Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Webster’s defines compassion as:
In yet another instance of corporate callousness, Claudia Rendon, a 41-year old mother from Philadelphia, was fired from her job at Aviation Institute of Maintenance after taking leave to donate a kidney to her son, Alex. Kidney transplant surgery normally takes six to eight weeks recovery time. Rendon had discussed taking unpaid leave from July 19 to undergo the kidney transplant surgery on July 21 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and to return to her job on September 1. She told ABC News that on her last day of work, her manager presented her with a letter to sign acknowledging that her job was not secure one hour after telling her that she would have her job upon her return. On August 24, Rendon informed Aviation Institute of Maintenance that she might not be able to return to work September 1 due to severe lower back pain; a common complication of such surgery. Aviation Institute of Maintenance said they wanted a letter from the doctor. The University of Pennsylvania hospital and her short-term disability provider each wrote letters to Rendon’s employer stating she would return to work Sept. 12. Upon making a social visit to Aviation Institute of Maintenance on September 8, she found out her position had been filled by someone else on September 6. Alex, who was a student at AIM, has also suffered repercussions of undergoing this lifesaving transplant. The school is trying to collect $2,000 related to time he took off in addition to trying to charge him $150 to re-enroll. Did Aviation Institute of Maintenance break the law? Or are they just another example of a callous employer lacking in compassion?
The Federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which would require the employer to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, does not apply because Aviation Institute of Maintenance has less than 50 employees. Perhaps the Federal Americans With Disabilities Act or the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act applies and may yet provide remedy. The ADA would require her employer to provide “reasonable accommodation” to the temporary disability caused by the surgery. In this instance, it is quite reasonable to assert that the employers action should have been to hire a temp through a service to cover the 12 day gap. The PHRA applies to all public and private employers in Pennsylvania with four or more employees and, although the language is not as clear as the ADA, does provides similar anti-discrimination protection in employment practices. This is a matter for the courts to decide as their actions relate to both the ADA and the PHRA. The answer the question of whether the Aviation Institute of Maintenance break the law is “maybe”. Any remedy may be mitigated by the fact that since receiving so much bad publicity over this matter, AIM has put Rendon back on salary pending a new opening. This does not mean she has her job back or will remain on payroll.
However, as to the question of whether or not AIM has acted in a callous manner lacking of any modicum of compassion, I think that is without question. They first agreed to hold her position then at the last minute and in an abundance of unfair bargaining position forced her to sign a letter releasing them from liability if they didn’t hold her position. They failed to make a reasonable accommodation for her (and her son’s) recovery. They attempted to compound the damage done by replacing Rendon by trying to collect money and fees from Alex during his recovery.
Aside from any remedy the courts can apply, do you think it is enough? Should we as a society encourage consumers to not do business with companies that treat their employees badly? Even if their bad actions as in the case of Cecelia Ingraham are not per se illegal? What do you think?
Sources: ABC News, Huffington Post, Daily Mail
~Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
I suspect that AIM is only a marginally successful trade school, and its management staff not particularly experienced or well educated. I did see a clip of this on TV, and the firing supervisor looked like he was maybe 25 and spent his spare time eating pizza.
So I would not expect much wisdom to have occurred there. And probably the CEO and other top officers did not know anything was amiss until this story hit the news.
I worked for a bank that is eighth or tenth largest in the US. (It bounces back and forth) At my annual review once I was denied any raise at all based on my overuse of sickdays. My supervisor said “If I had known you had migraines I would never have hired you.” That year I had taken 4 days off due to my mothers illness (I was her primary caregiver) I had missed Two days because of a car accident I was in (I was a passenger). And I had left at about 3 pm twice due to severe migraine. ( A lifelong condition that at that time could usually be held in check or suppressed by medication just enough to keep me from throwing up at work, But as a part of my migraines I lose most vision in one eye during the migraine seizure) A total of 6 days and two times of two hours leaving early. She went on to say that if I continued to slack off or lose performance due to the migraines that I should look for a new job. And that it was bank policy to only have the best, brightest and healthiest working there. She was proud of her banks policy and jumped on it like a little storm trooper.
I got this little tidbit about that bank from Wikipedia.
It is also notable for certain ideological stances taken by its management, and for its financial support of academic programs teaching the philosophy of Ayn Rand.[3]
There’s some conservative compassion for you. ‘Nuff said.
Great post Mike. Another point to consider is what AIM does; teaches aviation technicians. Would any FBO or airline want to hire a graduate from any school that puts so little value on the staff? This school is producing “aviation” mechanics. If they don’t receive the very best of training then the flying public are the ones that will pay the price. Its diffucult to boycott AIM if the plane you were flying augers in from 30,000 ft…
Roco,
Let me do it on your terms and take both boycotts and compassion out of the mix. It is supremely stupid, shortsighted management to do this. Why? Because despite the hubris of management everywhere, their employees no matter how low on the totem pole, are not stupid when it comes to their self interest. Doing an act such as this clearly tells each employee they are merely cogs in the profit wheel, to be disposed of randomly as it pleases the bosses. This alone is stupidity. This creates an environment where the concept of team is meaningless, as is the concept of doing your best, simply because each employee knows that they are at the whim of their employers. People in that situation tend to produce less, despite Management Theory X and have no loyalty to the employer. In the end that will screw any company.and at least in your history of comments, talking about your own business, you seem to understand that because you say you treat your employees well.
As far as boycotts go I’m all for them. In my home we’ve never used Welsh’s products, Schick products, Northern Paper, Coors Beer, or ever see Mel Gibson movies. It may not put them out of business, but it gives us satisfaction.
Boycotts are often difficult because you don’t know the actual company, or because the consumer has little direct influence.
The Koch Brothers own some paper product brands, but much of their holdings are in pipe lines and transportation. How do we know which product was shipped or refined by them?
“it seems rather foolish and lacking in compassion to put 5, 10, 15, . . . 100 or more people out of a job because of the way the employer treated one person.”
——————-
who are you kidding Roco? that 100 person layoff is as easy as pie to a CEO making the numbers work for his ‘bonus’ $$$$and stock options. and s/he’d do it before breakfast in a heartbeat! Who are you trying to guilt up???
stinker
Roco,
According to the Right, if that owner is out of business he must lazy. He just needs to pull himself up by his own bootstrap!
Slarti:
I also dont think people are entitled to a job for life.
I am not objecting to it here, but we are not talking about customer service but how they treat their employee(s) and their lack of compassion. I am merely pointing out that if compassion is your yard stick, it seems rather foolish and lacking in compassion to put 5, 10, 15, . . . 100 or more people out of a job because of the way the employer treated one person.
Does it to you? I guess you could feel good about doing your civic duty and the moral righteousness of righting a wrong. Seems to me there must be a Doctor Strangelove quote in there somewhere.
The woman was hired back only to be let go along with a hundred other employees when the company went out of business because of a boycott protesting her dismissal by people of a compassionate nature. That certainly makes a good deal of sense to me.
I wonder how many left wing boycotts have caused business to have to let people go? They cannot all end up like the boycott of Wholefoods, which increased business for the chain. I know I shop there now because the CEO stood his ground and told those numb nuts to pound sand. That was an F Troop moment if ever there was one.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904265504576569120804320628.html Off topic – but here his an article on KC bbq you might be interested in, Gene.
Roco,
Yes, if the company is stupid enough to ignore the problem it should go out of business – and someone will come along to replace it that wont make the same mistakes… Isn’t that what you want? Aren’t people entitled to a voice in the free market? If the company went out of business due to their actions, what do you think the other employees would do when faced with a similar situation? Maybe they would intervene to avoid losing their job again. In essence what would have happened is an example of Darwinian selection in the free market – aren’t you always saying that we shouldn’t bail out companies, that they should be free to fail? Why are you objecting to that here?
Well, I’m glad to see this story seems to have had an acceptable ending (the only happy thing would have been for it never to have happened in the first place). It boggles my mind that companies don’t think of the negative PR impact of this sort of thing or the potential positive PR of getting it right in the first place. I’m reminded of the early days of Saturn (before GM exterminated everything that made it unique) when they issued a recall before being required to do so – it made what could have been a negative into something that turned out to be very positive. I think that many companies miss opportunities to profit by doing the right thing because they don’t understand this.
so you withhold your business from a company and then the other employees are harmed when/if the company goes out of business. Not much compassion in that.
I think emailing, bad publicity and the threat of a law suit is sufficient to change the employers thinking in most cases.
Gene,
Great post. The employers must read the Jonathan Turley blog because they reinstated the lady within seconds of your article hitting the net!
I think that withholding business from companies who do not meet our standards is probably the single most effective thing that can be done against most companies – if a significant number of the company’s customers (or their customer’s customer’s, etc.) can be made aware (and have an alternate choice – Massey Energy [owners of the Upper Big Branch Mine] is hard to organize a boycott against. A company like this is unlikely to be hurt much simply by media coverage (I doubt this story raises much of a ripple even locally…). In this case, it would take some sort of targeted advertising (like a commercial describing the events shown on the same networks that AIM is advertising on) – and for something like that to work it would probably require a budget that was a significant portion of AIM’s advertising budget. It seems like this would require some sort of infrastructure set up ahead of time in order to be able to act in any sort of a timely way – a sort of attack dog organization as opposed to a watch dog organization. I think that if there was a group that could take concerted action (like helping the woman find a new job, providing her with legal representation, and counter-advertising against AIM), then it could be very effective, but it wouldn’t come cheaply…
So she is back on the payroll … gosh, golly, geewhiz … I wonder why.
Is it belated compassion or an attempt to limit damages?
I certainly encourage consumers to not do business with companies that treat their employees badly.
If, as the article puzzling referenced said, the president of the company knew nothing about his supervisor’s actions and, presumably, since finding out said supervisor has “changed his mind”, perhaps a supervisory position will soon be open and Ms. Rendon can fill it. Now wouldn’t that just be karmic.
puzzling,
Thanks for the update. I’ve updated the story to reflect AIM’s change in position.
I would suggest that they ‘rethought’ their decision after this story was put on the news and they started being bombarded with emails, letters and calls from irate citizens. I do believe that if a company does not do the right thing by it’s employees that the rest of us do have an obligation to voice our opinion with our business or lack thereof. If a company doesn’t treat their employees with dignity and respect – how do they treat their customers?
but we don’t need unions anymore, we have a government safeguards for employees.
[SNARK]
Welcome to Dickensian America:
Ebenezer: Are there no prisons?
First Collector: Plenty of prisons.
Ebenezer: And the workhouses – are they still in operation?
First Collector: They are. I wish I could say they were not.
Ebenezer: Oh, from what you said at first I was afraid that something had happened to stop them in their useful course. I’m very glad to hear it.
First Collector: I don’t think you quite understand us, sir. A few of us are endeavoring to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth.
Ebenezer: Why?
From the Daily Mail:
Back on salary: Mother who was fired for taking time off to donate kidney to her desperately ill son is returned to payroll
Considering the cost to replace and train a new worker, it would have been simpler and more cost-effective to have used a temporary or contract employee as you outlined, although I do not know what Ms Rendon’s skill set was.