Archive for Co-workers
Avoiding employment lawsuites
Posted by: | CommentsAs unemployment tops 12 percent, employers, employees and those looking for work all are sharpening their workplace skills.
Employers are doing more work with fewer employees and trying to keep their best employees on staff; employees are working harder to keep their jobs; and those looking for work are competing heavily for spots on the organizational chart.
It means more attention by all of them to workplace laws and how to manage, and be managed, effectively and legally.
“This is all good business practice,” said McGuire Woods partner Adrienne Conrad, a labor lawyer who represents employers.
Nationwide, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports near-record discrimination charges and attributes the numbers to several factors, including economic conditions.
The commission reported 93,277 workplace discrimination charges were filed with it during fiscal 2009, the second highest ever, behind fiscal 2008.
For 2009, the commission said it obtained more than $376 million for the victims.
The most frequently alleged types of discrimination were race, retaliation and sex-based discrimination, as well as disability, religion and national origin and age-based discrimination.
Conrad spoke Monday to more than 60 members of Women Business Owners of North Florida. Her basic message was that all job positions should have accurate, current job descriptions and that performance expectations and reviews should be tied to those descriptions.
“Document, document, document,” she said. The information helps both the employer and the employee work together with the same goals and expectations.
There were questions from the floor about the appropriateness of background checks, employment questions that might trigger age-discrimination complaints and how to handle employees who speak negatively about the boss and the office to clients and vendors.
“Can he be fired?” asked a member who said she knew of an employee who, angered about being counseled about performance, was trashing the company’s reputation in the public.
Maybe, Conrad said, if the employer has a policy that addresses it.
“Many companies have policies that any employee who publicly disparages the company or its management can be terminated immediately,” she said.
That raised another point: Employers should have written policies and procedures that are signed by employees.
“Have an acknowledgment form,” she said. “Signed.”
She also advised employers that it is not helpful to simply be “nice” to a marginal employee who needs a performance action plan for improvement. Constructive criticism is better than pretending all is OK.
Conrad represents employers when they are sued for employment practices. She knows of an employer who hired a woman who was clearly trouble within the first three months. Instead of firing her, she was transferred around the company. She eventually was let go and she sued.
“If you have a problem employee, it’s best to nip it in the bud right away,” Conrad said.
Conrad said that waiting to fire a problem worker also gives that employee more time to document alleged discrimination or mistreatment.
“Plus, it has an effect on employee morale,” she said. The hard-working, nonproblem workers want to know “why are they not firing her?”
When the time comes to terminate an employee, Conrad said it’s wise to have a script before going into the termination meeting. “You want to be concise,” she said.
letter complaining about a coworker
Posted by: | Commentsaddress
phone
dated
manager name
company name
Dear XXXXX:
This letter has two purposes: to formally submit a complaint, and to put the facts of the situation on record. The subject of my complaint is the treatment I received [put the date here] by my co-worker [name].
Please note that I have been an employee at [your company] since [date]. I have every reason to believe that I am a dedicated and outstanding employee. I am confident that I exhibit the highest work ethics and treat my supervisors and co-workers with respect.
My complaint, in brief, is that [name] has [summarize here]been harassing me on several occasions. The latest event has been extremely shocking. As a result, I have made the decision, despite great difficulty, to make a formal complaint.
The events were these: [now give a chronological detail]
On the 9th of February of last year (2001)….
Again, in June of last year…
I spoke to my supervisor, who spoke to my [co-worker]…
However, again on…
I am sure that company policy must prohibit or discourage this kind of behavior. In fairness, I should point out that [co-worker] might not have intended his/her first occasion of this behavior toward me. However, despite my clearly negative reaction, and the reprimand from my supervisor, he/she continues to harass me.
I want to reiterate that I am a loyal employee, and work hard to get the job done in a professional manner. I do not need the added pressure of discourteous treatment. I trust you will agree, and I look forward to your assurance that it will not occur again. I would also appreciate an apology or other recognition of the error, directly from [co-worker's name]. I feel this is an entirely fair request.
Officials: Programmers helped fake records in Madoff scheme
Posted by: | CommentsTwo computer programmers who worked with Bernard Madoff’s company were arrested Friday morning by the FBI on charges they falsified books and records in the massive Ponzi scheme, officials said.
Arrested at their homes were Jerome O’Hara, 46, of Malverne and George Perez, 43 of East Brunswick, N.J. They were charged with conspiracy, falsifying books and records and other crimes, said officials with the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan.
The complaints unsealed in federal court in Manhattan say O’Hara and Perez knew that a special series of programs they had developed for Madoff contained false information that was used in connection with reviews of the firm by British and U.S. officials.
In August 2006, both men met with Madoff and told him that they would no longer lie for him, and that Madoff then told his deputy, Frank DiPascali, to pay them whatever they wanted to keep them happy, the complaints stated.
Perez and O’Hara then received pay increases of about 25 percent and bonuses of about $60,000, the complaints stated.
Was Gillette a rogue deputy or a good cop?
Posted by: | CommentsJohn Gillette was either a rogue deputy or a “squared away” cop whose way of doing business was a model for others in the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office.
Department brass have said Gillette was the latter, even after he had accumulated dozens of internal-affairs complaints. But 42 people — including accused criminals, people with no criminal records and law-enforcement officers — say in those complaints that, during more than 13 years as a sheriff’s deputy, Gillette acted as a law unto himself. His detractors say Gillette was a man with a penchant for profanity and roughness who crossed the line into criminal behavior
‘One of the worst cases’
By himself, Gillette racked up more complaints during his 13 years on patrol than the entire department generated in 2005, 2006 and 2007 combined. More than 70 deputies work for the Sangamon County sheriff’s department.
Based on the volume, seriousness and number of sustained complaints, Gillette should have been fired long ago, according to Samuel Walker, a University of Nebraska criminologist who is considered an expert on police misconduct.
Complaints can be a tool
Meyer and Walker said departments should use internal affairs complaints to help identify officers who need help.
Walker said the volume of complaints can be a tool to help figure out which officers need coaching, additional training or re-assignment. Meyer said departments can’t always go by complaint volumes — an officer assigned to DUI patrol, for example, is bound to get a fairly high number of complaints — but he blames himself for not doing more to help Gillette.
Williamson said he believes the department provides adequate help to employees with marital problems, psychological issues, alcohol-abuse problems or other issues that affect their work. The lack of psychological screening for new employees is due in part to the expense, Williamson said.
Williamson, who started the department’s internal-affairs division in 1997, has the final say on who gets hired. He said he requires prospective deputies to have a college diploma, and he interviews extensively before making a decision.
“This is one of the worst cases I’ve heard, just hearing his record,” Walker said. “This sounds, really, pretty shocking. This officer should have been long gone. There’s a really serious failure here.”
That view is shared by Stephen Meyer, former head of internal affairs for the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, who said he would have fired Gillette if he’d had the authority.
“Given the frequency and severity (of complaints), there comes a time when the agency has to say ‘enough,’” said Meyer, who retired in 2001 but remains a sheriff’s chaplain. “I deemed law enforcement a profession. And you need to remove those who are not professional.”
Gillette, who is now working for a private entity (he declined to be more specific) in Afghanistan, called Meyer a “religious fanatic” who was out to get him and generated complaints by contacting people who had been arrested. While he admitted violating some rules, Gillette denied doing anything seriously wrong.
“The only thing I’ve been found guilty of is minor department infractions,” Gillette said in a telephone interview. “I’m not saying I’m an angel. It’s obvious that I’m not. I did a good job for the sheriff’s department, and we took a lot of bad guys off the street.”
Meyer said he never solicited complaints — when Williamson made him the department’s first head of internal affairs in 1997, the sheriff made it clear that he was to let complaints come to him, not go looking for them, Meyer said.
“My job would have been in jeopardy,” Meyer said. “The sheriff had said, ‘You will not solicit.’”
42 complaints
By October 2001, the number of complaints against Gillette stood at 28, with six of them sustained. He’d been a deputy for six years. Then the pace slowed. He was the target of 14 more complaints for the last eight years of his career with the county, with two of those — the complaint filed by Barr and the allegation of profanity by Anderson — sustained by the department.
A few things changed. Gillette was deployed to Iraq for a year in 2003 and won the Bronze Star, so he was off local streets. Meyer, who Gillette says was out to get him, retired in October 2001. And in September 2001, Lt. Patrick Davlin moved from the bureau of professional standards, which includes the department’s internal affairs division, and became supervisor of the midnight shift that included Gillette.
Union files complaint against Aramark over dues
Posted by: | CommentsA labor union filed criminal complaints against Aramark Corp., the Philadelphia-based global food services company that runs the concessions at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field and Citizens Bank Park.
Workers United, in a nationwide protest yesterday, accused Aramark of stealing from its employees by collecting union dues from their paychecks, but not turning them over to their union.
However, it is not entirely clear who their union is.
Until March, Philadelphia-area Aramark workers, like many Aramark workers around the nation, were represented by Unite-Here, a union created in 2004 by the merger of two other unions.
But in March, the two unions, citing irreconcilable differences, split into two groups – one retaining the Unite-Here name, the other called Workers United, a branch of the Service Employees International Union.
Since then, the two unions have been fighting across the nation for members’ loyalties and dues.
Like other employers, Aramark has been escrowing dues until the situation is resolved.
Some 1,700 local Aramark workers are affected.
“This is clearly an escalation of the dispute between the unions themselves and has nothing to do with us at Aramark,” said Kristine Grow, a spokeswoman.
She said it is difficult for an employer to figure out what to do when some employees say they are represented by Workers United, yet the payroll deduction authorizations they signed specify that the dues are to go to Unite-Here.
“We are waiting for guidance from the National Labor Relations Board,” she said.
Workers United argues that some NLRB cases do provide sufficient guidance. Unite-Here disagrees with Workers United’s interpretation of the cases.
“Aramark does not have the right to take money out of workers’ paychecks and then do whatever it wants to do with it,” Bruce Raynor, president of Workers United, said in a statement. Both the union and the company agree that Aramark is escrowing the money.
Workers United also filed complaints with police departments in Oakland, Calif., and Portland, Ore.
Friends Who Tell you to work while they get paid.
Posted by: | CommentsMy friend, who told me to help her with work, ended up getting paid.
Boy, oh Boy.
This is very upsetting 
i have to do a whole bunch of work, and she gets a new pair of cute jeans!
The world is wierd that way
hehehehe, but im happy to help anyway.
they suck.
Posted by: | Commentsokay, so maybe it’s their job to kill the fun out of EVERYTHING…but do they have to? it’s not only that, but everything you do is bad. I understand if you’re having a bad day or if your job is supposed to make everyone elses life miserable but come on.