Tote that Bale-Employee Rights?

[evcalyptos]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Oregon

Having read a good handful of threads, I have a feeling I know what the answer is going to be but am hoping the regulars on this forum will confirm or set me on a new direction.

Apologies that this is a second-hand post, too. I've been asked to do a little looking.

Employer is a resort hotel, small regional company. Closed for construction for 2 months in the off season. Full time employees, one salaried/exempt, the other hourly but permanent position.

Before closing, staff is told that they will be paid at 70% of wages based on hours worked in this (down) period last year. That since the business will be closed completely (they were going to try a half/half approach originally) and it's not the employee's fault, and the business wants to retain these emps, they'll get this pay for the couple of months of the closure and no specific work is required.
That sounded pretty good.

Once construction began, employees have been told that they must come to the job site and earn their pay by working as laborers. At first it was going to be only site clean up but this has expanded to demolition as well. Emps have to call in each night to see what work will be there for them in the morning.

What threw gasoline on the fire is a rumor that the company has saved so much money by providing their own clean up (+30K/week by one estimate) that they've asked the General Contractor to reduce the construction job price.

My gut reaction is: Your job is whatever your employer tells you to do, it doesn't matter if you have a title, your job is to keep the biz running and they can tell you to do whatever they like.

There is no union issue here, as one person hoped. They aren't union busting the job since this work would go to casual laborers anyway?

They would have been better off claiming unemployment insurance in the first place (as one worker who has been on lite duty for a previous injury has done.. she simply couldn't do the laborer work).

So, what's the group opinion? Do these employees have a legit complaint? Where they are over the barrel of course is 'at will' employment and that they all want to keep their original jobs, which are quite special.
Is there any action they should take individually or as a group so they can stop working on the job site or should they set their boots out for tomorrow's clean up?

I suspect it all went wrong in the verbal exchanges.. He said/she said and it changed several times. However, the person who related this to me is level headed and has a good memory.
So, there it is. Have fun.

 

[eerelations]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Oregon
...Is there any action they should take individually or as a group so they can stop working on the job site or should they set their boots out for tomorrow's clean up?

There is no action they can take. If they stop working, they will have resigned. They may be entitled to some unemployment insurance as a top-up between the wages they were earning before and what they're getting now, but again, only if they continue working. If they stop working, they won't be entitled to any unemployment insurance.

Based on the information you've provided, I'm assuming they're not members of a union. Since they're not members of a union, a union cannot do aything for them at this point. They could invite a union in to represent them, however, union drives are long and arduous processes, and they would have to continue working at this labourer-type work while they waited to see if their contract was ratified. This could take years.

So, again, there is no action they can take, other than continuing to work, filing for unemployment insurance, and initiating searches for better work elsewhere.

 

[evcalyptos]

There is no action they can take. If they stop working, they will have resigned. They may be entitled to some unemployment insurance as a top-up between the wages they were earning before and what they're getting now, but again, only if they continue working. If they stop working, they won't be entitled to any unemployment insurance.

Based on the information you've provided, I'm assuming they're not members of a union. Since they're not members of a union, a union cannot do aything for them at this point. They could invite a union in to represent them, however, union drives are long and arduous processes, and they would have to continue working at this labourer-type work while they waited to see if their contract was ratified. This could take years.

So, again, there is no action they can take, other than continuing to work, filing for unemployment insurance, and initiating searches for better work elsewhere.

Thanks very much for confirming that for me and feeding it back more clearly.

I muddied the water with the union comment.. the concern raised was that the construction site was a union affair, but it is not. I don't think the work they are doing would take away from any union job on the site anyway.

As far as union representation for themselves; I will certainly mention it.
Unfortunately for the workers, there aren't a lot of better employer choices where they are, so they'll have to decide the hard way.

Thank you again for the reply.
Keep you eye open for new I-9 changes coming soon!