Category: Fuck the Poor

‘Come to work on Thanksgiving or get fired’

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Kmart - store team photo (20.11.2014)

If this keeps up, I won’t have anyplace left to shop!

Kmart will open its doors at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day this year and remain open for 42 hours, meaning that many employees will have to come to work to staff shifts. While the company says it tries to fill the slots with volunteers or seasonal hires, workers are reporting that the reality on the ground is very different.

Jillian Fisher, who started a petition on Coworker.org asking Kmart to give her mother and other employees the flexibility to take the holiday off, surveyed 56 self-identified employees from more than 13 states. Of those, just three said they had the option to ask to take the holiday off. In a press release from the petition organizer, one employee said human resources has told them, “if you do not come to work on Thanksgiving, you will automatically be fired… I made the request to work a split shift on Thanksgiving and was denied.” Another said, “Our manager stated at a staff meeting: ‘Everyone must work Thanksgiving and Black Friday. No time off.’” At one location, an employee says signs have been posted in the break room saying workers can’t request time off on Thanksgiving or Black Friday and that everyone has to put in at least some time on both, while at another signs have been posted saying no one can request time off between November 15 and January 1.

“I am a lead at a Kmart and it is mandatory for me to work on Thanksgiving,” another employee said. “If I were to call out I would be terminated, and requesting off is not allowed.”

Only seven surveyed employees said their stores had given employees the chance to volunteer for a holiday shift. “[A]t my store, they scheduled workers who aren’t seasonal and who DIDN’T volunteer to work on Thanksgiving,” one said. Another said, “I didn’t volunteer to work on either of these days they just pretty much scheduled me regardless if I had plans or not on Thanksgiving.”

Ennobling the poor

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

http://youtu.be/a-Pnlnd4sIQ

No, really. He said that, the smug motherhumper:

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) explained on Tuesday that a new policy that could cut off food stamps for thousands of people in his state would be “ennobling” for poor people.

The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration announced last month that beginning in 2015, it would no longer request a waiver to the federal work requirement for certain people who use the SNAP program. Up to 65,000 single Hoosiers could lose food stamp benefits unless they are working 20 hours a week or attending job training.

Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Pence argued that 50,000 people had joined the Indiana workforce since 2008 so it was time to return to a “core principle” of welfare reform.

“How do you feel about people who say you are targeting poor people?” Fox News host Brian Kilmeade asked the governor.

“I’m someone that believes there’s nothing more ennobling to a person than a job,” Pence insisted. “And to make sure that able-bodied adults without dependants at home know that here in the state of Indiana, we want to partner with them in their success.”

“You know, it’s the old story,” he continued. “Give someone a fish, and they’ll eat for a day. Teach them to fish, they’ll eat for a lifetime. I think this is an idea whose time has come here in the state of Indiana.”

The non-competing janitor

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Vibrations

First of all, I’m still shocked. When I was a recruiter, we knew judges routinely threw out non-competes for anyone who wasn’t a strategic employee — because a non-compete for a low-level employee was considered coercive and an improper restraint of employment. So I can’t believe that so many judges are now actually holding people to these. Given my druthers, I’d turn down a job from any place that made me sign one. But we don’t always have a choice, do we?

So I’ll share a little tip with you about what I’d do whenever I was given a non-compete. (Because I’m kind of anti-authoritarian that way!) I’d tell the HR person I misplaced the paperwork, and then I would hand it in a day later — unsigned. No one ever noticed. Via Danny Westneat at the Seattle Times:

To get the $15-an-hour job last spring, Almeida was required to sign a “restriction on competition” clause that said if he leaves, he can’t work for two years for any firm doing similar work in ServiceMaster’s “geographic area” — which the company’s lawyer told me means King, Snohomish, Island, Yakima and Kittitas counties.

ServiceMaster of Seattle, a franchise in a $3.4 billion national corporation, now is trying to force Almeida to forfeit his $18-an-hour job at Superior Cleaning of Woodinville.

The noncompete clause would mean Almeida also couldn’t work in any water- or fire-damage job, janitorial, office cleaning, window washing, floor or carpet cleaning or other job ServiceMaster does.

“ServiceMaster of Seattle hereby demands that you immediately cease all employ with Superior Cleaning,” reads a “notice of violation” letter the company’s law firm wrote to Almeida (who lives with his aunt in Lynnwood).

“Failure to do so will require (ServiceMaster) to initiate a legal action against you to obtain a court order enjoining you from working for one of (ServiceMaster’s) direct competitors.”

When I got the lawyer who wrote that on the phone, my question was admittedly not very nuanced: “Seriously? You’re going after a $15-an-hour worker over a noncompete clause?”

Brian Boice said employment contracts that restrict workers are common and the issue at this pay grade is training. The company spends “a lot of money and effort on training inexperienced workers, and we don’t want to end up training them for our competitors.” He accused Superior of chronic poaching of ServiceMaster’s workers, Almeida included.

Almeida says in his three months at ServiceMaster he did not get any training. He agrees he signed the noncompete clause, but says he thought it would apply to managers who are high enough to have client lists. Or to people who leave to start competing businesses.

“I’m a helper,” he says. “I come to work and get my orders and follow them. I figured I was way too far down the ladder to matter.”

Lately there is no rung too low. The New York Times reported last summer that a camp counselor and a hair stylist lost jobs due to noncompete clauses. Last month news hit that some Jimmy John’s sandwich outlets used noncompete contracts to stop sandwich makers from defecting to any business “selling submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches and which is located within three miles of … any such Jimmy John’s Sandwich Shop.”

It’s hard to conjure what intellectual property or trade secrets are at stake in making the Turkey Tom. Or in wet-vaccing carpets. It’s one thing to make engineers or lawyers sign noncompetes. But cleaners?

“I think this is just taking advantage of blue-collar workers,” said Larry Weinberg, the CEO of Superior Cleaning, who currently employs Almeida. “It’s like we’re going back to the feudal societies of the 12th century, where the vassals are indentured to their corporate lords. We’re still in America, right?”

Geeze

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

SOMEBODY has to pay for it! We only subsidize oil companies:

NEW YORK (AP) — The residents of Belle Harbor Manor spent four miserable months in emergency shelters after Superstorm Sandy’s floodwaters surged through their assisted-living center on New York City’s Rockaway peninsula.

Now, the home’s disabled, elderly and mostly poor residents have a new headache: The Federal Emergency Management Agency has asked at least a dozen of them to pay back thousands of dollars in disaster aid.

Robert Rosenberg, 61, was among the Belle Harbor Manor residents who recently got notices from FEMA informing them that they had retroactively been declared ineligible for aid checks they received two years ago in the storm’s immediate aftermath. The problem, the letters said, was that the money was supposed to have been spent on temporary housing, but that never happened because the residents were moved from one state-funded shelter to another.

FEMA gave Rosenberg until Nov. 15 to send a refund check for $2,486 or file an appeal.

Daily Bernie

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Link:

BLITZER: Let me just ask you, I want to get your quick reaction to what we heard from speaker of the House, John Boehner. He was very blunt. He said if the president goes ahead and, through executive action, unilaterally, without going through Congress, tries to change the status of illegal immigrants here in the United States, that will be very dangerous, he’ll poison the well. And it’s as simple as that. He says the president better not even think about doing that. Your reaction?

SANDERS: Well, my reaction is the people of this country overwhelmingly want to see the minimum wage raised. Is the Republican Party going to do what the American people want? The American people do not want more tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations. Is the Republican Party going to poison the well by going forward, at a time of massive wealth and income equality, giving more tax breaks to people who don’t need the tax breaks? Boehner is talking about a political attack on the president.

BLITZER: Will you support the president if he goes around Congress and takes that executive action to change the status of illegal immigrants?

SANDERS: Look, what I support is Congress and the president doing everything they can to address the serious problems facing the American people. Immigration is one of those issues. In the Senate, we passed a bipartisan bill. The House did nothing. Let’s do something together. That’s the preferable route. Most importantly, let’s not turn our backs on the middle class of this country and ignore the enormous economic problems they are facing. Let’s not simply work for the rich and big campaign contributors who control the United States Congress. If we can do that and respond to the needs and the pain of the American people, you know what, I think you’ll suddenly find that Congress is regarded more favorably than is currently the case.

Slave wages in Silicon Valley

~ susie

Seriously, they’re just finding this out? People in the media must not know any normal working people:

A year-long investigation by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit and The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) raises questions about a well-known visa program setup to recruit foreign workers to the US: Is it indentured servitude in the high tech age? Or is it a necessary business model to compete in a quickly changing high tech economy?

NBC Bay Area and CIR’s team discovered an organized system that supplies cheap labor made up of highly-educated and highly-skilled foreign workers who come to the US via H-1B visas. Consulting firms recruit and then subcontract out skilled foreigners to major tech firms throughout the country and many in Silicon Valley.

[…] While many of the consulting companies that use H-1B visas appear to play by the rules, NBC Bay Area and CIR found numerous examples of other companies taking advantage of foreign workers and breaking federal law in the process. “’Indentured servants’ is a pretty accurate term because in many cases that’s exactly what’s going on,” said Phillip Griego of San Jose’s Phillip J. Griego and Associates. Over the years, Griego and his law partner, Robert Nuddleman have represented several H-1B workers in lawsuits against body shops.

[…] A guesthouse is a small apartment or home where as many as eight to ten workers stay at once. A dozen different interviews confirmed that the guesthouses are commonly used by body shops. One worker from India described how the body shops explained the guesthouse when he arrived: “We are placing you in the guesthouse. Until you get the job you have to stay in the guesthouse, you should not go out, even for a walk,” the worker said.

The big honkin’ loophole in the ACA

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

I’ve noticed this — I’ve been getting all kinds of charges for things I was never charged for before! Gee, if only we had politicians that could actually fix this:

Leo Boudreau of Massachusetts was thrilled to find a psychologist in his insurance network to treat his teenage daughter for emotional stress related to a medical condition. The therapist worked out of a local hospital.

But he was surprised when the bill for each visit contained two charges: the approximately $100 he expected to see for the therapist — and a similar fee for the room, which was not covered.

“How could it be that the doctor was in network and the hospital was in network, but I had to pay separately for the room?” Mr. Boudreau said.

As insurers ratchet down payments to physicians and hospitals, these providers are pushing back with a host of new charges: Ophthalmologists are increasingly levying separate “refraction fees” to assess vision acuity. Orthopedic clinics impose fees to put an arm in a cast or provide a splint, in addition to the usual bill for the office visit. On maternity wards, new mothers pay for a lactation consultant. An emergency room charges an “activation fee” in addition to its facility charges. Psychologists who have agreed to an insurer’s negotiated rate for neuropsychological testing bill patients an additional $2,000 for an “administration charge.”
Continue reading “The big honkin’ loophole in the ACA” →

Correct me if I’m wrong

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

TD Bank - Bay Ridge

But isn’t this why we have a 4th Amendment? And didn’t we fight a revolution to stop crap like this?

ARNOLDS PARK, Iowa — For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away — until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000.

The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes — in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report.

“How can this happen?” Ms. Hinders said in a recent interview. “Who takes your money before they prove that you’ve done anything wrong with it?”

The federal government does.

Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up.

“They’re going after people who are really not criminals,” said David Smith, a former federal prosecutor who is now a forfeiture expert and lawyer in Virginia. “They’re middle-class citizens who have never had any trouble with the law.”

On Thursday, in response to questions from The New York Times, the I.R.S. announced that it would curtail the practice, focusing instead on cases where the money is believed to have been acquired illegally or seizure is deemed justified by “exceptional circumstances.”

Richard Weber, the chief of Criminal Investigation at the I.R.S., said in a written statement, “This policy update will ensure that C.I. continues to focus our limited investigative resources on identifying and investigating violations within our jurisdiction that closely align with C.I.’s mission and key priorities.” He added that making deposits under $10,000 to evade reporting requirements, called structuring, is still a crime whether the money is from legal or illegal sources. The new policy will not apply to past seizures.