8 ms·

> I missed 3 weeks of pay because no one could stop the machine. Why has this company not made their loyal worker whole? He stayed there when they needed him

• isostatic 8y ago
  Surely a 3 year contract means the company is in breach of it by not paying you?
  • jacobsenscott 8y ago
    Sounds like he's contracting at a huge company. His contracting company isn't going to make waves over this. I would guess the contracting company is making $300+ an hour off this guy, paying him $50 an hour, and they have 200+ other contractors in the building.
    • rectang 8y ago
      So, wage theft. Now we're not just talking about a lost opportunity to reward a loyal worker. If you're right, somebody ought to be going to jail.
      • fixermark 8y ago
        But nobody will. This is a common story in contractor arrangements---the big, unwritten benefit of the process is that all incentives are aligned to sweep small mistakes (1) under the rug. Contracting client doesn't want to jeopardize a good contract, contractee doesn't want to jeopardize their contract, and employee doesn't want to get fired and black-balled. Who cares if it's a little illegal? :( (1) "Small" in relation to the whole contract deal; what's one employee's salary in a million-dollar agreement between two corporations?
      • Spooky23 8y ago
        Its not wage theft. Contractors aren’t humans, from a human resource pov.
        • LarryL 8y ago
          > Contractors aren’t humans Real story from one of the (big) french telecom companies I worked for, as a contractor (a few years ago)... In that company, a regular employee was given a full desk, contractors were only given 2/3 of a desk (meaning 2 desks put side by side for 3 persons). Also, contractors were NOT allowed to go to ANY conference. Even when it was about technical stuff that was directly for their project. We had to rely 100% on a transmission of information by our managers/team leads. This led to humorous results, to say the least. Things like: a BIG meeting with plenty of people and managers, who then decided a HUGE technical change on the network, without the ONLY expert because he happened to be a contractor. Once given the results of the meeting, the guy was in a "WTF?" shock. He told me that be immediately binned the request: it basically asked him to disable the authentication server! Not the best decision for a BIG ISP, LOL. Seriously, that's almost beyond belief. (But I have other incredible stories similar to this one). As a contractor, I have really been mistreated A LOT. So much so that I've sworn never to do it again.
          • baud147258 8y ago
            I'm a contractor in France, the treatment depends on where one is working. Canal+ and PSA were bad, but the current situation is good, there's no difference between myself and the employees.
          • isostatic 8y ago
            Sounds like departments were using contractors as full members of staff. Contractors should be brought in for a specific purpose, as a consultant to staff, as an extra pair of hands to follow the whims of staff. If contractors are the only expert in a domain, there are big problems. Of course in corporations this is quite frequent - middle managers have yearly budgets for contractors, but aren't allowed to use that money to increase their headcount. A company I work for decided to get a contractor in to run a £40m project. This makes sense for a management perspective, they get to blame the contractor (who's already left) if it fails, and they get to claim the glory if it works. It's terrible for a company though. If I want 500 cables run in a data centre, or even 5 cables if it's a long way, I'll get a contractor in. Saves me a day by not having to do that work neatly and lets me do more important things (like ranting on HN). If I want someone to build me a fancy gui, I'll specify the frameworks, and let them mess around with the look and feel, but ultimately I own the output of the work, I need to be able to deal with it as if I wrote it myself.
      • bumblebritches5 8y ago
        It's not wage theft because you're getting your agreed upon price...
      • jacobsenscott 8y ago
        I don't really know if there's wage theft going on. I suppose the client company got some free work out of him, but the company can argue he shouldn't have been in the building. His badge didn't work, etc. But maybe the will let him bill those hours retroactively.
    • icebraining 8y ago
      If he's working for a contracting company, why would he lose wages? Wouldn't he still have a contract with that company? I work for a contracting company (in the EU), and if the client lets me go, I still get paid until a new project can be found.
      • garmaine 8y ago
        That’s not how it works everywhere.
  • astura 8y ago
    Their account got cancelled because the contract did not get renewed. Sounds like the company fulfilled the terms of the original contract, just (accidentally) didn't renew it. Many long term contracts require periodic renewals and/or options. >Some of that work included renewing my contract in the new system... When my contract expired, the machine took over and fired me.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • davedx 8y ago
      That's weird though. Was it a three year contract or wasn't it?
      • fouc 8y ago
        Perhaps he should've written it as an "adding" instead of "renewing" since it's an existing contract with the merged company that needed to be properly added to the take over company.
      • Spooky23 8y ago
        With contract staff, the duration is usually a not to exceed. Also, it’s typically a contract to deliver a person with specific skill, not a specific person. There are exceptions, but they are pretty rare in tech.
      • lmm 8y ago
        Probably informally thought of as a three year contact but legally written as a shorter one for tax etc. purposes.
      • Bartweiss 8y ago
        As I read the piece, it was a three year contract which was included in the old HR system, but not ported to the new one. If that's true, it was certainly breach of contract - "we forgot to upload the paperwork" doesn't get you out of honoring it.
  • paulie_a 8y ago
    How do you think you will enforce that contract? Hire a lawyer? You might as well go to the ATM grab as much cash as you possible. Then put it all in a garbage can and light a match. It will be far less costly and more productive then attempting pursue that contract.
    • hcknwscommenter 8y ago
      Sue in small claims court for week 1. Win. Obtain judgment. File lien against company assets. Sue in small claims court for week 2. Win. Obtain judgment. File lien against company assets. Repeat as necessary. Offer settlement in return for not suing anymore.
      • rspeer 8y ago
        Is this just wishful thinking that, if something went wrong with your paycheck, the world would be just and there would be an easy legal remedy waiting for you? From what I understand, you can only sue for $1000 or less in small claims court. An IT contractor who is making $1000 or less per week has bigger problems.
        • probably_wrong 8y ago
          I have good news for you: the small claims limit varies by state and, according to data from this website[1], the average upper limit is $8K (median is $6K, with the lowest being $2.5K). [1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/small-claims-suits-how-much-30031.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/small-claims-suits-h...
          • rspeer 8y ago
            Thanks, I stand corrected.
        • isostatic 8y ago
          Separate claim for each lost day then.
• cornellwright 8y ago
  Yeah the company is lucky he wasn't well on his way to finding a job somewhere else at this point.
  • inimino 8y ago
    If you read to the end, he did take "the next opportunity that presented itself".
    • cornellwright 8y ago
      He still went back to work at the first company though. I guess this depends a lot on his personal situation as well.
• wjnc 8y ago
  I agree. It's a theme I run across in many US-worker situations we read about on HN. There is such a lack of basic rights, but also basic norms when relating to workers. Ethical behaviour, from my perspective, would be to compensate the employee, regardsless of his legal rights. In a more worker-central system, the worker should have easy recourse to an official judgement for his money. In the Netherlands there is even a concept of culpability in laws regarding firing. Mess up too much, and the employer will have to pay a premium on the disengagement fee. And while our economy is moving towards a lot more 'sole employee contractors' with less worker-rights, you still have rights and a way to affordably enforce them. For them (only) basic contract law holds. That would probably mean paying the full 3 years in this context. A contract _is_ a contract.
  • hueving 8y ago
    None of what you says really applies in this case. According to the article the thing that triggered this was the failure to renew his contract. If it had renewal intervals, that means he wasn't legally entitled to 3 years. This is likely why he wasn't paid for the interim either. The best the company could do would likely be to bump up the future rate or offer a "signing bonus". Being a contractor is not at all like being an employee despite how similar the responsibilities are. You have to watch contract details like renewals like a hawk. This guy and his recruiter should have included compensation for failing to notify when not renewing.
    • evandijk70 8y ago
      It does though, failure to renew a contract should be announced in writing a month in advance to allow the employee to search for a new job and take holidays that may be left. If the announcement is late, the employee is entitled to an extra months' pay.
      • rectang 8y ago
        I doubt that's correct legal analysis. This worker is not an employee of the company, and so cannot assert rights afforded employees. There might exist special termination provisions in the contract, but that's speculation.
• scruffyherder 8y ago
  I had this happen for 3 months, no email no access. I billed 40 hours a week the entire time.
• jsoc815 8y ago
  > Why has this company not made their loyal worker whole? IMO because the generally demonstrated position of the labor force is that companies do not have to (which I hate, to be clear). IMO, employees buy into the employer/owner-propogated myth that they are "lucky to be employed." As a result, employees greatly undervalue their labor and give up any leverage to make employers do the right thing. Having been around the block a few times, I view 'work' as a transaction in which my employer and I need to realize fairly mutual benefits: most people don't. Employees generally see jobs and titles as a way to assess their societal value. And employers, knowing that, can do pretty much anything they want to people, dangling the occasional carrot to encourage higher worker output, but mostly working w/sticks. This is also contributes to the zero real wage growth in a supposedly tight job market. TLDR: power dynamics and poor 'game play' on the part of employees
• mseebach 8y ago
  He elaborates a bit in the comments - it seems he's entitled to the money, but couldn't be bothered: "So I had to do an appeal, and go through a long process that I did not care much to go through. I had a mind in quitting after all." Sounds very strange that he wouldn't care to do a bit of paperwork, which he from the sounds of it could probably well justify to do on company time, with the manager and director being supportive. Or get the agency to do it for him, and bill them for the trouble. Or whatever. Something smells a bit fishy about that part of the story.
  • rectang 8y ago
    "Fishy" is a very ungenerous read on the worker opting out of an arduous appeals process and cutting their losses. And if there's anything in the comments about "the manager and director being supportive", I don't see it -- where did you get that?
    • mseebach 8y ago
      The bit about the manager and director is in the main article. There's nothing about pay, but they're presented as entirely sympathetic and angry about the system on his behalf. As for "fishy", I find it very strange that someone writes an article emphasising twice that they're out three weeks of pay, but then couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. There's breach of contract, this isn't a long and arduous appeals process, it's open and shut, and if it isn't you have a lawyer deal with it, and recoup expenses, too. And if the guy just doesn't care about it, then why does he mention it twice? And for the purposes of this, and the other sub-thread that is incredulous about this, this is not an American thing: If you're a contractor in Europe, and you don't get paid, and you then don't do anything about that, then you don't get paid. There's no process that automatically fixes things when the aggrieved party doesn't ask for them to be fixed (and yes, even in Europe, there's a bit of annoying process and paperwork to deal with).
      • organsnyder 8y ago
        The article is written, I think, to criticize the reliance on machines—not this individual company. I don't think he wrote it out of a grudge. Even if he's legally entitled to the money, bringing a lawyer into the mix is likely to sour his relationship with his client (he's a contractor), and—rightly or wrongly—could give him a bad reputation in the local community, making it harder to find work in the future.
• otakucode 8y ago
  During the 1980s, one idea became paramount in business management schools, books, seminars, etc: The worker must be disposable. Any worker who becomes important to the success of the organization must be fired immediately upon this realization. If you permit that person to remain, they will become even more integral to the organization. Eventually, they will realize this and ask for more pay. Eventually, they will want pay which is greater than industry standard for workers in their position. That can never be permitted to occur (lest the industry standard wage rise), so they will have to be fired at that point. And then, the loss will do great damage. Best to fire them as soon as they become indispensible and deal with the smaller amount of damage then. This sort of thinking kind of makes sense in a world where almost every company is a big factory company with their workers primarily doing repetitive physical labor. And the business management world has not adapted at all to the transition to mental labor. Their businesses fail and suffer for this, but as it's a universal condition (yes even among Google and such... if the company has a physical office, then they haven't even done the obvious to benefit from the move to mental work) there's not much pressure motivating change.
• GFischer 8y ago
  Unions take a lot of (rightful) flak but this is one case where an union would possibly have been helpful.