America's Workplace Corruption: Attack On The Little Guy

Recently I've had a few work-related issues that reminded me of how little attention law makers and the judicial system pays to defending employees in the workplace, specifically, the hourly paid low income earners. There are no watchdogs ensuring that the average worker is not mistreated by their employers and there are no champions to take up the challenge when exposed. At one of my former places of employment I sustained an injury while performing my duties, which in and of itself was not a huge deal but its negative impact on my ability to advance financially and otherwise within a field I've worked in for nearly 20 years was indeed huge. As a result of this injury I was reduced to having to basically start back at the bottom in my profession or chose a new one. Of course I filed a worker's compensation claim and was SHOCKED and blind-sided by what my attorney told me about my case. My attorney made it VERY clear that the courts WILL NOT consider any impact on my ability to work or advance in my field as a result of my injury - that the courts would only consider the seriousness of the injury itself as it relates to my quality of life. I thought that was ridiculous. How can you ever be properly compensated by worker's comp if the compensation has nothing to do with the work? By these standards, a broken toe has the same predetermined value for a receptionists that it does for an Olympic sprinter. Then my attorney showed me a diagram that illustrates the predetermined value associated with an injury to any given body part. Again - I was shocked. I had heard rumors of this body chart but didn't actually believe it existed or even if it did, that attorneys would actually show it to their clients but there it was. Then my attorney began to explain to me the process - how he would make a demand for an absurd amount of money from my former employer's attorney and how the counter offer would equally absurd and that the final settlement would be somewhere in the middle. When he told me the figure he planned to toss out to begin the process, a little of me died inside. If he thought that that figure was absurdly high, we had to be from different galaxies, I thought. It was then that I began to recognize him as the cog he was. He was just another piece of the machine designed to ensure that people like me don't get justice because corporate America can't afford to pay the bill they've racked up doing enormous amounts of disservice to little guys and rather than purge their appetites for the wickedness, they prefer to rig the system so that they might keep feeding at the well of corruption. When the day came for my attorney and I to meet with the company's attorney in person, I got another shock when I saw all of the attorneys at the worker's comp office meeting and "negotiating" away justice on behalf of their small-guy clients. This process appeared to be almost entirely automated, it was so routine. These weren't passionate people who had taken up the cause of their clients whom they believed to have been wronged - these were surrendered tools, willfully participating in the perversion of justice. My attorney was visibly annoyed as I resisted his suggestions that I "take the offer". He reminded me that he only took my case because it was referred to him by a firm that felt it was too small for them to waste time with. I'm guessing that he was attempting to communicate to me that my case wasn't worth more than they were offering me. I realized that none of us small-guys had attorneys. All of these attorney worked for the companies we were suing, including the attorney we'd hired. They were meeting with opposing counsels, discussing the "truth" of the matter and arriving at consensus before returning to us, the clients. I knew I had no real options and that I had to take what was being offered but I couldn't resist fighting a little. In the end I signed the settlement and walked off realizing that I had just been dry f*cked and ass-raped.

More recently, my current employer terminated two people at my workplace. One person they terminated had been in an accident (outside of work) that affected her ability to fully function in her job capacity but she had legit medical clearance for light duty from her physician. The company fired her for parking in the facilities parking garage without paying. No write-up, no warning - IMMEDIATE TERMINATION! She had worked for the company for nearly 15 years and had no prior warnings for parking. The second person was fired also for parking in the facility's garage and not paying but get this: she had authorized automatic payroll deduction of her parking fees from her check. When the company discovered that it hadn't been taking out the charges for over a month, she was IMMEDIATELY TERMINATED - NO WARNING - NO WRITE UP. The cause for termination was stealing! Here's the truth; she was best friends with the other woman they fired for the week before for a parking violation. My company didn't like either of these woman for a number of reasons and neither of those reasons were legal grounds for termination and so they drummed up this crap. What's their recourse? They can fight for unemployment and that's about it!

Employers should view their employees as valued contracts with society. Every employee is an opportunity for the employee to do some good in the community it serves and which patronizes it. The corrupt and destructive mind-set that has prevailed in the business world of our country has eroded all sense of kinship, belonging and partnership with the greater society and values of this nation. Ethics are now behaviors you engage in when you are due for audit or review. A few weeks ago a story ran on a local news channel about a large business that was flat out ripping people off - taking contracts and payments and all out refusing to do the work. This company was receiving grants from local government even after having been reported & sued by more than a dozen people. No one has any interest in doing anything that does not have monetary gains attached to it which is why no one is willing to fight for the small-guys. The "right thing" isn't a good (profitable) enough pursuit for most. Justice isn't a good enough cause. What is being neglected by discarding the cause of the small-guy is the very foundation of our social order. Everything, including the rich and their riches, rests on the shoulders of the small-guy. When the small guy is allowed to be battered and bruised he eventually loses the strength to carry these burdens and it all falls down.

I would like to complete this post but the more I write the more infuriated and simeltaneously depressed I become. This will have to do.