Working America's Dear David: Train in Vain?
Train in Vain is a cross-post from Working America ’s Dear David workplace advice column .
Question:
At the company I work for, employees are expected to attend training, usually four hours per day, Monday to Friday, for 30 days (without pay). Once training is completed, they may or may not get a chance to work, because the company has brought on so many people that most of the time only 10 percent can be on the schedule at one time. There are over 3,000 of us with the same job title working for this company all over the country. So many people are getting taken advantage of every day by this company. I know at least 90 percent of us feel the same way. A lawsuit has already been started, but I feel we need to organize and create a union to stop the abuses and manipulation of this company in its tracks. Where do I go from here?
— One in 3,000, Georgia
Answer:
Five days a week, four hours a day, for a month? That’s a huge investment of your time, especially when the odds are that it won’t pay off. What an incredibly disrespectful way to treat people who want to work for you.
While there are certainly times when seeking a legal solution is the right way to go, many workplace problems can’t be resolved that way. So it’s good that you are already thinking about another way to address your situation. Organizing with your co-workers, as you seem to understand already, is a smart way to hedge your bets.
Determining whether an individual must be paid for “training” turns on whether the training is for the benefit of the individual or the employee, whether the individual is doing work that otherwise would be done by an employee, and other factors . While the way these workers are being treated sounds terribly unfair, unless there is a contract in place and/or the employer made guarantees based on completion of training, an employer has no obligation to schedule employees for any minimum number of hours, or at all. However, even if this is bona fide training under the standards put out by the Department of Labor, the workers should look to consumer protection laws —such as laws against false or deceptive advertising—to see if this employer’s practices run afoul of the law.
There is a silver lining to the situation you’ve described. If 90 percent of you are feeling the same way about what needs to be changed, you’ve got fertile ground for organizing. Not sure where to start? That’s why we put together FixMyJob.com and OrganizeWith.Us . Check it out, and follow the steps together.
