Latest Headlines on OCRegister.com
[x] Close
Handling Hard Times ~ Understanding and coping with the economic slowdown.
« Previous Post
Next Post »

And you thought furloughs were bad

June 16th, 2009, 6:55 pm · 35 Comments · posted by J. GALLEGO

So this little ditty came out of a conversation I was having witn a Pilates pal.

We were talking about furloughs and a new trend we'd heard about of people actually working through their unpaid time (and, of course, snickering that WE would never do that) while we did roll ups and leg lifts.

Later she sends me a note about what I can only describe as the most outrageous example of  a corporation taking advantage of workers' fear of unemployment. The only good news is these folks are in England.

Read on ...

British Airways asks staff to work for nothing.

I'd love to know what you think... post your comments below or take our handy-dandy poll:

 

Would you work for free to keep your job?
View Results

More on jobs and the economy ...

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google
Posted in: Economy • • •
 
ADVERTISEMENT

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Reader Comments
Comments are encouraged, but you must follow our User Agreement.
  1. Keep it civil and stay on topic.
  2. No profanity, vulgarity, racial slurs or personal attacks.
  3. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked.

 35 Comments

  • Get REAL says:
    June 16, 2009 at 8:03 pm

    If the company is going to go under or everyone has to give a little, I hardly see that as "the corporation taking advantage of it's employees".
    This is the type of thinking that has the budget battle raging on here in California. Noone wants to give anything in hard times. It's the "me first" attitude that drew all the illegals to California and that same selfishness in our politicians and our unions that will sink us.

    How will you feel when the ship sinks and you lose EVERYTHING, your job, your benefits, EVERYTHING. Still feel glad you stood your ground?

  • caseclosed says:
    June 16, 2009 at 8:08 pm

    Take what the company can afford to pay me Add that to what they want to pay me. Then add what I think I'm worth and divide by three and I will work for that amount. LOL

  • BS says:
    June 16, 2009 at 8:49 pm

    This country was made by hard working Americans! Now this country is heading into this: work for free and then have the Government continue to tax everything you purchase!

  • vivpio says:
    June 16, 2009 at 8:52 pm

    The only problem is you just know that the Board of Directors will still take their millions. If the company goes under, they will pay themselves first.

  • spinoc says:
    June 16, 2009 at 8:59 pm

    I'm with Get REAL - there are too many people that want everyone else to suffer the losses - as long as it's not them. We're seeing it with the California Teachers, Service, and State employees, among others. They're all spending their money bribing state senate members to be sure that they don't lose and jobs or get any pay cuts. They're relics that have lived long past their usefulness. If everyone gave some consideration to their neighbors and co-workers rather than thinking of themselves first, we'd get out of this more quickly... but that might make too much sense.

  • ANONYMOUS says:
    June 16, 2009 at 9:09 pm

    I WOULD ONLY WORK FOR FREE, ONLY IF IT MEANT ME NOT LOSING MY JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • CaptnCrunch says:
      August 7, 2009 at 9:22 am

      Just so you know how well that works. At my husband's company, they furloughed some folks for a few months and now they've been layed off. So much for sacrifice.

  • It's Me says:
    June 16, 2009 at 9:45 pm

    I love how people preach politics, but barely know anything about it.

  • Johnb says:
    June 16, 2009 at 10:04 pm

    I would not work for free, it only cheapens my worth as a worker. Companies will take advantage of it. Many higher up in the company make so much money they can afford not to get paid for awhile.
    The danger is, it could lead to a drop in pay if and when the economy improves.

  • Karen says:
    June 16, 2009 at 10:11 pm

    Is it still called a job when you work for free? I thought that was called volunteering.

  • Tim says:
    June 16, 2009 at 10:16 pm

    Working for free makes no point. If the company is going under so badly it's going to fail if they pay you, then it's going to fail, and it's just wasted time when you could be out there finding a new job. If they can't make enough profit to pay employees, they have a bad business plan. What if it turned into more than 1 business doing this. Let's say 100 major corporations wanted to do this... Who would even be able to buy the products they're selling? Corporations are making money, but employees are making nothing. Bills don't pay themselves, so what do you start to sacrifice first? Stop paying credit card bills? Rent? Working without pay is not a solution for a business that is failing. It's just giving management more time to sell off it's company at rock bottom price and leave employees with nothing.

  • Lazy worker says:
    June 16, 2009 at 10:28 pm

    Sorry, I rather stay home and enjoy my free time. Forgot to mention that my boss is Obama, I did not pay my taxes until he needs my service then I admitted that my "honest" mistake of not paying taxes. With a cabinet staffs like that, no wonder our economy has no light in the tunnel.
    Now my boss wants to reform the healthcare system, it scares me.

  • SoCoDave says:
    June 16, 2009 at 10:28 pm

    In 1994, the company I worked hit hard times and reduced everyone's pay 20%, and said they could take one day a week off. I don't recall any of the approximately 150 employees - other than the wife of the owner and myself - that continued working all 5 days. I felt a responsibility to try and help the company survive. Unfortunately, the company did close about 3 months later.

    About a month after that, the owner became an executive at another company and hired me at an extremely handsome salary.

  • CashOnly says:
    June 16, 2009 at 10:32 pm

    No problem. However, when the profit is back, will they pay me back for what they could not pay?

    Who should I blame the condition that we are in now on? People (stupid people) used to blame it on someone last year. Do you guys remember?

    I WILL work for free at what I'm doing because I love what I do. However, I only do it for free in exchange of the resignation of the people that have made the current situation worse.

    Every time these people open their stupid mouths, the economy goes south.

  • Teresa says:
    June 16, 2009 at 10:33 pm

    What do you mean START working for free.... with the taxes I am already working for free!

  • OC says:
    June 16, 2009 at 10:39 pm

    I used not to take not breaks and a short lunch to work without putting extra hours on my time sheets or getting paid extra. After a while getting burned out and not hearing any "thank you" or "appreciate it" from management....then F**k that! I learn that I have to take my breaks and eat my lunch, gotta pay my bills....sometimes we all want to give a little everday but they don't give a F**k.

  • Matthews says:
    June 16, 2009 at 10:50 pm

    It is almosst impossible to work for free when considering the food you have to eat.

  • ocobserver says:
    June 16, 2009 at 11:00 pm

    If I had to work a couple hours for free a day or lose my job I would bite my lower lip and work. In hard times the employees have to sacrifice. Problem is most of them are too darn spoiled to know the meaning of the word. It's been gimme, gimme, gimme for years and years. Now when asked to give something back they act like you just stole their family jewels.

  • OCReader says:
    June 16, 2009 at 11:09 pm

    I already work for free! I own my own business! In fact, I work merely to pay out money.

  • FastNCrazy says:
    June 16, 2009 at 11:26 pm

    Hell, anyone working for an OC company is almost working for free. During bad times all a company wants to pay is $5-8/hr, but wants ten degrees and 25 years of experience. I say FU OC companies. When the economy is good again, and these stupid companies need employees, I say FU again.

  • OCRENEGADE714 says:
    June 16, 2009 at 11:37 pm

    Everybody should work more, and pay more taxes and then maybe I will get a raise on my disability checks! The amount i get is really cramping my lifestyle! Work as much overtime you can, pay those pesky income taxes, so I can buy that cute little puppy in the window of the pet store. Thank you for your support! OCR

  • RL says:
    June 17, 2009 at 12:17 am

    If you value your labor at $0 then you deserve $0

  • Ralph says:
    June 17, 2009 at 12:59 am

    Realistically no company is ever going to pay any individual their true value. I agree that majority of us work until our skin tares, blood ouzes, and we become lethargic. However, as some have already mentioned, as long as the " me first attitude " continues to partake on both sides of the business world, eventually everything will collapse and post destruction will have an ever lasting impact. So if I could trade for great benefits vs a pay check, hell yeah Id work. For Ive been unemployed for 2 years now, and theres nothing worse than vegetating each day as you await a phone call from a prospective employer. Health and psycological state should be everyones concern. Money pays for nothing. I lost a relative to cancer. She waged about $100,000 a year in the freight business. The day she was diagnosed with MRSE and cancer, was 30 years too late for the money she earned paid for nothing more than her medical expense plot, and tombstone. At sometime, everything has to fall and restructure again.

  • Clemons says:
    June 17, 2009 at 1:16 am

    Heres a question. How can anyone of us place a monetary value on our work ethics and performance. An B.A /B.S., Masters, garantees nothing. And when those whom do posses these degrees retain an offer, the salary continues to remain low. Employers go staright for these post graduates because theres this preminition that these grads possess the skills, knowledge and ethics to perform the task, however, because theyre post grads they are offered less. So wheres the difference vs hiring "Sally Jane " off the street who has 30 strong years of work history, is punctual, multitask oriented, is professionally presentable, so forth and so on.... however lags a degree. This is corporate biasness, running alongside corporate greed.

  • napoleon blownapart says:
    June 17, 2009 at 4:03 am

    Only a fool works for free.

    If a company is in bad enough shape that it needs to beg its employees to work without pay, then that company probably isn't going to make it anyway. This would be especially true in the airline industry; you'd have to be crazy to fly on a plane whose pilot was unpaid. Rather than wasting time trying to prop up somebody else's failing dream, I'd spend my time finding another job.

    Corporations never give anything away for free, and they also don't pay employees for doing nothing; I'd have to be pretty stupid to give them my work for free when I know that they wouldn't do the same thing in return.

    I don't see this as "selfish", I see this as just playing by the same rules that the corporation plays by.

  • James Ferguson says:
    June 17, 2009 at 5:35 am

    I am a salaried health care provider. My paient's need care if I am paid or not. Yes, I will continue to work without pay!

  • Dina says:
    June 17, 2009 at 6:10 am

    It would depend upon my individual situation.

  • Brian says:
    June 17, 2009 at 7:19 am

    I just heard about this yesterday. I think these state union workers are working for free is because maybe their union has told them to. I would bet that their union will demand that their members get paid for the work they put in. Wait and see...

  • bw says:
    June 17, 2009 at 7:21 am

    The airlines sent a couple kids to wrong cities while being paid. Imagine how much they would care about their job if they were working for free.

  • anon says:
    June 17, 2009 at 9:53 am

    If they are receiving benefits, then that is taxable wages, right? So, in essence, they are paying to work. Ha! That's a good one.

  • harajukugal2 says:
    June 17, 2009 at 9:54 am

    slavery is illegal.

  • CaptnCrunch says:
    August 7, 2009 at 9:26 am

    I don't think any job is worth getting taken advantage of. The economy will be back. If they can't afford to pay me, then I can't afford to work for them!

  • Lee says:
    August 23, 2009 at 10:58 pm

    I make 1/3 of what I used to make so I guess I am working 2/3 of the time for free. But, I am proud and happy to have a job. I am luckier than many more as I am able to house and feed my family on my efforts and not the taxpayers. As to complaining about corporations, its always by the ones that have never started and built a business. Here;s some advise for you. Live below your means for years, save every penny you can, then risk it all plus all you can borrow to start your own business. Then you will get to experience grateful employees like yourself. By the way, mark your calendars, August 23. 2009 is the day that California workers can celebrate as they have completed their payment for the cost of federal, state and local government. Your pay for the rest of the year is yours. Enjoy.