No, not that one. Not that one either. Ok, here is it and maybe I'm naive but it's a new one to me.
We all know how lots of employers trump up some charge to fire an employee to avoid paying unemployment. Here's a twist on that story. Both my son and husband work(ed?) for this sweatshop which has branches all over the country. They weren't too bad an employer until they were bought out about a year ago and it's all gone downhill.
The detail shop my son worked in apparently was overstaffed so they fired a kid a week until they got down to the requisite number of people. Then they gathered the remaining crew together, handed them their final checks, including unused vacation and sick pay, told them they were all laid off as their jobs were now being subcontracted out. However, the subcontractor happened to need just this exact amount of people to do the job so they were all being offered new jobs with them, for less pay, no benefits, no paid time off. Oh, and if they refused the job offer, don't bother filing for unemployment. The company will fight it because they were offered a new job on the spot and turned it down.
My first thought was, WTF? Can you really DO this? I'm sure they went over it with a fine tooth comb to make sure they had their asses covered. My husband found out a couple of days later the plan was to do the same thing to his department but they got a (temporary?) reprieve as they were mechanics and were needed to work odd hours to keep the vehicles running and those details couldn't be worked out with a subcontractor.
Has anybody else heard of this scam? It just blew me away. I know the latest report says the job picture is looking up but my kid's had no luck and is now applying at fast food restaurants, after making $14 an hour detailing cars for three years. Well, there's my rant for the day. Thanks for listening.
Wow, rec list? Didn't see that coming. I wrote this to let off some steam. Sorry, but not surprised, to hear it's so prevalent and so many others have been through the same ordeal. Thanks for all the support and ideas.