Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 (Fortune 01.1b1); site graffiti.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!ut-sally!ut-ngp!shell!graffiti!bruce From: bruce@graffiti.UUCP (Bruce Jilek) Newsgroups: net.legal,net.jobs Subject: Is this company breaking the law with it's employees? Message-ID: <108@graffiti.UUCP> Date: Wed, 22-Jan-86 23:26:12 EST Article-I.D.: graffiti.108 Posted: Wed Jan 22 23:26:12 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jan-86 08:36:41 EST Distribution: net Organization: Information Brokerage Network, Houston, TX Lines: 144 Xref: watmath net.legal:2786 net.jobs:1788 This message has been posted to both net.legal and net.jobs. Sorry about that, but I think it belongs in both places. I would like to describe the plight of a friend of mine to you and ask for suggestions. There is a huge company that is currently hiring people in droves to be trained as Systems Engineers. They are accepting people without very long lists of credentials to fill the positions. This would appear to be a big break for a lot of people, and so these people are very eager to be hired. My friend is one of the many that were accepted. There were glowing stories at first from my friend about what a great opportunity this was, and what advancement it would bring in the future. But there were a couple of 'catches': 1) The employer told my friend that the training was worth $9000, and that if my friend quit within the first year, the company wanted to collect this amount in return. 2) The job would involve a lot of hard work, especially during the training period. 3) The job would bring with it a potential for relocation to any of the company's worldwide locations. 4) The pay was not competitive with equivalent positions at other companies since this company was taking raw recruits and training them at the company's expense. My friend decided that the benefits of getting training and experience outweighed the detriments above. My friend accepted the job. There was a lot of excitement during the interview phase, and my friend didn't read the fine print on the 20 page contract that was signed. After all the interview process had taken three days to get to a decision, and there were a lot of people lined up for the job. The company is huge. What could possibly go wrong with such a reputable firm. They are as respectable as General Motors itself. Surely everything is on the 'up-an-up'. Guess what? My friend is getting screwed blind. 1) The fine print on the contract states that you owe the $9000 for the first **two** years, not one. Not only that, but you owe the money whether you are let go or you quit. Not only that, but they do the computer work for the IRS, so there's no way to hide from them if you decide to skip out. Not only that, but you only get the first two weeks of training or so to decide you want to bail out. That's during the easy part. Not only that, but they get approximately three months of grunt work out of you before the training even begins. 2) The 'hard work' is more like slave labor that can only be described as detrimental to your health (mental and physical). You are required to be in class most of the day. They teach you JCL, COBOL, CICS, and Assembler all in a nine week period. You are expected to write 5 large COBOL programs in the first three weeks during your free time. These are *large* programs. These are *inexperienced* people. This is a *fast* pace. The instructors tell you that it is part of the job to pull all-nighters at the terminals. If you don't work all day, and all night and part of the next day on one of the programs, you will be let go. This is after the final chance to bail out without owing $9000. My friend is averaging three or four hours of sleep per night for the last eight or nine weeks. 3) My friend had to relocate to do the initail three months of grunt work. My friend had to relocate to do the nine weeks of training. My friend will have to relocate again for the actual job. The company won't tell you your final destination until three weeks before the training is up. That's well after the final decision to bail out without owing $9000. 4) The pay is based on your performance during training. The company calls them 'raises'. They are 'incentives'. This means that you must abuse yourself even more to do as well as possible to get an unpredictable rating. By the time salaries are being determined, morale is *low*. Everyone is very bitter. You can imagine what kind of salary is decided upon. No matter what they decide your final salary is, you must accept or you owe them $9000. You are to the point of telling them off, and your every move has been in a zombie state. Not only that, but there are fanatic restrictions on telling *anyone* your income, even your SPOUSE for God's sake! Even if you allow someone else to tell you what their salary is, the company may let you go (and of course you owe them $9000). My friend decided to tell some fellow trainee's about the frustration. This was seven or eight weeks into the training. My friend wanted out. It wasn't until then until my friend found out that *everyone* wanted out. My friend was afraid to talk to anyone else until then. So was everyone else. It wasn't until then that my friend learned about the difference between what was said, and what was on the contract about the two year commitment. *EVERYONE ELSE HAD BEEN LIED TO ALSO!!!**** This situation appears to be breaking several laws to me: If a company isn't able to justify hiring you based upon the income you will bring, they shouldn't hire you. By putting a dollar commitment on you such as this one, it appears to be a form of indentured slavery. Especially when you consider the demands they place upon you, which brings me to the next illegal practice. Aren't there laws stating that an employer can't force an employee to work for more than forty hours a week without some form of mandatory overtime pay? Especially under such duress? Is it legal to withhold the job's final destination until after you have to accept a financial obligation like this one? By the way, the company delayed telling people their final destinations by several weeks. This of course messed up the ability to make a decision about staying or leaving. Isn't it illegal to lie to everyone you interview no matter what is on the employment contract? I can understand a mistake by an interviewer, but every person in my friend's class was told one year. Every person interviewed in different parts of the country, with different interviewers. Each person was told one year. Every contract reads two years in the fine print. I find it absolutely unbelievable that a billion dollar corporation would pull such dirty tricks on so many people. And what's more, this company wants these people that they have abused to work for them. The next time you get a statement from your bank, or credit union; the next time you give money to the IRS; the next time you buy a new GM automobile, you may want to ask "Who does the data processing for this company?". You might also want to double check that everything is as it should be. Because this company has a lot of very pissed off employees working for them, and they are handling your financial information and automobile safety in their angry hands, not to mention other things. I would love to see 20/20 or Sixty Minutes do a story on this, but my viewpoint is biased. I have a friend that's getting screwed. What do you care? You're only looking for a job!