a company with a labor contract - grievances and arbitration's - you still have options to send more pressure. Every state will have an OSHA office, and for the most part you can make anonymous complaints to these offices. Now, granted, anonymous complaints do not have the weight of giving them all of your information and then dealing with the illegal retaliation by the company that is sure to follow. That being said, it is your right as an American to report unsafe/illegal operations by the company you work at. Apart from OSHA, every state has an office of the DOT that can be contacted as well. Now, unfortunately, what we are running into is a manpower shortage at the federal agencies. That is they are either under staffed or the staff is brand new at a lower pay rate and is not fully aware of the all the rules and regulations that your company may be violating. Needless to say, the calls and emails still need to be made. These companies that are violating worker rights and abusing their workers have got to be stopped.My own son is in an unfortunate position at his new job... it is a manufacturing firm and non-union. He is being targeted and threatened because of his perceived "poor job performance" in reality he has been under trained for his position in the 2 months he has been there. The only thing I can do is go after them with code violations through the city/county. And, I am. I fully believe in poking with a sharp stick anywhere and any time, period. These people won't know why they are being investigated, but they will get an anonymous call from a pay phone explaining that they need to treat their employees better, or they will be poked again for other violations. Yeah, it's old school, but it works, and you just keep escalating the complaints until you get to the federal level if necessary.

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