Employment Archive
How to Handle the Co-Worker you can’t Febreeze
March 18th, 2010. By AbiK
Remember the one about the airline passenger that was booted off a Jazz Air flight because he smelled?
Hey, don’t underestimate that ol’ olfactory system. Think I’m kidding? One woman’s sense of smell just netted her a $100,000 settlement. How? As a Detroit city employee, Susan McBride had complained about a co-worker’s perfume and room deodorizer (must’ve been into fragrance layering)—that the smell of them made it difficult for her to breathe. She also complained of migraine headaches, nausea and coughing.
From a report on The Early Show (CBS), it seems McBride’s boss didn’t respond to her complaints, and apparently didn’t tell the co-worker with the love of all things aromatic that there was a teensy little issue that, quite frankly, she stunk and it was unbearable.
So, McBride sued.
Here’s the kicker—Detroit city employees in three buildings (yes, three!) are now being warned not to wear anything that delivers a scent—no top notes of jasmine, no undertones of sandalwood, skip the tea rose-scented potpourri, the eponymous Tim McGraw cologne, the Glade plug-ins, and by all means, leave the Red Door at the door. The Early Show report also mentions folks should leave behind the deodorant, though if you’re flying Jazz Air you may want to pack a travel size somewhere—just in case.
Seems the question here comes down to a question of rights. And, as labor and employment lawyer Joelle Sharman is quoted as saying on The Early Show, “A person doesn’t necessarily have a right to wear perfume, but the person does have a right to be able to breathe in the workplace. So if an employee comes into work and says to his or her boss, “I can’t breathe, this perfume is triggering a condition that is affecting my ability to breathe in the workplace,” and reports to his or her boss, the boss has to reasonably accommodate that person.”
US Open Food Servers Serve up Double Fault Class Action
March 11th, 2010. By AbiK
For all the presentation and promotion that attempts to position tennis as a pastime of the hoi polloi, it just can’t seem to get over a bit of an elitist image. It’s not the professional players that make it so—heck, many have come from the hoi polloi themselves and have in their own way given the finger to some of the elitism (recall Agassi’s earlier days…McEnroe’s outbursts…Venus and Serena’s new fashion rules). And this year, you—yes YOU—can even register to compete for a wild card into the US Open Qualifying tournament.
So what gives? Well, if you’re part of the army of food service folks who work the Open, you might be thinking the elitism comes from the country club set who show up at the US Open outfitted in Lacoste or Brooks Brothers toting a casual & sporty—yet appropriate!—Vera Bradley or Lily Pulitzer (LL Bean if quieter propriety’s your thing) bag as they head to their box seats at the Open. See, those food service folks actually work their tails off to serve—as the 2010 US Open site describes it—”innovative menus” that feature “superb cuisine of impeccable quality and freshness” to the social set sitting in the Luxury Suites at Arthur Ashe stadium. Yeah, you’re not seeing that fare if you’re sitting Loge. Luxury Suites, by the way, will set you back $10,000 - $63,000 for a package—hey, parking’s included, catering isn’t (that’s an $1,800 minimum).
Work their tails off? Oh, but surely they make decent money, right? Surely more than the peons working those concession stands outside on the “grounds”?
Well, according to a class action lawsuit filed on March 3rd in Brooklyn federal court, those servers may not be getting paid all that much for the hours they put in serving, as the New York Post calls them “celebrities, trust-fund kids and captains of industry”. The Post quotes one worker who’s also a plaintiff, Daniel Yahraes, as saying he worked more than 100 hours a week and was paid based on his $17 an hour pay rate—no overtime pay (that’s fault #1)—and, while clients were apparently charged an additional 21 percent “service charge”, that fee was not passed along to the “service” (that’s fault #2, and shades of Cipriani?). I have to imagine that some of those workers received cash tips, but still, overtime is overtime and for Yahraes, that would arguably mean he lost out on quite a bit of cash.
Five companies are named in the lawsuit, including Restaurant Associates and the suit covers the past six years.
Study says LA surpasses NYC, Chicago in Wage Theft
March 8th, 2010. By AbiK
Every so often there’s a little news story out there that doesn’t get as much attention as it perhaps should. Take a story by Max Taves at LAWeekly.com not long ago. The headline: Unscrupulous Employers Skim $26.2 Million. Ok, surprise, surprise. But the real headline hits you when you read the subhead: That’s per week, from lower-income Angeleno’s paychecks.
$26.2 million per week? Rack that one up on an annual basis and now you’re talking over $1 billion in alleged wage theft.
Taves’ article (2/18/10) is based on a study co-authored by UCLA sociologist, Ruth Milkman, and Victor Narro. The 69-page study, Wage Theft and Workplace Violations in Los Angeles, concludes that 17% of LA county’s poorest workers are basically ripped off to the tune of $26.2 million each week—money they never see in their paychecks. Money that they should see in the form of minimum wage pay, overtime pay for time-and-a-half overtime worked, and rest and meal breaks. The reason, the authors argue, is that employers in LA county “know there’s no enforcement.”
What’s interesting in this study—aside from the sheer numbers involved—is that when the authors compared LA to those in NYC or Chicago, they found that LA low-wage workers were more likely to be
You Don’t Look Hollister: You’re Fired
February 26th, 2010. By AbiK
What? The uber-hip, ultra-prep and ubiquitous Abercrombie & Fitch is at the center of an EEOC Complaint re: banning a Muslim employee from wearing her hijab (aka head scarf, for those of you less “hip” to all things diverse). Perish the thought!
Say it isn’t so, but oh, it’s true! Seems the Brand is the Look, and the Look is All-American-prep and so—you know, by that theory of transitivity you learned in prep school—well, the Brand is All-American-prep. Like complete mirror image. And we know brand integrity is Everything. Cap E intended.
Abercrombie & Fitch lost me a number of years ago—they used to be this quiet, reserved, quality outfitter with a store nestled in the upper recesses of Trump Tower on 5th in NYC. But then things changed. With folks like J. Crew eating up market share, well, A & F apparently found themselves in need of a re-image. Repositioning. ReBranding.
Rebrand—and expand with companies like Hollister—they did. Go into a store now and you’ll be greeted by a sea of 20-something oneness and assimiliation set to the backdrop of glaring music. Their black & white ads suggest a more “knowing” (yes, sexually) and somewhat monied and genteel crowd that I imagine the sales side of the biz only wishes it could duplicate on the sales floor. But there’s the rub. It can’t.
See, you can homogenize your ad campaign. Not so your sales staff.
So what happens when brand image isn’t playing out at the stores, or in this particular case on the stockroom floor of A&F subsidiary brand Hollister? If you’re a district manager who clearly didn’t read
McDonald’s: Funniest Lawsuit Quote of the Week
January 27th, 2010. By AbiK
McDonald’s counsel has the material for a reality show on its hands—I’m convinced. Case in point #1, yesterday’s Totally Tortelicious. Case in point #2 is better though…the setting is a McDonald’s located in Lemmer, The Netherlands.
Apparently, a waitress sold a hamburger to a co-worker. After the transaction was complete—and that’s a key element here—the co-worker asked for some cheese. The waitress complied—thereby turning the HAMburger into a CHEESEburger. And you and I and every fool across the globe knows that a CHEESEburger costs more than a HAMburger. Even in a Happy Meal.
So the cheese-doling waitress was fired. Hey, 10¢ is 10¢ (I’m guessing). And if 100 waitresses did that, why, that would be $10 eating into Mickey D’s bottom line. Unacceptable.
Now, I don’t know why the waitress didn’t ask for the extra cash. Maybe there wasn’t a key on the register that said “Extra Cheese” that could be hit as a single transaction; or maybe she’d have to process a refund for the hamburger, get management’s authorization, and re-process the transaction as a cheeseburger. And maybe she did some quick math and realized it would cost the company more for her to invest her time in such a transaction (not to mention the cost of the paper receipts!) that she was actually trying to save the company a dime (no pun intended). Doubt it, but you never know.
Regardless, McDonald’s stance was based on some hard and fast company staff rules that prohibit free gifts to family, friends or colleagues. (Note to self, if offered slice of cheese as gift, drop friend). Rules are rules and the waitress had to go.
And then came the wrongful termination lawsuit.
And now the judgement: McDonald’s was ordered to pay the former waitress 4,200 euros—roughly $5,900—to cover the last five months of her employment contract.
And the funniest quote? The written judgement states the “dismissal was too severe a measure” followed by:
“It is just a slice of cheese.”
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