Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work

If the company was a good one to work for and the internships possible routes to a job the students were indeed foolish. If as I suspect however, the company was just getting free time the interns were clever in getting out of the internships and may even get the company cited for abusing them. It will certainly become known as not a good place to work

 

The perception of many employees today is that a business is a social service institution that exists for their benefit and is obligated to make them happy or give them control. In fact, the person who sells their service to an employer is just like a business selling to a customer- and the employer is their customer. You don't tell your customer what they want, they tell you- and if you can't provide it, they go elsewhere.... Just as you would do if you were a customer at a store that did not meet your needs.

This mistaken perception has grown thanks to unions, liberals, and fools like Bernie Sanders. I would applaud this company's decision to keep it's policies non-negotiable. And you may well be right, those employees got a secondary education from this, and at least some of them will be better for it.

 

No, because you have no regard for rules or tradition the newer snowflakes will rule your lives with their whims. You will spend your lives being irrelevant.

Or do you plan on making the young snowflakes bend to your will? Hmnn,,,interesting,,,,,you will become that which you despise.

 

The center of the universe? While I'm no fan of heliocentric theory (stupid sun you're not the center of my solar system) a geocentric theory based on one generation does not make much scientific sense either.

 

Since when do mobs make petitions? They were professional every single step of the way.

I never said abused. What I said was this was the exact same type of thinking, which it is. At the beginning of industrialization there were still elements of a feudal economy. A master would teach their apprentices how to perfect their craft. So factory workers were "apprentices" to the factory owner who was a "master". Of course you can see the problem, there is no room for advancement , no craft other then a mind numbing repetitive task. You can start to see the problem can't you.

You're saying to fire people for annoying management? An internship is an educational opportunity, you're going to step on managment's toes when you are doing something educational because you don't know any better. Simple as that. At no point has the interns shown any disloyalty to the company. Nor anything that interfered with work.

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That you don't have any job security? That's not good for a company. You're not going to get high quality interns if they don't feel comfortable or safe in their position.

 

But that's not where the story started, it started with the dress code. They didn't want to wear blouses and suits, but still business casual. The employee in question was just fuel to the fire. Even then immaturity is not right, they had good intentions because this would have applied to all employees in the end.

As for your anecdote, children in schools do not have the same rights as an employee. It's an apples and oranges comparison. Students can not engage in behavior that disrupts the classroom. Workers can disrupt a workplace environment- it's called a strike.

That's a problem, without job security interns can't engage in educational behavior. Without explaining an interns' rights, does an intern have the right to take a 15 minute break? Those 15 minutes can be used to talk to other employees which in of itself is an educational experience. Think about how workplace culture is new to them and those 15 minutes can be used to familarize themselves with it. Security is a major right to have, it lets interns engage in behavior they might not otherwise do, like taking a 15 minute break.

 

I would suggest that you read the prior postings. You'll get your answer.

 

Old people don't like it when you challenge the status quo.

 

Which i did.. You surmise something but gave little no evidence of it. So unless you have something to add at this point we agree to disagree.

 

Sounds good to me.

 

As promised, I called my labor attorney friend. He told me that concerted activity is protected whether of not you are seeking union representation.

https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employee-rights

Here is the meat of it:

"Employees covered by the National Labor Relations Act are afforded certain rights to join together to improve their wages and working conditions, with or without a union.

Union Activity

Employees have the right to attempt to form a union where none currently exists, or to decertify a union that has lost the support of employees.

Examples of employee rights include:

Forming, or attempting to form, a union in your workplace;
Joining a union whether the union is recognized by your employer or not;
Assisting a union in organizing your fellow employees;
Refusing to do any or all of these things.
To be fairly represented by a union
Activity Outside a Union

Employees who are not represented by a union also have rights under the NLRA. Specifically, the National Labor Relations Board protects the rights of employees to engage in “concerted activity”, which is when two or more employees take action for their mutual aid or protection regarding terms and conditions of employment. A single employee may also engage in protected concerted activity if he or she is acting on the authority of other employees, bringing group complaints to the employer’s attention, trying to induce group action, or seeking to prepare for group action.

A few examples of protected concerted activities are:

Two or more employees addressing their employer about improving their pay.
Two or more employees discussing work-related issues beyond pay, such as safety concerns, with each other.
An employee speaking to an employer on behalf of one or more co-workers about improving workplace conditions.
More information, including descriptions of actual concerted activity cases, is available on the protected concerted activity page.

Who is covered?

Most employees in the private sector are covered by the NLRA. However, the Act specifically excludes individuals who are:

employed by Federal, state, or local government
employed as agricultural laborers
employed in the domestic service of any person or family in a home
employed by a parent or spouse
employed as an independent contractor
employed as a supervisor (supervisors who have been discriminated against for refusing to violate the NLRA may be covered)
employed by an employer subject to the Railway Labor Act, such as railroads and airlines
employed by any other person who is not an employer as defined in the NLRA"

In regards to the Weingarten Act, you are correct; it only applies to union represented employees.

 

No what happens is that 90% of them BECOME the new "old guard". The other 10% remain burned out, jobless hippies the rest of their lives. Or they hit rock bottom and become liberal arts teachers.

 

LoL I looked through your links and it's full of special snowflake stuff like this one:

Oh the abuse, how will those special things ever survive the horror.

 

Good find, and I never realized government employees were excluded from NLRA, they never taught us that part, probably because we weren't the government.

 

You really do not understand the intern process do you? The knowledge and skills they learn by having a company take them in is their pay. What is so hard to understand? Do an unpaid and do it well then maybe you will get a paid internship like my daughter.

 

Interns alot of times are not fully qualified and will have a qualified person over them checking the work. In some cases intern do cost a company money. It most of the time is a way for a company to screen future employees. I no John Deere hires alot from the internship program, come to work do you job, and you will have a job waiting for you. This is not rocket science.

 

I'm afraid not. Every action they took was unprofessional.

They took the job knowing company policy, which includes dress code. It was acceptable to them until they were selected. Unprofessional.

Multiple interns asked multiple supervisors to change the dress code and were told no multiple times. Once is enough. Unprofessional.

They chose a worker in the office who was doing something they decided was breaking the policy and decided that was "unfair". Unprofessional.

They didn't discuss with the employee in question why that person was authorized to wear those shoes. Unprofessional.

They dragged that employee into their issue. Unprofessional.

They (presumably) met with other employees at work to attempt to circumvent managements already answered decision on the matter. Unprofessional.

Here's the thing. Interns know nothing about their chosen career. That's why they're interns...they're not qualified to actually get a job in their chosen field. If they were, they would not need an internship now would they?
The employeer is the one doing them the favor, not the other way around. The other employees there, and management, have to spend their valuable time TEACHING instead of accomplishing company work. Interns benefit far more from the internship than the employer. You might want to remember that when you foray out into the real world.

I've already gone through the reasons they were unprofessional. They weren't fired because they asked a question or company policy, they were fired for continuing to push the issue after a decision was reached.

These weren't high quality interns. A high quality intern doesn't look for a crusade on the first day of work.

A high quality intern shows up to work, understands that THEY are the ones that need to fit in, not the other way around, looks at the dress code and company policies, learns them and doesn't complain about minutia.

They come to work and ask how THEY can contribute, and that's all they are concerned about.

 

Except most employers just treat it as free labour and do not hire anyone after and then take the next batch of free labour. Everyone knows this goes on including my Prime Minister who says they plan on making internships without pay illegal.

 

That's one of of looking at things. Another is that if you're hiring new people and they don't particularly like a policy that has no effect on the end product, maybe reviewing that policy is a better idea than firing a whole group of people. There's nothing wrong with explaining a policy to an employee or reviewing a policy when employees challenge it.

 

The military is different than a civilian job. Wearing tennis shoes rather than leather shoes in no way affects performance. For instance what I wear to work in no way affects my ability to code. It doesn't matter if I wear shorts and a tee shirt or a full on suit, I'm just as skilled in either set of clothing. All this policy does is remove people like me from their selection process because I'm not going to work for a group that wants to arbitrarily control me. I'm looking to work for people who have a job they want to pay me to do and care about the results I'm bringing in.

 

They wanted a pointless policy changed. I'm not seeing the issue. Were I in charge I'd look at reviewing the policy or explain to them why it exists. If they continued to press then we'd look at options including letting them go, but I'm not going to up and fire a swath of new employees because they don't agree with a policy that has no real effect on productivity. That's the wrong way to handle this situation. It's more of a "my dick is bigger" move than anything reasonable. To me it reflects poorly on management and I'd never apply for that company knowing what happened there, nor would I work there if they told me I needed to dress up to do my job. I'm sure these interns and everyone they tell about this incident will feel the same.

 

It's not a pointless policy. Working in a suit in the summer sucks. It's way too hot. I get dehydrated easily because I don't have my large intestine. Sweating isn't good for me. And it's hard to concentrate. Nobody wants to wear suits all the time either. Or dress shoes.

 

Interns are a bottom line COST to the employer. Time must be spent instructing them on how to do their jobs, which means the person teaching has less time to actually work.

Having two people on a job when only one understands the job actually halves productivity, it doesn't enhance it.

 

Most jobs do on the job training and still find a way to pay their employees..