the corporate flexing of muscle over employees

[undeterred]

I'm starting a new job this week- the first permanent job I've had in over 4 years. I've had to sign a lot of paperwork in the last few days, including agreement to a background and credit check, and a pending offer letter. At other new jobs I've had to also sign a confidentiality agreement, a non compete, and even a statement that I would waive my right to a jury trial if I were to be in court with the company.

I hate this stuff. Usually it comes in a package with a very friendly welcome letter which starts out saying how glad they are to have me aboard and ends with a reminder that my employment can be terminated at will at any moment, for good cause or no cause. The feel of it is very alienating. Its fear-inspiring. And yet I cannot imagine for a minute that if I refused to sign any of these documents I would still be hired.

If I could work independently or have my own business I would, just to avoid this sense that I am being placed in total submission to an employer to whom I have given the right to investigate anything they want to about me and who can dismiss me at a moments notice. It feels as though companies treat their employees as potential adversaries from the day that we walk in the door... and starting out on those terms it is hard to imagine how other values such as loyalty can possibly co-exist.

[skids]

1. keep looking.

Stay on the job hunt even when you are employed, but look for more decent employers. It won't stop until the majority of competant employees all start gravitating towards companies with better ethics.

[acmavm]

2. Amazing how many rights one has to give up just to get a job now days,

isn't it? And then we get the privilege of making up for the taxes that they don't have to pay. I mean, someone's gotta cover those tax breaks and offshore tax shelters, as well as the lost taxes for companies that incorporate in a postoffice box in Barbados or who knows where but operate here.

Oh well, that's the price we now have to pay to be able to work in America.

[Wapsie B]

3. This is the type of world that repugs just love.

Everyone is having to choose between being an obedient worker drone or being unemployed. No rabble-rousers allowed in this economy. Either you buy into the corporate drivel that HR gives you or you'll be quickly shunted aside.

There will be a day of atonement for korporate amerika. The people will be beat down only so long.

[Deja Q]

10. True, but people are also being honed into obedience:

No job = no money. No money = no livelihood. No livelihood = no life.

These "people" are controlling fascists. Nothing more. It's just another reason why money was invented.

I doubt there will be any atonement.

Especially when I've seen people lie and cheat to move up and the same or worse to get people they personally don't like fired. (I've not been fired but I've had vermin spread untrue rumors about me and I'm still livid about those animals.)

[Deja Q]

4. Credit check? Is it an accounting-based job?

Also, how does one's home life equate to one's work life? I may be a good PC analyst at work, but I sure as hell refuse to be so nitpicky at home.

Sounds like a typical corporation, this one you're entering.

And remember: They will not be loyal to you unless you transmogrify into a thin piece of paper with green ink on it. They are loyal to money, nothing more. Unless they prove to BE loyal to their employees. But that I doubt. Certainly not these days.

[undeterred]

8. Its a techie job

so my credit should have nothing to do with my ability to perform the job. But, after 22 months of employment during the Bush administration, my credit sucks. I said as much to the hiring manager, and she said she didn't think they were looking at that, just at criminal background. But I signed away my right to privacy regarding my credit, and I don't think its illegal for them to discriminate against me because of it. The thing is, there must be millions of people in the same position I am. You can't fix your credit till you get a good permanent job- what sense does it make to deny someone a job who has bad credit in a bad economy?

[Deja Q]

12. They want people they don't see as being in their special image to DIE.

It's as simple as that.

It's the ultimate in bully treatment.

[undeterred]

14. Takes a bit of the joy out of finding a new job

Don't ever forget you're working for DA MAN.

[CrispyQ]

26. Who needs a job more than someone with bad credit?

A credit rating is not a determination of how honest a person is! I worked at a company where some of the best paid employees were caught raiding the office supply closet at the start of the school year for their kids school supplies. Yes, the company set them up after noticing two years in a row that the supplies were wiped out come the 2nd week in September. Every person fired was in the $50-$100k range. They lost their good jobs over about $20-40 of school supplies.

I can understand a background check for some industries & some positions but it does seem more & more that employees are to sign away every right.

Again, I'll push Thom Hartmann's book, "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance & the Theft of Human Rights." There are sections that will make you seethe with anger! Corporate personhood must be revoked if we are to save this planet from the greed of the global corps & their shareholders.

[undeterred]

27. I think its totally irrelevant for all but a few jobs

that involve handling large amounts of money. If you want to see if I am honest, look at my absolutely clean background and driving check. If you want to see how shitty my life has been during the Bush admin, look at my credit report.

Companies like to have everyone sign the same form even if they don't intend to use the information against everyone- I guess they think it is a matter of fairness. But the process is very intimidating. I will smile at some of the higher ups the way a slave smiles at his/her master.

And BTW - I've worked for companies that delayed paying their bills for months because it made them look like they were worth more on paper as they were trying to sell the company. I was shocked when vendors kept calling me about unpaid bills that I had sent to accounting months ago. I guess its ok when they do it.

[podnoi]

32. The Poor already pay more for insurance and health

Being Poor and having bad credit mean you will also pay more for necessities like auto insurance and Dr. visits. Already the poor pay 50% more for hospital treatment than the general public.

All my life I felt I was able to work my 40 and the rest of my hours were mine. But now the choices in personal life are getting smaller and smaller.

Because I never bought into the corporate life, I took voluntary traveling "sabaticals" a number of times. Now you risk homelessness if you take a break from the treadmill. Fall off and they are reluctant to let you back in.

[undeterred]

40. Because of my unemployment I have bad credit

and because of my bad credit I have a high interest car loan and can't get a mortgage. I have been overcharged for car insurance- which is ridiculous because if you don't pay your insurance on time you can't file a claim against it. It isn't fair to be penalized so much for something you have no control over. :banghead:

[Double T]

5. It's called signing your life (and rights) away......

corporate scum is out of control, they make you feel like a suspect instead of a prospect.

[podnoi]

33. Repubs think it is ok to make people work without vacations

The trend is also away from vacations. Already there is an undeclass that only get's a week a year vacation.

The repubs I talk to all think that is OK, that is.. what they really mean is "as long as it isn't me I don't give a shit". Repubs are the scum of the earth.

[BooScout]

6. It's a fact of life in Corporate America these days

You basically sign away all your rights when you get hired. You'll be hard pressed to find very many companies medium to large size that don't do this.

After 23 years in Corporate America I will be losing my job in the next month or so. I vow never to work in the Corporate World again. Too much back stabbing and sucking up and I really can't take it any more.

[undeterred]

18. I agree. Schools, state agencies, or non-profits

might be less oppressive, but the salaries are lower.

The thing is, they have the right by law to terminate you at will anyway and we all know it. Why do they have to shove it in your face when you walk in the door? Its a little like proposing marriage and then saying "I reserve the right to leave you at any time!"

[podnoi]

34. Sorry, public sector is even worse..

I am working in the public sector, worse than private in my opinion. Most of the managers are repub minded. Only in the public sector they sit on their asses all day while they screw with the people under them and make them do their work.

I think our darwinian beliefs have driven narcisists into all the upper wrungs. Normal and nice people don't want to fight each other and have lives outside of work they want to enjoy. We need to change the "ground rules".

[elehhhhna]

7. Sign whatever you want. You can't sign away your rights, no matter

what the co. puts in front of you. Noncompetes for example are almost NEVER, EVER enforceable.

The blood, hair & or pee donation?I won't participate.

[undeterred]

11. No one has ever asked me to do a drug test

but as I have nothing to hide, I probably wouldn't object. But it feels very invasive anyway.

[elehhhhna]

19. If you take any medication by prescription, you DO have something to hide.

[undeterred]

23. Well then I do...

[podnoi]

35. You have no rights without money

Sure, on paper we still have rights, but if you don't play the game and make mega-bucks you can't hire the lawyers required to enforce rights. And in this age you have to just about enforce every right.

We need strong unions in this time more than ever.

[punpirate]

9. Yeah, sticks in my craw, too...

... and my own hypothesis about it is that this BS began in earnest when "Personnel" departments became "Human Resources." Persons have intrinsic rights. Resources do not.

Cheers.

[undeterred]

13. I worked for a company whose non-compete was written

to protect themselves against high level people stealing the management/accounting system they had developed and taking it to another company. But they made the secretaries and the mailroom people and the techies sign the same agreement. We didn't know the company business well enough to steal secrets, but we still couldn't work for a competitor for a year after leaving! (At least in theory) Its kind of ridiculous.

[elehhhhna]

20. Totally unenforceable for all but the TOP TOP peeps and probably

only then if they DIRECTLY steal the info. Now, theft and trade-secret violations are a different story, and the co. doesn't need a contract wit you to prvent it.

[undeterred]

24. We had a college student in the office for an internship

between his junior and senior years of college. They made him sign it even though it would technically mean that he couldn't work for a competitor upon graduation. And he sure didn't get to learn any proprietary information as an intern.

It was his first lesson in "Shut up and sign it".

[yorkiemommie1]

15. same w/ my daughter's new job

even tho they are progressive enough to offer domestic partner benefits, which she doesn't need, but it was nice to know. they also were really quick to get her a special chair for her back. but still, she is on tenterhooks knowing that they could terminate her just before her benefits kick in.

[NAO]

16. So called "Free Market" does not take into account ECONOMIC COERCION

The advocates of "Free Markets" do not take into account the reality of economic coercion.

If you have a family to feed, and are about to lose your house, and you enter into negotiations with a prospective employer who has 100 million dollars in capital reserve, and is operating very profitably without you, but could make even MORE money with your services, the job offer can hardly be called a free contract between equals.

The more people that are out of work - the greater unemployment - the more leverage employers have on employees. They can leverage the need to feed a family, the need to survive, to drive down wages and benefits as potential employees fiercely compete for scarce jobs in a bidding war to the bottom.

This is not freedom - it is cruel, crass exploitation of human suffering and want for satisfaction of greed for financial gain.

[undeterred]

17. Very well said.

:kick:

[Nite Owl]

25. This is one of the reasons that

even though times were prosperous during the Clinton years he was so hated. People were leaving jobs because they were not being treated right, they knew that they could find something better. The corporations were not the ones in control and they just couldn't have any of that.

[bobbieinok]

44. that's why unions are needed....even in anti-union Tulsa in the 50s

we got some basic info in school texts about why unions were formed in the late 19th/early 20th century

by the time my son was in school (late 70s-early 80s) in presumably relatively union-friendly IA, there was basically nothing in the social studies/history texts about unions

and teaching college students in the 90s....no one seemed to have any idea that unions might be a good idea......only one student who clearly had had and was continuing to have a hard life with his family pretty close to bottom

[alfredo]

21. Recessions shift the power from the worker to the bosses.

Ever wonder why there is a recession during the first year or so of a Republican presidency?

[givemebackmycountry]

22. MY... How things have changed.

I work for a "big three" Telecom company.
Not the old one, and not the crooks either.
The pin drop guys.

I've been there for 18 years next month.
All in all, they are a good company, and I have flourished since I first signed up in 1987.

I've climbed up from entry level slug to management in a operations center. Opportunity never passed me by.

When I was hired, they gave me a one sided "mimeographed" (remember that word?) piece of paper that wanted my name, address, telephone number and that was about it. Oh, they also asked if I had ever been "convicted of a crime".

Last person I hired in our department (a contractor conversion) had to fill out a feakin' book! Eight pages long, both sides.
Drug test and background test etc...

I remember sitting in my car out in the parking lot, smoking a bowl before I went in a filled out my application.

It's only going to get worse.

[AmandaRuth]

28. no kidding

if things keep going the way they are -10 or 20 years down the line it will be legal to ask and discriminate on the basis of party affiliation or religion.

[annabanana]

29. sign with your left hand and misspell your name....

(right hand for lefties)

[earth mom]

30. I'd rather live in poverty than work for the Corporate Bastards!

I don't know how people do it. Been there, done that and will never do so again! I think it's very possible for you to start your own business...perhaps in another field. There are good books out there about changing your life and your way of looking at work and money. Off the top of my head I can think of two good books: Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin and What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson. Check em out if you can.

Good luck! :)

[undeterred]

31. I would like to be self-employed

and believe me, nothing reminds me of it more than signing this paperwork, which points up the reality of what I am entering into. Even though some of the corporations have been relatively pleasant places to work, I never forget what I am part of. But until I have enough experience to contract my skills independently, and enough financial security to be choosy, this is where I am. 22 months of unemployment and chronic finanical insecurity has brought me here.

But thanks for the push and the book referrals!

[amazona]

37. being self-employed STINKS!

Be glad you have a real job. Self-employment is life without benefits, vacations, and at times working for less than minimum wage. A lot of people I know who owned their own businesses actually lost money. A few have become homeless. Self-employment is the last resort if you are truly unemployable but it stinks -- bad pay, bad hours, and instead of one annoying boss telling you what to do, a bunch of annoying clients telling you what to do. Don't get me started. I would never advise anyone to go the self-employment route. Most new businesses fail. If it's really profitable, then these days a franchise or a big business is already doing it. All the self-employed person gets are the scraps.

[earth mom]

38. Good luck and I hope the books help! :)

[amazona]

36. well you know a lot of that paperwork isn't legally binding

My partner's company made them sign a non-compete. This isn't enforceable because it means you have to either go without working for 2 years or else just stay working at the same company forever. Most of the time when a person gets a job at another company in the business, the non-compete is just quietly ignored.

However, in one case, my partner's boss did try to sue someone over violating the non-compete agreement. The judge threw it out. Don't remember the phrasing, but it boiled down you can't make a man promise to never work in his own industry again or even not to work for it for two years, unless you are paying at a very high level of compensation to make up for that.

They can't hold you to a piece of paper making you sign away your right to a jury trial either.

The paper is just to intimidate. You know, if all those waivers we signed were for real, no one could ever sue a doctor for malpractice either, you know.

Good luck on the new job, by the way.

[davekriss]

42. Intimidation Lawsuits

I know someone who was sued by his former employer over a non-enforceable non-compete. He eventually prevailed, but only after spending $40,000 on his lawyer (he was not able to recover his legal expenses, just continue in his new job).

My friend believes, and I concur, that it was an intimidation suit. The former employer did not think he would win, but via his deep pockets sued the former employee to stop what otherwise might have been a hemmorage of defections and lost business. The intimidation was successful.

The former employer probably has a spreadsheet where the ROI is carefully worked out -- meanwhile my friend is still out his $40,000, which to him is far more significant than the equivalent legal fees of the employer.

Same as it ever was

[undeterred]

43. I turned down a job offer 4 years ago because of a non-compete

Looking back, there was probably no reason for it, but my old company was rather litigious with some former employees and I didn't want to have to worry about it. I guess you could say I was intimidated.

[moondust]

39. Will they be spying on your computer activities?

That's one of my favorite totalitarian tricks. :smoke:

[undeterred]

41. Well, since I'm a techie, they'll probably have me do the spying

I am well aware that there is "no expectation of privacy" on one's work computer. When you manage the email server and see all the personal messages that fly around, it seems a lot of people still don't get this. Most places don't actually want to spend tech time doing a lot of this, but if they're after somebody, they will.

[Lilyhoney]

45. Wow, very well said. n/t