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My daughter Jamie called from Bellingham, WA this morning to tell us that her hubbie got laid-off today. Not earth shaking new to the millions of people who've faced or will soon be facing the same thing. However, in my S-I-L's case it's a little different.
He started working for me in my company in Hawaii while still in high school. That was 31 years ago. After he finished school he came to work in our business full time. When I sold the company and retired in 1991, Sandro was retained by the new owners and they've continued his employment up until the end of 2007. He transferred from Hawaii to one of their mainland branches in the early 90s. He gave them 27 years of profitable full time service.
In January of 2008, a major competitior of Sandro's company made an overture to him to come join them. It was a promotion, more $ and he'd work much closer to home than his former location. He was assured of the same or better benefits, vacation, insurance, sick leave, pension, blah blah blah. He accepted their offer. Now today, 13 months later, after he brought all of his former customers with him and taught the new company's employees what he had learned in 27 years in the industry, he was told that he was simply too expensive for them to keep in a declining economy and he was terminated with no advance notice, severance pay or accrued vacation time. WA law is extremely pro-employer as an at-will state.
Economic decisions are one thing ... lack of professional ethics and chitty treatment is quite another. Sandro has to fight his own battles so I won't get involved despite the fact that I've personally known the owners of that business for more than 30 years.
He started working for me in my company in Hawaii while still in high school. That was 31 years ago. After he finished school he came to work in our business full time. When I sold the company and retired in 1991, Sandro was retained by the new owners and they've continued his employment up until the end of 2007. He transferred from Hawaii to one of their mainland branches in the early 90s. He gave them 27 years of profitable full time service.
In January of 2008, a major competitior of Sandro's company made an overture to him to come join them. It was a promotion, more $ and he'd work much closer to home than his former location. He was assured of the same or better benefits, vacation, insurance, sick leave, pension, blah blah blah. He accepted their offer. Now today, 13 months later, after he brought all of his former customers with him and taught the new company's employees what he had learned in 27 years in the industry, he was told that he was simply too expensive for them to keep in a declining economy and he was terminated with no advance notice, severance pay or accrued vacation time. WA law is extremely pro-employer as an at-will state.
Economic decisions are one thing ... lack of professional ethics and chitty treatment is quite another. Sandro has to fight his own battles so I won't get involved despite the fact that I've personally known the owners of that business for more than 30 years.
