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Employer Misconduct - Need Advice
MassiveJim
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
Howdy ho everyone! I am a long time lurker, first time poster. I believe my employer has been engaging in misconduct, and I needed advice regarding the situation.
Background:
I work at a medium sized call center in Houston, TX.
I am in a lower management position.
I have been employed in said position for four years.
My two direct supervisors routinely engage in the following:
* Discrimination of employment based on age (telling me not to call people in for interviews based on the date they graduated high school, talk of needing to fire people due to their age, etc).
* One of my direct supervisors has sex with one of our employees, pays some of her bills, boasts about it, and she is not required to meet any of the standards that other employees are held to.
* Constant oggling of women, speech about what they want to do to her, etc... (attractive girls aren't held to dress code standards)
* Telling me they hired an employee based on her appearance.
* Whenever a talk about a TWC hearing comes up regarding a former employee they will talk about if they need to lie during the hearing so both of their stories are straight.
* Altering TWC forms (dates, names, info, etc), destroying documents relevant to a TWC hearing coming up and then lying about misplacing them.
* Speech about how some employees work quality is based upon their race, and how that we need to not hire anymore people of that race.
There is more, but I am tired of typing. I am scared to report this, because even if I do it anonymously, they will know it is me. I can't afford to lose my job or be demoted as I am already living paycheck to paycheck.
Thank you for reading this far if you did, any advice is appreciated.
tldr; Employer engaging in constant discrimination of employment, duties, etc. Scared to report.
Background:
I work at a medium sized call center in Houston, TX.
I am in a lower management position.
I have been employed in said position for four years.
My two direct supervisors routinely engage in the following:
* Discrimination of employment based on age (telling me not to call people in for interviews based on the date they graduated high school, talk of needing to fire people due to their age, etc).
* One of my direct supervisors has sex with one of our employees, pays some of her bills, boasts about it, and she is not required to meet any of the standards that other employees are held to.
* Constant oggling of women, speech about what they want to do to her, etc... (attractive girls aren't held to dress code standards)
* Telling me they hired an employee based on her appearance.
* Whenever a talk about a TWC hearing comes up regarding a former employee they will talk about if they need to lie during the hearing so both of their stories are straight.
* Altering TWC forms (dates, names, info, etc), destroying documents relevant to a TWC hearing coming up and then lying about misplacing them.
* Speech about how some employees work quality is based upon their race, and how that we need to not hire anymore people of that race.
There is more, but I am tired of typing. I am scared to report this, because even if I do it anonymously, they will know it is me. I can't afford to lose my job or be demoted as I am already living paycheck to paycheck.
Thank you for reading this far if you did, any advice is appreciated.
tldr; Employer engaging in constant discrimination of employment, duties, etc. Scared to report.
MassiveJim on
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Regardless, whomever is above them needs to know. Pass the information along to the boss, stating that you wish to remain anonymous out of fear for your own job safety, and they'll take it from there.
I am certain because many of these things have only been said or done with a few people in the room. Trust me, they will know immediately it was me. The owner of the company only visits maybe once a month, and I have actually never met him. He has very little interaction with anything day-to-day
You don't sound very happy, maybe you should say...find a new job?
You will most likely lose your job, whether the case comes out in your favor or not. This really just depends on whether you're willing to be a whistleblower, or look the other way.
https://medium.com/@alascii
but in this scenario, from what you've told us, the odds are fairly decent that you're going down with these guys, and believe me, if you have every made any mistakes in the past yourself, when investigations like this happen even innocent technicality mistakes result in firings.
With your monetary situation I would start looking for a new job, and continue collecting evidence. Then when you have a new job lined up, file with your local labor board.b
Doing the "right thing" is cold comfort when you're drawing unemployment.
Whats the point in finding a new job and then reporting them anyway? Unless you have some sort of personal vendetta. Dont they have bosses? Shouldnt their bosses be worrying about this shit? Opening up the company to lawsuits generally isnt something bosses like, even in "bro" cultured companies.
I see there are 3 options:
1) Report them, and hope they lose their jobs to make yours better.
2) Find a new job
3) Make peace with it and do the best job you can.
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Well they are violating the law, and there are laws to protect the OP from being fired for advising higher management that these two are violating the law.
My advice would be to not file the complaint if you want to continue working there.
"* Speech about how some employees work quality is based upon their race, and how that we need to not hire anymore people of that race."
This is going to cost them a lot of money in a lawsuit if the OP doesn't tell HR/higher ups what's going on.
If you're the type to get your higher ups fired, regardless of who is or isn't right, no one is ever going to want to work you again. people will see you as backhanded and a snitch.
it doesn't matter how bad or wrong the violation is, when you turn people in, you get the rep as the person who turns people in.
unless the company is big enough where upper management is going to be all like "thanks so much for helping us identify this problem within our company" and bring you above the level you're currently at, it's just not going to work out for the whistle blower.
I'm not saying it's ideal, I'm saying it's realistic.
These people are violating multiple state and federal laws. Not doing anything about it would be criminal, and the company making his job worse in any way for coming out about it would be criminal as well.
Well, which would be option 1. Not going out and getting another job and then just fucking over her former coworkers for absolutely no benefit of your own other than the satisfaction of fucking over some assholes. Which will probably also lead to some "innocent" people getting fucked over as well when HR comes in to do their huge sweeping "Oh shit i hope we dont get sued" review.
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Define innocent in this situation.
Like some guy who happened to be around when these things were said but didnt come forward before, for the exact same reason the OP hasnt. He will now have a record with HR if he does the right thing and admits these things were going on, but he said nothing. His bosses will know that he will cover someones ass even if it puts the company at risk. Doesnt look good for anyone who wants to actually make a career out of their job.
This is just one quick example of how someone could be "innocent" in this situation but could still be punished.
Not to mention the anxiety that occurs office wide when HR is milling about and pulling "random" people in for interviews that they arent allowed to discuss with their coworkers.
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These guys are discriminating based off age, gender, and race. Plus they are sexually harassing females. I don't feel sympathetic for people who see this and don't come forward.
I'm not advocating those things, and I'm not advocating being ok with breaking the law, or even seeing it as a necessary evil or rationalizing it in anyway.
I'm saying, make sure you have evidence and a new job lined up, because life at this company is not going to be fun after you become "that guy" around the office.
It's completely different to say that the company will fire you for blowing the whistle, and saying that office life will be hell.
Also, as I said in my first post, any time you bring HR down on other people's heads, be prepared for your own history of hours worked, possible performance issues, etc et all to be gone over with a fine tooth comb, because that is what HR departments do. Enforce rules with a heartless judicary sense of purpose.
https://medium.com/@alascii
Yes and they would need extremely strong evidence of major misdoings before risking firing someone who is a whistle blower.
I'm sorry you're an enabler and in some areas violating the law seeing these things happen without doing anything about it. When you see a law being broken you don't shrug your shoulders and look the other way.
Yeah, and the right thing may leave him jobless, penniless, and on the end of a lawsuit if he doesn't have anything to back his accusations up with.
I think someone watches a little too much TV.
What areas are these? Cus i cant think of any areas where not reporting labor law violations to the labor board is illegal. We're talking about strictly labor violations, not anything that would also cross into criminal territory (like sweat shops or smuggling). None of whats happened is actually illegal in a criminal sense (except maybe shredding documents, depending on what kind of documents they were).
Theres also a huge difference between "not doing anything about it" and righting wrongs and smiting evil-doers like some kind of paper pushing batman. Yeah, what these guys are doing is terrible (if its all true). No doubt about it. Leaving to another job and still filing a report with the labor board and trying to cause shit for these guys when its no longer any of your concern, well, that just kind of seems petty and vindictive to me.
Check out my band, click the banner.
Not doing the right thing can as well.
You do realize the government tends to look down on people who know someone is filing false reports to government agencies in order to cover up miss doings right? Also they are violating multiple federal and state laws, including federal and state labor laws.
If he has solid evidence, then by all means, he should go for it. It doesn't sound like he does though, and what you're advocating in that case is just supreme goosery and bound to end up him up in a pot of boiling water. Seriously, this is not a John Grisham novel.
Like I said earlier sorry you're an enabler who thinks people should look the other way when laws are being broken. Its why people feel they can get away with them so easily. By the way a half drunk DA could bring him up on charges as an accomplice to obstruction of justice due to witnessing but not coming forward to them knowingly lying to a government regulatory agency including falsifying documents.
Wow, yeah, you are in la la goose land.
So what are you suggesting he do exactly?
"Hi boss man who I never see and rarely interact with! I don't have any evidence at all, but these two guys are doing all this terrible stuff!"
How exactly do you think that's going to go over? Or are you suggesting he Scooby Doo this and solve The Mystery Of The Bad Bosses?
Just sitting here and saying "Report them! Because if you don't, you're just as bad as them!" doesn't solve anything and it doesn't help the OP one bit. Come up with something constructive.
Speaking to H/R. Speak to the owner who will quickly see the deep shit he is in if he doesn't handle the situation. Speak to the local labor board who would love to hear about them falsifying documents sent to government agencies. Not well let's sit here and look the other way and hope the problem solves itself. These people are violating multiple laws and will continue to do so unless someone does something about it.
Again, absolutely no evidence means nothing happening except some very unhappy superiors.
Other witnesses, plus there's enough circumstantial evidence on the obstruction charges. Also the labor board's investigation will bring up evidence of unfair hiring practices in the areas of age, gender, and race. Let's put it this way. You're the owner of a company. One supervisor comes and tells you of all the things the other two have been doing. It isn't difficult to see he's telling the truth. If you do nothing sooner or later all of these charges are going to be lawsuits in your lap. Your options are firing the two other supervisors or firing the one who told you about the situation in the first place knowing his next step will be to a legal authority. Which option do you choose Esh?
*edit, actually scratch that, you've already chosen look the other way and hope everything goes away.
Good. God.
1. Where are these "unfair hiring practices" going to be shown at? "Oh, there's more dudes/white people/whatever working here. Must be unfair hiring practices!". No, it doesn't work that way.
2. What would make it "Not difficult to see the truth" for an owner who is rarely there?
3. Just firing the two supervisors with circumstantial evidence? There's a brilliant idea.
Anyway, this isn't clicking in your head at all, so there's no point in discussing this with you.
OP, until you have hard evidence, do not "report" anything. Your best bet is to just look for another job and save yourself some sanity. If you want to white knight like Goose here is suggesting, go for it, but be prepared for some serious consequences.
I'm out!
You should seriously look into how labor boards investigation these situations. There's plenty to start one and if what even half of what the OP says is true it'll be easily provable. Keeping supervisors around who break fair hiring and ethical work place laws, who sexually harass female employees, and who obstruct justice. Brilliant idea. Also reporting people for violating the law isn't white knighting sorry you feel that way. I understand you think we should all keep to ourselves and stay in our little shells hoping problems take care of themselves, but here in the real world it doesn't work that way.
If you think you can improve your life or someone else's by reporting, then feel free. However, I doubt this will do anything but piss everyone off.
If their actions are really bothering you, then you should start looking for a new job. Either that or start documenting their actions so you're sure you can get them fired.
(DeShadowC is delusional)
It completely is his duty to report someone breaking the law. Why do you people think its ok for people to continue doing this and for the OP to do nothing to prevent it from further happening?
There are laws that protect you from being fired if you report it now - but theres no law protecting you from them making you uncomfortable in your job. Even if those bastards were gone, the culture they've created will be prevalent through the organization. You don't want to work there anyway - trust me.
I don't think anyone here is saying this is okay. What everyone is saying though, is that
1)the OP is obviously involved in this ( he said himself they'd know it's him plus how would he know all that....?) Therefore , reporting them would basically amount to the OP reporting himself. Which is very noble i'm sure. But maybe not the smartest thing in the world to do.
2)it's not gonna stop anything.
OP, if you really can't stomach working with people like that, the only option you have is to quit. You're way too deep in this to even think about reporting anything.
I stuck it out when I first got hired because I knew she was leaving the shop in a few months; 6 months later when I was management they tried to transfer her back in for my "support" team in the area and I flipped my shit. 50% of my staff quit and I attempted to as well and called HR...
And they had no idea what was going on in the shop. So I told them.
I was scared as shit to lose my job because if the lady in question had found out what I was telling them she would've fired me on the spot like she had many others before and she wouldn't expect repercussions for it because no one ever fought her on it- she was really good at abusing her authority.
Long story short: it actually ended up with a two month long investigation, phone calls, conversations, letters from old employees, and a lot of insanity. And even though we were scared shitless corporate kept their promise to keeping it all anonymous while this went on and she never heard a word until the conclusion.
They ended up wanting to keep her on for her skill in "bringing up numbers" with sales and wanted to work out a mediation thing and I ended up quitting. They never once threatened to fire me even though I had not reported her violations immediately and I drank on the clock once. And was witness to/knew of minors serving alcohol to customers on the premises when we didn't have a liquor license. And many other things.
This is long and rambly. The point is, sometimes shit sucks but eventually something should be done. I'm not talking about some crazy comeuppance justice stuff but violating laws put the company in a tricky situation they want to avoid. If this really bothers you and is affecting coworkers and such, I feel like it absolutely needs to be brought up.
YMMV as to their response. I'd recommend doing a job hunt before and preparing to potentially be let go based on the outcome and how the company responds but that sort of stuff shouldn't be going on in a workplace.