In less-happy gun news, a young local man who was shot by a gang member (who shot two El Segundo police officers and then was shot and killed himself) was laid off from his job at a local travel agency – because he was absent from work recovering from his shooting.
Pinnacle Travel Services, of El Segundo couldn’t be reached by the Daily Breeze.
Now I travel a lot – too much – and one thing that I value in the companies that I deal with is flexibility; stuff happens and plans change, and the last thing I want to hear is “sorry you’ve been shot, but you’re only allowed so many days off without being fired….”
Sounds like a good time to have taken leave under the FMLA… at which point laying him off would become much more problematic for the company. Still, yeah, ham-handed and I won’t be using these guys for travel!
A non-chain travel agency is probably too small to be covered by FMLA.
It is also possible that that was a simple excuse that wouldn’t easily be challenged in court, if they really wanted to lay him off because they found out he was a gang member, and figured that reason might go to court. Speculation, of course, since I haven’t talked to the travel agency to get their side of the issue.
Points taken. Still, talk about adding insult to injury…
They’re big enough to go referring people to a “company human resources department”, according to the article. Suggests they have the requisite 50 people.
Had to do a bit of research on the topic for a friend, who was recently laid off just after taking leave for cancer surgery…
According to the “story,†since he was employed for less than a year, he was only allowed to miss 14 days and had already burned through 8 or 9 of them. I suspect that there were other reasons for his termination.
What struck me as particularly irresponsible (and I know it’s SOP for agenda journalists) is that the reporter just got this story yesterday when the fellow was told he was fired and the only attempt they made to verity it was to call the HR department after their close of business. Yes, he probably didn’t know that it would be hard to reach someone on a Friday afternoon but there is absolutely no reason not to wait until you have a chance to call back on Monday when they would have a fair chance to give their side or at least an official “no comment.â€
No reason unless of course you’ve already written the story you want to tell.
Oh and RE: the FMLA, it applies to employers with 50 or more employees and according to Pinnacle Travel Services, LLC’s company profile (click on my name), they have over 500.
If the young man had had a gun at the time that someone wanted to shoot him, he’d have probably been happier.
Even if they had the legal right to do this, this was just plain stupid.
Forget the external PR costs, the internal hurt this is going to do on the rest of their employees morale is going to cost them way more than just keeping this guy on for a few extra weeks till he was back on his feet and then firing him (assuming they had cause).
Amusing how few managers ever figure out that corporations are fundamentally feudal in nature. If the lords don’t show loyalty and respect to down to lesser lords and all the way down to the peasants, the peasants are going to return that misrespect.
The best ones who, nearly by definition, can find another job in a heartbeat will walk, and even those who don’t feel competitive on the market will take it out in a million little ways. Hell, Henry Ford figured out just how nasty turnover was decades ago. A lesson which somehow never manages to crack the bean-counters heads when they run their little spreadsheets, Excel doesn’t handle intangibles like lost experience after all…
If they had cause to fire him, waiting for him to get back on his feet and then canning him would’ve sent a very nice little message of decency to the rest of the company. And the next time they had an employee they really do want to keep having a bad day, and they think to themselves ‘Why am I working here again?’ they’ll remember.