15 ms·

This bakery will hire anyone

373 points by nkurz 12y ago

Red_Tarsius 12y ago
tl;dr -> Despite my doubts, Brady makes an interesting argument for open hiring and the social duties of an employer in traditional businesses. Here's the meat of the article: > “Low-wage workers tend to have a fair amount of turnover — if you make investments in a workforce it’s very difficult to judge if they are going to stay,” Brady said. “So companies try to make as low an investment as possible — and that means they are doing very little to break the chain of poverty.” Greyston takes the opposite approach. “Rather than spending money on interviews and background checks, we are spending it on training and development,” he said. New workers go through an intensive training period and a 10-month apprenticeship. People who aren’t pulling their weight get fired. But there are plenty of workers who do just fine, Brady said. EDIT: If you downvote, at least write down why.
- JshWright 12y ago
  I suspect the ROI on training is also much higher than it is on interviews and screening (at least for these sorts of entry-level positions). That's less about social duty, and more about spending money efficiently.
  - themartorana 12y ago
    There's no such thing as a purely selfless act. That said, they could still only hire people with no criminal record. Don't be too quick to dismiss the good they're doing, which yes, has its own rewards (like say, free press).
- zf00002 12y ago
  I worked a minimum wage cashier job for a convenience store that had 3 rounds of interviews. During the 2nd interview I had to sit there while the hr manager called each of my references and verified info. I was not expecting this and one of my refs was on a family vacation in Puerto Rico. This ended up being a gigantic hassle and afterwards he told me that he wouldn't be a reference anymore. Anyway, I couldn't believe the amount of crap I had to go through to get a minimum wage job for some extra money.
  - Red_Tarsius 12y ago
    Sorry you had to go through that. 3 rounds for a cashier job is crazy; it wasted the time and money of that bad manager, as well as each one of the applicants. Country wise, multiple interviews for no-skill jobs seem an economy sinkhole.
    - thaumasiotes 12y ago
      As I understand it, cashier is a low-skill job with high trust requirements (since they work directly with money).
company 12y ago
do they mean illegal immigrants? I was not aware of any place in the US that made policy to not hire immigrants...
- njloof 12y ago
  "No Irish Need Apply" Oh, you mean current policy.
jordhy 12y ago
Respectfully, I don't think immigrants belong in a list including felons and addicts. Can't we just get along?
- jMyles 12y ago
  Why do felons and addicts belong on the same list?
  - rayiner 12y ago
    Why do felons belong on a list?
    - addicted44 12y ago
      It's a list of groups of people who are traditionally ignored by most companies, but are hired by this one. If Harvard grads were traditionally unemployable, but employed by this bakery, they would also be on the list along with felons, immigrants and addicts.
      - rayiner 12y ago
        But I was responding to someone arguing we shouldn't put addicts and felons in the same list.
        jMyles 12y ago
        OK, I suppose you're right - both lists are very noisy with little signal. I just meant to point out that addicts aren't fundamentally criminal.
        Dylan16807 12y ago
        >addicts aren't fundamentally criminal I think you have your ranking backwards. Having committed a crime means you screwed up. Being an addict means a life-destroying drive that never truly goes away.
vermontdevil 12y ago
In case any is wondering, I looked at the comments under that article and saw the stats: According to IPCH's Spring 2014 Uncensored Magazine, 35% of open hires make it through Greyston Bakery's apprenticeship program. Source| http://www.icphusa.org/filelibrary/ICPH_UNCENSORED%205.1_Spring%202014.pdf http://www.icphusa.org/filelibrary/ICPH_UNCENSORED%205.1_Spr...
- acveilleux 12y ago
  Interesting stat... How many would make it if they screened like normal business? That's the more interesting one. Low-paid jobs have always had retention problems and the apprenticeship lasts 11 months.
denim_chicken 12y ago
Why did the moderators change the title from "Felons, addicts, immigrants: This bakery will hire anyone"?
- mod 12y ago
  It seems to me a large amount of titles are edited, usually for the worse. I understand some more click-bait titles getting changed (though I don't usually agree), but some edits, like this one, are seemingly without reason.
- bhayden 12y ago
  I would assume the moderator disagreed with the premise of lumping those three categories of people together, or that somehow being an addict is as bad as a felon, or vice versa. Really the offensive part is lumping immigrants in there. Additionally, it's sort of a click-bait title because they hire anyone regardless of their background, they aren't specifically seeking these people out.
trhway 12y ago
It is our individual and societal lizard brain that drives our puritan style shying away from "fallen" the way it was reacting toward lepers for centuries and millennia. It takes an intelligent effort to overcome it.
jim_greco 12y ago
The lack of second chances we give in America to some of our most unfortunate means that even non-violent offenses can have lifelong consequences. It's shameful.
- jsnk 12y ago
  I think the cost has some influence over employers making a decision to hire an ex-con. If a store can hire someone for minimum wage without any conviction records, why would they hire someone with conviction records when they can't pay any lower than the minimum wage?
  - ryanbrunner 12y ago
    You're assuming that a conviction record is the only variable. Chances are, you're not going to have 2 applicants who are otherwise identical save for a felony conviction (the fact that one of them has a felony conviction almost guarantees there's probably a lot of other differences between them as well).
    - spopejoy 12y ago
      felony conviction almost guarantees there's probably a lot of other differences Do you have some statistics you'd like to share? Otherwise this seems like the exact bias that silently justifies relegating felons to sub-citizenship.
      - ryanbrunner 12y ago
        I wasn't implying that the differences were negative, only that it's probably a fair assumption that the life experience of someone incarcerated is going to be different from someone who never has been.
  - unethical_ban 12y ago
    You're assuming that someone with a conviction is worse than someone without. One point in the article is that you don't know! The person who has no conviction might not have been caught. Look at the sociopaths and murderers who sometimes have millions or billions, and are in control of thousands of jobs. They're just smarter about getting away with things. Furthermore, you suggest that if only we didn't have those strangling minimum wage laws, businesses would hire convicts for less than minimum wage. But sticking ex-cons into wage slavery is exactly the opposite of what the business described wants! They want to maximize their positive impact on their community, not just get out the most from their employees for the least investment.
Geekette 12y ago
Interesting, quote that stood out:"Someone without an arrest may simply be a person who has never gotten caught". That only 40% of business owners would consider hiring a ex-criminal also makes one wonder how many employers in general tend to lump all ex-cons in the same basket when assessing potential business risk (e.g. serial murderer vs thief/drug dealer, 1x vs multiple offender, etc).
- addicted44 12y ago
  And keep in mind that 40% SAY they will hire. As seen in polls about racism (even anonymous polls) the actual number is probably a lot lower.
  - notahacker 12y ago
    Though that's probably mitigated to an extent by many employers not bothering to check.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  I'm wondering how insurance works here - will your legal insurance cover you if you hire those convicted of crimes? If you want to play the game of capitalism well, ie win more of the profit, then you can't let humanity encroach on that. For better or worse.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Or, quite likely: has been caught but given multiple chances. Look at the news out of Ferguson, MO, and particularly Tanesi Coates story on systematic corruption and focused arrests and prosecution of minorities / poor: "The Gangsters of Ferguson" http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/The-Gangsters-Of-Ferguson/386893/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/The-Gang... The "focus on revenue" was almost wholly a focus on black people as revenue. Black people in Ferguson were twice as likely to be searched during a stop, twice as likely to receive a citation when stopped, and twice as likely to be arrested during the stop, and yet were 26 percent less likely to be found with contraband. Black people were more likely to see a single incident turn into multiple citations. The disparity in outcomes remained "even after regression analysis is used to control for non-race-based variables."
cubano 12y ago
As someone with several drug related felonies on my record, I can do nothing but applaud the efforts of this CEO, although on a different level I wonder if any adult working a minimum wage job isn't living a very bleak existence anyway, and in fact isn't being exploited for having a brain disorder we currently call "addiction" The problem with people who let drugs seriously affect their life is that...they let drugs seriously affect their lives, and at least from an employment point of view, where what matters is robot-like conformity and compliance, this is just not-to-be tolerated or even risked. The sad, sad irony of this is that according to very recent studies[1], the very thing that made us addicts is the very prescription that society has deemed our punishment to be. Talk about cruel and unusual. I wish I could say I don't struggle with relapse, but one of the few things worse then being an addict is being a lying addict. Being unemployable by most metrics and having to constantly struggle to survive sure doesn't help with that battle. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-... [edits]
- Stratoscope 12y ago
  Thank you both for the courage to post this, and for the link to Johann Hari's article. It is a real eye-opener. (If anyone is tempted to skip it because of the HuffPo link, take my word for it, this is well worth reading.)
  - gadders 12y ago
    Don't skip it because it's HuffPo, skip it because it's Johann Hari. He's a plagiarist and a cyber stalker. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
    - Stratoscope 12y ago
      Yikes, I didn't know that, thanks for pointing it out. Still, I think it would be a mistake to skip the article because of who wrote it. As I said, it was a real eye-opener for me, and I'm glad I read it. I'm even glad I bought Hari's book Chasing the Scream. (I didn't even do my usual Kindle free sample, just a one-click purchase on the spot after reading the article, quite unusual for me!) You did have me worried for a moment, though: do I want to support someone like that? But he seems to recognize how he screwed up and is trying to make things right, apologizing to the people he mistreated, releasing the audio interviews used in the book, etc. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/02/johann-hari-interview-drugs-book-independent http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/02/johann-hari-int... http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/01/26/interview-johann-hari-on-fking-up-and-the-war-on-drugs/ http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/01/26/interview-johann-hari-o... I too have done some things in the past that I'm ashamed of, and I'm grateful that the people involved forgave me. Perhaps Hari is a bit like the other people in this discussion and deserves a second chance?
jfc 12y ago
Look at how proud the employees look in the second photo. Some would generalize, and say that people who look like them, or who have criminal history, don't really want to work. But they do want to work, are employed, and their sense of dignity is palpable. This is a really uplifting story. Nice to read some good news for a change.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
This relates to the hiring post tptacek wrote: "Over the years, Brady has come to suspect that the traditional metrics for determining who will be a good employee are flawed. Someone without an arrest may simply be a person who has never gotten caught." I'm guessing that you can find better people this way, felony or not by providing an on boarding process with the open expectation that not succeeding there means you're not going to continue with the company.
- A_COMPUTER 12y ago
  "Someone without an arrest may simply be a person who has never gotten caught." That argument is like a religious apologetic. Lack of evidence doesn't produce a positive argument for anything. On the other hand past criminal behavior is one of the best predictors of future criminal behavior. I completely agree with your own statement though.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  As I commented above, see the direct documented evidence out of Ferguson, MO regards arrest and conviction rates for blacks vs. whites. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9164772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9164772
chrischen 12y ago
I think some of this applies to tech hiring as well. There's only so much accuracy a tech interview can have, yet so much weight is given to it. In the end one person who's rejected at Google may end up at Dropbox, and would all the interview hand-waving have been necessary? I'd love to see studies if more intensive interview processes actually produce better quality hires.
- calinet6 12y ago
  This is the real moral of this story. How much of a person's effectiveness in a workforce is due to environmental factors, and how much is individual? Now, for every factor you believe is individual, is there proof, or is it an assumption? Now even further, for every factor you still believe is individual, can you imagine a system which would solve the problem in a generic way? Given that, would an organization that assumed systemic solutions be more successful than one that assumes individual solutions? The answer is yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming
nostromo 12y ago
I think more employers would do this if firing was easier. It's perhaps counterintuitive that making firing cheap, easy, and without large liabilities could reduce our unemployment rate substantially. We should reduce the risk of employers taking a chance on people.
- Red_Tarsius 12y ago
  On a side note, firing an employee in Italy is excruciatingly hard and, as a consequence, it makes for a lower job growth. As the say goes, "It’s easier for me to get rid of my wife than to fire an employee”. > "Article 18 of the Labor Code, passed in 1970, mandates that after a short probationary period, an employee fired from a company with 15 or more employees can bring a lawsuit challenging the dismissal. If the suit is successful, as is often the case, the employer is forced to rehire the worker and pay back wages and social insurance contributions, as well as a large fine." http://goo.gl/EE9P5e http://goo.gl/EE9P5e
  - toyg 12y ago
    In practice this has been long sidestepped by abusing short-term contracts, which are renewed every year and are not protected by such clause. So in practice, for the last 20 years or so, it's actually been much easier to fire people in Italy than in most other European countries (as long as they were recent hires). That didn't really help job growth though.
- jfoutz 12y ago
  In the US at least, firing is really easy. "any hiring is presumed to be 'at will'; that is, the employer is free to discharge individuals 'for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all,' and the employee is equally free to quit, strike, or otherwise cease work." Managers are people. I'd imagine there's a fair amount of guilt and shame around firing someone. I also think managers underestimate the damage done by crappy employees, and overestimate the difficulty in replacing people. Less charitably, people given the power to hire and fire are likely selected for doing what they're told rather than doing what's best for business, so they're probably kinda spineless.
grasstomouth 12y ago
I'm increasingly of the opinion that this open-hire practice could give businesses a competitive advantage. With the US having 5% of the world's population but incarcerating 25% of the world's prisoners, we've got a surplus of those deemed unemployable due to past convictions. A person with past convictions will generally be more loyal to the company that hired him vs. someone who isn't systemically punished by the job market. If hiring felons with competitive wages means having a more devoted workforce, then those businesses willing to sidestep punitive screenings might just come out ahead.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  >A person with past convictions will generally be more loyal to the company that hired him // The risk factor is that they won't, that they're not really reformed, that if they robbed in the past then ripping off your office will seem a good option (or letting a friend know how to do it without getting caught, etc.). Any evidence to back up your claim? It would be lovely to think that this is true. FWIW I'm for applying grace, but not necessarily being naive as to the idea that it will always be repaid with loyalty rather than strife.
  - vertex-four 12y ago
    As an offset to that risk, giving your employees more individualised attention than many companies want to give entry-level/minimum-wage employees would likely be a necessity.
joshmn 12y ago
As someone with a bad history -- when I was 17-18; 6 years ago -- this makes me so happy. I'm really fortunate when it comes to employment and work, and I know it's not like this for many other people who have ink on their paper. I didn't run a malicious drug enterprise, have a wicked meth addiction, kill anyone, or sell my Adderall. Instead, I found my way into a bank's computer system and some financial card records. Some people are cautious with this, personally and professionally, so I explain to them what <really> happened and how it happened and why it happened. If they choose to not accept me for the mistake I _made_, then I remind myself that they're probably not worth my time anyway. If they choose to work with me... I do all I can to change their mind about people in a situation similar to mine. If there was a silver lining, most would say that my criminal history got me a few gigs relating to fraud prevention and loss. But in my eyes, I think it's that I was able to change the minds of a few people who would have otherwise passed me off for no good - or so I would like to believe.
joshfraser 12y ago
The inability of convicted felons to find work is a huge contributor to recidivism. When you can't find work, it makes it that much easier to fall back into a life of crime. If we really cared about offering a path to redemption, we would revisit our policies on felony records, maintaining sex offender lists, and placing restrictions on felons ability to vote. Unfortunately prisons are quite profitable (not to mention racist), so the system has been rigged to make it easier for people to fall back to crime that to reintegrate into society.
snowpolar 12y ago
What about sociopaths?
- steveklabnik 12y ago
  They work in lower Manhattan, not Yonkers.
- njloof 12y ago
  They're in management.
jqm 12y ago
I think this is awesome. The routine and self respect of getting up and going to a job every morning is something people trying to re-integrate back into society really need. Not to mention money to buy things. But I do have a story to relate. I was a construction project manager in my early 30's. We did land reclamation in disturbed areas like mines. We had a large project reclaiming a mine in Arizona. The company I worked for hired lots of former convicts without discrimination, and fired them just about as quickly and also without discrimination. One of the water truck drivers had a cousin who had killed some people in his teens and had just gotten out of prison. The guy was I think late 20's. He was living with his aunt and uncle. We had him out on the job staying at a motel with the rest of the crew for a few months. He was a bit odd, but he did OK work. When the job was over, we didn't need the big crew anymore and he was laid off. About a month later he killed the aunt and uncle he was staying with and went right back to prison. So even though this is a good program and I fully approve and think we need more programs like this.... there are qualifiers. Recently violent people may need more help or supervision after release, before they are ready to enter a workforce.
jheriko 12y ago
I especially like the point about criminal records not labelling criminals... just the ones who have been caught. I've met plenty of people with criminal records who are in fact extremely capable employees, and many criminals who have just not yet been caught. ... not to mention that drug addiction is an excellent motivator for making money. :P
calinet6 12y ago
If you find this story fascinating (and you should) I highly recommend reading the book written by the founder of Greyston Bakery, Bernie Glassman. It's called "Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life That Matters." It's extremely good, goes over all of the logical reasoning and humanistic basis for the decisions he made, and makes a ton of sense. Yep, this wonderfully human organization came from a Zen master, and its foundations lie in practical Zen and all of the wonderful philosophies behind it. Isn't it inspiring to think that the success of a business could have as much to do with the human ties and emotional connections, as it does individuals, skills, and resources? It is inspiring because it's true, and there's some core of each of us that knows that even in a corporate world. The quality philosophies of W. Edwards Deming were equally appealing to Japanese companies, for many of the same reasons. Deming realized that the success of a company and especially the production of quality products was systemic, controllable, and inseparably human. If you enjoy this idea, read more about Deming as well.
littletimmy 12y ago
As an immigrant to the US from Europe, one of the worst aspects of US culture is how it treats the unfortunate. People are all too willing to inflict severe judgement and punishment on others (presumably because it makes them feel morally upright). Poor? Fuck you, your fault. Addict? Fuck you, your fault. No, it does not matter that you have cleaned your act. This country is psychopathic. Unfortunately, that also makes it a great place to earn money, and so here I am.
marincounty 12y ago
Congrats to this bakery, and the felons who are happy with their job. As to someone who worked as a Baker; I can honestly state the job was one of the worst jobs I have ever had--and I have had more than a bakers dozen x 2. The Bakery I worked at couldn't keep employees. The hours were horrid. I remember having to be there at 4:30 a.am. The wage was not a livable wage, unless you were living with family members. And two guys out of the 10 of us working there committed suicide. I'll name the Bakery because the original owner was such a Jerk; it was Marin Bagel Factory. This was in the ninties--maybe working in a bakery has changed, but any bakery owner should be glad they have any employees that show up. Sorry, but I think back at that Rat hole and cringe.
jlarocco 12y ago
Did anybody else find the third to last paragraph a little odd? > As I never tire of pointing out, environmental progress depends on social progress. When people are desperately poor they have no choice but to pillage the commons — to cut down forests, or turn to crime. When those people find the means to support themselves with dignity, forests are protected and high-crime areas turn into healthy, walkable neighborhoods. They cut down forests? Is that really a thing people do when they can't support themselves?
- patrickaljord 12y ago
  > They cut down forests? Is that really a thing people do when they can't support themselves? In region like Brazil and Indonesia I guess.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Grist is an environmental site. Cutting down forests is talking about deforestation, especially of the rain forest. In that context yes, poor farmers deforest an area; they sell the timber and try to use the land for farming.
yoshizar 12y ago
I was hoping for interviews with some of the workers that were photographed. It'd be interesting to hear their opinions about their job and employer, and learn more about their experience going through the apprenticeship program.
codyZ 12y ago
I visited this Bakery twice - once to potentially buy bulk, another time as part of a business case study. All the employees, atleast the ones I observed working the floor, were all happy and smiling. Good for them.
DanielBMarkham 12y ago
I have long suspected that for software developers, not bakers, you could hire off the street after a very brief interview and then do a combination of training and auditioning for the work. My belief is this would be both cheaper and more effective than all the money spent in the traditional process. The one caveat is that teams would have to be willing to work at 2 or 3 times their optimal size until the culling was done. This is an experiment that really needs to be done. Google and the rest of the gang are beating the living hell out of "tell me everybody else you know that's cool" -- there's got to be some opportunities at the other end of the spectrum.
memco 12y ago
There's a place in LA called Homeboy Industries with a similar model. This page might be of interest since it is less about the profitability from a business standpoint and more about the benefit to the individuals they hire: http://www.homeboyindustries.org/why-we-do-it/ http://www.homeboyindustries.org/why-we-do-it/.

373 points by nkurz 12y ago

tl;dr -> Despite my doubts, Brady makes an interesting argument for open hiring and the social duties of an employer in traditional businesses. Here's the meat of the article: > “Low-wage workers tend to have a fair amount of turnover — if you make investments in a workforce it’s very difficult to judge if they are going to stay,” Brady said. “So companies try to make as low an investment as possible — and that means they are doing very little to break the chain of poverty.” Greyston takes the opposite approach. “Rather than spending money on interviews and background checks, we are spending it on training and development,” he said. New workers go through an intensive training period and a 10-month apprenticeship. People who aren’t pulling their weight get fired. But there are plenty of workers who do just fine, Brady said. EDIT: If you downvote, at least write down why.

JshWright 12y ago
I suspect the ROI on training is also much higher than it is on interviews and screening (at least for these sorts of entry-level positions). That's less about social duty, and more about spending money efficiently.
- themartorana 12y ago
  There's no such thing as a purely selfless act. That said, they could still only hire people with no criminal record. Don't be too quick to dismiss the good they're doing, which yes, has its own rewards (like say, free press).
zf00002 12y ago
I worked a minimum wage cashier job for a convenience store that had 3 rounds of interviews. During the 2nd interview I had to sit there while the hr manager called each of my references and verified info. I was not expecting this and one of my refs was on a family vacation in Puerto Rico. This ended up being a gigantic hassle and afterwards he told me that he wouldn't be a reference anymore. Anyway, I couldn't believe the amount of crap I had to go through to get a minimum wage job for some extra money.
- Red_Tarsius 12y ago
  Sorry you had to go through that. 3 rounds for a cashier job is crazy; it wasted the time and money of that bad manager, as well as each one of the applicants. Country wise, multiple interviews for no-skill jobs seem an economy sinkhole.
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    As I understand it, cashier is a low-skill job with high trust requirements (since they work directly with money).

company 12y ago

do they mean illegal immigrants? I was not aware of any place in the US that made policy to not hire immigrants...

njloof 12y ago
"No Irish Need Apply" Oh, you mean current policy.

jordhy 12y ago

Respectfully, I don't think immigrants belong in a list including felons and addicts. Can't we just get along?

jMyles 12y ago
Why do felons and addicts belong on the same list?
- rayiner 12y ago
  Why do felons belong on a list?
  - addicted44 12y ago
    It's a list of groups of people who are traditionally ignored by most companies, but are hired by this one. If Harvard grads were traditionally unemployable, but employed by this bakery, they would also be on the list along with felons, immigrants and addicts.
    - rayiner 12y ago
      But I was responding to someone arguing we shouldn't put addicts and felons in the same list.
      - jMyles 12y ago
        OK, I suppose you're right - both lists are very noisy with little signal. I just meant to point out that addicts aren't fundamentally criminal.
        Dylan16807 12y ago
        >addicts aren't fundamentally criminal I think you have your ranking backwards. Having committed a crime means you screwed up. Being an addict means a life-destroying drive that never truly goes away.

vermontdevil 12y ago

In case any is wondering, I looked at the comments under that article and saw the stats: According to IPCH's Spring 2014 Uncensored Magazine, 35% of open hires make it through Greyston Bakery's apprenticeship program. Source| http://www.icphusa.org/filelibrary/ICPH_UNCENSORED%205.1_Spring%202014.pdf http://www.icphusa.org/filelibrary/ICPH_UNCENSORED%205.1_Spr...

acveilleux 12y ago
Interesting stat... How many would make it if they screened like normal business? That's the more interesting one. Low-paid jobs have always had retention problems and the apprenticeship lasts 11 months.

denim_chicken 12y ago

Why did the moderators change the title from "Felons, addicts, immigrants: This bakery will hire anyone"?

mod 12y ago
It seems to me a large amount of titles are edited, usually for the worse. I understand some more click-bait titles getting changed (though I don't usually agree), but some edits, like this one, are seemingly without reason.
bhayden 12y ago
I would assume the moderator disagreed with the premise of lumping those three categories of people together, or that somehow being an addict is as bad as a felon, or vice versa. Really the offensive part is lumping immigrants in there. Additionally, it's sort of a click-bait title because they hire anyone regardless of their background, they aren't specifically seeking these people out.

trhway 12y ago

It is our individual and societal lizard brain that drives our puritan style shying away from "fallen" the way it was reacting toward lepers for centuries and millennia. It takes an intelligent effort to overcome it.

jim_greco 12y ago

The lack of second chances we give in America to some of our most unfortunate means that even non-violent offenses can have lifelong consequences. It's shameful.

jsnk 12y ago
I think the cost has some influence over employers making a decision to hire an ex-con. If a store can hire someone for minimum wage without any conviction records, why would they hire someone with conviction records when they can't pay any lower than the minimum wage?
- ryanbrunner 12y ago
  You're assuming that a conviction record is the only variable. Chances are, you're not going to have 2 applicants who are otherwise identical save for a felony conviction (the fact that one of them has a felony conviction almost guarantees there's probably a lot of other differences between them as well).
  - spopejoy 12y ago
    felony conviction almost guarantees there's probably a lot of other differences Do you have some statistics you'd like to share? Otherwise this seems like the exact bias that silently justifies relegating felons to sub-citizenship.
    - ryanbrunner 12y ago
      I wasn't implying that the differences were negative, only that it's probably a fair assumption that the life experience of someone incarcerated is going to be different from someone who never has been.
- unethical_ban 12y ago
  You're assuming that someone with a conviction is worse than someone without. One point in the article is that you don't know! The person who has no conviction might not have been caught. Look at the sociopaths and murderers who sometimes have millions or billions, and are in control of thousands of jobs. They're just smarter about getting away with things. Furthermore, you suggest that if only we didn't have those strangling minimum wage laws, businesses would hire convicts for less than minimum wage. But sticking ex-cons into wage slavery is exactly the opposite of what the business described wants! They want to maximize their positive impact on their community, not just get out the most from their employees for the least investment.

Geekette 12y ago

Interesting, quote that stood out:"Someone without an arrest may simply be a person who has never gotten caught". That only 40% of business owners would consider hiring a ex-criminal also makes one wonder how many employers in general tend to lump all ex-cons in the same basket when assessing potential business risk (e.g. serial murderer vs thief/drug dealer, 1x vs multiple offender, etc).

addicted44 12y ago
And keep in mind that 40% SAY they will hire. As seen in polls about racism (even anonymous polls) the actual number is probably a lot lower.
- notahacker 12y ago
  Though that's probably mitigated to an extent by many employers not bothering to check.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
I'm wondering how insurance works here - will your legal insurance cover you if you hire those convicted of crimes? If you want to play the game of capitalism well, ie win more of the profit, then you can't let humanity encroach on that. For better or worse.
dredmorbius 12y ago
Or, quite likely: has been caught but given multiple chances. Look at the news out of Ferguson, MO, and particularly Tanesi Coates story on systematic corruption and focused arrests and prosecution of minorities / poor: "The Gangsters of Ferguson" http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/The-Gangsters-Of-Ferguson/386893/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/The-Gang... The "focus on revenue" was almost wholly a focus on black people as revenue. Black people in Ferguson were twice as likely to be searched during a stop, twice as likely to receive a citation when stopped, and twice as likely to be arrested during the stop, and yet were 26 percent less likely to be found with contraband. Black people were more likely to see a single incident turn into multiple citations. The disparity in outcomes remained "even after regression analysis is used to control for non-race-based variables."

cubano 12y ago

As someone with several drug related felonies on my record, I can do nothing but applaud the efforts of this CEO, although on a different level I wonder if any adult working a minimum wage job isn't living a very bleak existence anyway, and in fact isn't being exploited for having a brain disorder we currently call "addiction" The problem with people who let drugs seriously affect their life is that...they let drugs seriously affect their lives, and at least from an employment point of view, where what matters is robot-like conformity and compliance, this is just not-to-be tolerated or even risked. The sad, sad irony of this is that according to very recent studies[1], the very thing that made us addicts is the very prescription that society has deemed our punishment to be. Talk about cruel and unusual. I wish I could say I don't struggle with relapse, but one of the few things worse then being an addict is being a lying addict. Being unemployable by most metrics and having to constantly struggle to survive sure doesn't help with that battle. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-... [edits]

Stratoscope 12y ago
Thank you both for the courage to post this, and for the link to Johann Hari's article. It is a real eye-opener. (If anyone is tempted to skip it because of the HuffPo link, take my word for it, this is well worth reading.)
- gadders 12y ago
  Don't skip it because it's HuffPo, skip it because it's Johann Hari. He's a plagiarist and a cyber stalker. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
  - Stratoscope 12y ago
    Yikes, I didn't know that, thanks for pointing it out. Still, I think it would be a mistake to skip the article because of who wrote it. As I said, it was a real eye-opener for me, and I'm glad I read it. I'm even glad I bought Hari's book Chasing the Scream. (I didn't even do my usual Kindle free sample, just a one-click purchase on the spot after reading the article, quite unusual for me!) You did have me worried for a moment, though: do I want to support someone like that? But he seems to recognize how he screwed up and is trying to make things right, apologizing to the people he mistreated, releasing the audio interviews used in the book, etc. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/02/johann-hari-interview-drugs-book-independent http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/02/johann-hari-int... http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/01/26/interview-johann-hari-on-fking-up-and-the-war-on-drugs/ http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/01/26/interview-johann-hari-o... I too have done some things in the past that I'm ashamed of, and I'm grateful that the people involved forgave me. Perhaps Hari is a bit like the other people in this discussion and deserves a second chance?

jfc 12y ago

Look at how proud the employees look in the second photo. Some would generalize, and say that people who look like them, or who have criminal history, don't really want to work. But they do want to work, are employed, and their sense of dignity is palpable. This is a really uplifting story. Nice to read some good news for a change.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

This relates to the hiring post tptacek wrote: "Over the years, Brady has come to suspect that the traditional metrics for determining who will be a good employee are flawed. Someone without an arrest may simply be a person who has never gotten caught." I'm guessing that you can find better people this way, felony or not by providing an on boarding process with the open expectation that not succeeding there means you're not going to continue with the company.

A_COMPUTER 12y ago
"Someone without an arrest may simply be a person who has never gotten caught." That argument is like a religious apologetic. Lack of evidence doesn't produce a positive argument for anything. On the other hand past criminal behavior is one of the best predictors of future criminal behavior. I completely agree with your own statement though.
dredmorbius 12y ago
As I commented above, see the direct documented evidence out of Ferguson, MO regards arrest and conviction rates for blacks vs. whites. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9164772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9164772

chrischen 12y ago

I think some of this applies to tech hiring as well. There's only so much accuracy a tech interview can have, yet so much weight is given to it. In the end one person who's rejected at Google may end up at Dropbox, and would all the interview hand-waving have been necessary? I'd love to see studies if more intensive interview processes actually produce better quality hires.

calinet6 12y ago
This is the real moral of this story. How much of a person's effectiveness in a workforce is due to environmental factors, and how much is individual? Now, for every factor you believe is individual, is there proof, or is it an assumption? Now even further, for every factor you still believe is individual, can you imagine a system which would solve the problem in a generic way? Given that, would an organization that assumed systemic solutions be more successful than one that assumes individual solutions? The answer is yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

nostromo 12y ago

I think more employers would do this if firing was easier. It's perhaps counterintuitive that making firing cheap, easy, and without large liabilities could reduce our unemployment rate substantially. We should reduce the risk of employers taking a chance on people.

Red_Tarsius 12y ago
On a side note, firing an employee in Italy is excruciatingly hard and, as a consequence, it makes for a lower job growth. As the say goes, "It’s easier for me to get rid of my wife than to fire an employee”. > "Article 18 of the Labor Code, passed in 1970, mandates that after a short probationary period, an employee fired from a company with 15 or more employees can bring a lawsuit challenging the dismissal. If the suit is successful, as is often the case, the employer is forced to rehire the worker and pay back wages and social insurance contributions, as well as a large fine." http://goo.gl/EE9P5e http://goo.gl/EE9P5e
- toyg 12y ago
  In practice this has been long sidestepped by abusing short-term contracts, which are renewed every year and are not protected by such clause. So in practice, for the last 20 years or so, it's actually been much easier to fire people in Italy than in most other European countries (as long as they were recent hires). That didn't really help job growth though.
jfoutz 12y ago
In the US at least, firing is really easy. "any hiring is presumed to be 'at will'; that is, the employer is free to discharge individuals 'for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all,' and the employee is equally free to quit, strike, or otherwise cease work." Managers are people. I'd imagine there's a fair amount of guilt and shame around firing someone. I also think managers underestimate the damage done by crappy employees, and overestimate the difficulty in replacing people. Less charitably, people given the power to hire and fire are likely selected for doing what they're told rather than doing what's best for business, so they're probably kinda spineless.

grasstomouth 12y ago

I'm increasingly of the opinion that this open-hire practice could give businesses a competitive advantage. With the US having 5% of the world's population but incarcerating 25% of the world's prisoners, we've got a surplus of those deemed unemployable due to past convictions. A person with past convictions will generally be more loyal to the company that hired him vs. someone who isn't systemically punished by the job market. If hiring felons with competitive wages means having a more devoted workforce, then those businesses willing to sidestep punitive screenings might just come out ahead.

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
>A person with past convictions will generally be more loyal to the company that hired him // The risk factor is that they won't, that they're not really reformed, that if they robbed in the past then ripping off your office will seem a good option (or letting a friend know how to do it without getting caught, etc.). Any evidence to back up your claim? It would be lovely to think that this is true. FWIW I'm for applying grace, but not necessarily being naive as to the idea that it will always be repaid with loyalty rather than strife.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  As an offset to that risk, giving your employees more individualised attention than many companies want to give entry-level/minimum-wage employees would likely be a necessity.

joshmn 12y ago

As someone with a bad history -- when I was 17-18; 6 years ago -- this makes me so happy. I'm really fortunate when it comes to employment and work, and I know it's not like this for many other people who have ink on their paper. I didn't run a malicious drug enterprise, have a wicked meth addiction, kill anyone, or sell my Adderall. Instead, I found my way into a bank's computer system and some financial card records. Some people are cautious with this, personally and professionally, so I explain to them what <really> happened and how it happened and why it happened. If they choose to not accept me for the mistake I _made_, then I remind myself that they're probably not worth my time anyway. If they choose to work with me... I do all I can to change their mind about people in a situation similar to mine. If there was a silver lining, most would say that my criminal history got me a few gigs relating to fraud prevention and loss. But in my eyes, I think it's that I was able to change the minds of a few people who would have otherwise passed me off for no good - or so I would like to believe.

joshfraser 12y ago

The inability of convicted felons to find work is a huge contributor to recidivism. When you can't find work, it makes it that much easier to fall back into a life of crime. If we really cared about offering a path to redemption, we would revisit our policies on felony records, maintaining sex offender lists, and placing restrictions on felons ability to vote. Unfortunately prisons are quite profitable (not to mention racist), so the system has been rigged to make it easier for people to fall back to crime that to reintegrate into society.

snowpolar 12y ago

What about sociopaths?

steveklabnik 12y ago
They work in lower Manhattan, not Yonkers.
njloof 12y ago
They're in management.

jqm 12y ago

I think this is awesome. The routine and self respect of getting up and going to a job every morning is something people trying to re-integrate back into society really need. Not to mention money to buy things. But I do have a story to relate. I was a construction project manager in my early 30's. We did land reclamation in disturbed areas like mines. We had a large project reclaiming a mine in Arizona. The company I worked for hired lots of former convicts without discrimination, and fired them just about as quickly and also without discrimination. One of the water truck drivers had a cousin who had killed some people in his teens and had just gotten out of prison. The guy was I think late 20's. He was living with his aunt and uncle. We had him out on the job staying at a motel with the rest of the crew for a few months. He was a bit odd, but he did OK work. When the job was over, we didn't need the big crew anymore and he was laid off. About a month later he killed the aunt and uncle he was staying with and went right back to prison. So even though this is a good program and I fully approve and think we need more programs like this.... there are qualifiers. Recently violent people may need more help or supervision after release, before they are ready to enter a workforce.

jheriko 12y ago

I especially like the point about criminal records not labelling criminals... just the ones who have been caught. I've met plenty of people with criminal records who are in fact extremely capable employees, and many criminals who have just not yet been caught. ... not to mention that drug addiction is an excellent motivator for making money. :P

calinet6 12y ago

If you find this story fascinating (and you should) I highly recommend reading the book written by the founder of Greyston Bakery, Bernie Glassman. It's called "Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life That Matters." It's extremely good, goes over all of the logical reasoning and humanistic basis for the decisions he made, and makes a ton of sense. Yep, this wonderfully human organization came from a Zen master, and its foundations lie in practical Zen and all of the wonderful philosophies behind it. Isn't it inspiring to think that the success of a business could have as much to do with the human ties and emotional connections, as it does individuals, skills, and resources? It is inspiring because it's true, and there's some core of each of us that knows that even in a corporate world. The quality philosophies of W. Edwards Deming were equally appealing to Japanese companies, for many of the same reasons. Deming realized that the success of a company and especially the production of quality products was systemic, controllable, and inseparably human. If you enjoy this idea, read more about Deming as well.

littletimmy 12y ago

As an immigrant to the US from Europe, one of the worst aspects of US culture is how it treats the unfortunate. People are all too willing to inflict severe judgement and punishment on others (presumably because it makes them feel morally upright). Poor? Fuck you, your fault. Addict? Fuck you, your fault. No, it does not matter that you have cleaned your act. This country is psychopathic. Unfortunately, that also makes it a great place to earn money, and so here I am.

marincounty 12y ago

Congrats to this bakery, and the felons who are happy with their job. As to someone who worked as a Baker; I can honestly state the job was one of the worst jobs I have ever had--and I have had more than a bakers dozen x 2. The Bakery I worked at couldn't keep employees. The hours were horrid. I remember having to be there at 4:30 a.am. The wage was not a livable wage, unless you were living with family members. And two guys out of the 10 of us working there committed suicide. I'll name the Bakery because the original owner was such a Jerk; it was Marin Bagel Factory. This was in the ninties--maybe working in a bakery has changed, but any bakery owner should be glad they have any employees that show up. Sorry, but I think back at that Rat hole and cringe.

jlarocco 12y ago

Did anybody else find the third to last paragraph a little odd? > As I never tire of pointing out, environmental progress depends on social progress. When people are desperately poor they have no choice but to pillage the commons — to cut down forests, or turn to crime. When those people find the means to support themselves with dignity, forests are protected and high-crime areas turn into healthy, walkable neighborhoods. They cut down forests? Is that really a thing people do when they can't support themselves?

patrickaljord 12y ago
> They cut down forests? Is that really a thing people do when they can't support themselves? In region like Brazil and Indonesia I guess.
DanBC 12y ago
Grist is an environmental site. Cutting down forests is talking about deforestation, especially of the rain forest. In that context yes, poor farmers deforest an area; they sell the timber and try to use the land for farming.

yoshizar 12y ago

I was hoping for interviews with some of the workers that were photographed. It'd be interesting to hear their opinions about their job and employer, and learn more about their experience going through the apprenticeship program.

codyZ 12y ago

I visited this Bakery twice - once to potentially buy bulk, another time as part of a business case study. All the employees, atleast the ones I observed working the floor, were all happy and smiling. Good for them.

DanielBMarkham 12y ago

I have long suspected that for software developers, not bakers, you could hire off the street after a very brief interview and then do a combination of training and auditioning for the work. My belief is this would be both cheaper and more effective than all the money spent in the traditional process. The one caveat is that teams would have to be willing to work at 2 or 3 times their optimal size until the culling was done. This is an experiment that really needs to be done. Google and the rest of the gang are beating the living hell out of "tell me everybody else you know that's cool" -- there's got to be some opportunities at the other end of the spectrum.

memco 12y ago

There's a place in LA called Homeboy Industries with a similar model. This page might be of interest since it is less about the profitability from a business standpoint and more about the benefit to the individuals they hire: http://www.homeboyindustries.org/why-we-do-it/ http://www.homeboyindustries.org/why-we-do-it/.