Employment questions from the North

Dear Readers: The following two letters arrived this week. The identity of the authors has been withheld to protect the innocent and the guilty.

Dear Ed: I am writing to you on behalf of myself and my colleagues. We are employed in the manufacturing sector in a very remote community.

We work for a privately held corporation that is still run by its founder. While it is, for the most part, an industrious and positive workplace, there are several issues that have continued for some years that are causing concern.

We are forced by company policy to wear a green uniform. If we resist wearing this dreadful apparel, we are treated to a lecture from the chief executive officer and founder about the importance of name branding. He claims that this putrid colour is strongly identified with the organization and needs to be constantly reinforced. This argument might make some sense but it should be noted that not once, in all the time that I have been working there, has anyone ever come to visit the plant from the outside world. The only people who ever see the putrid green is us and him.

We are not even left alone to do our usual jobs. Routinely, a number of us are pulled off the assembly line to deal with corporate correspondence issues. Despite the advent of computers and emails, almost all letters from our demanding clients are handwritten. If that weren’t bad enough, they are all prone to run-on sentences and endless lists. They are spelling-challenged, to say the least, and to top it off the handwriting is barely legible.

Over the years, those of us forced to interpret this chicken scratch have suffered serious eye strain and all of us now wear glasses. When we tried to take some time off as a result of this repetitive injury to our eyes arising from our work and collect some workers’ compensation, the CEO quickly shipped us back to the assembly line where our hands rather than our eyes are needed. No work was missed and no cheque from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board ever arrived.

We have limited warehouse space and our product is distributed directly to the consumer. Instead of production being evenly distributed throughout the year, we are forced to work seven days a week and excessive overtime during the last four months of every year. The CEO keeps livestock in a pen behind the building which is his own business but you can guess who has to clean up their mess. He says that since we all take a turn at scooping the poop, that makes us agricultural workers and we are not entitled to overtime pay under the Employment Standards Act.

We don’t really mind the overtime and extra days because there’s nothing else to do up here anyway. It would be nice, however, when you’re working a 12-hour shift or more, to at least receive a free meal once in a while. When this suggestion has been politely forwarded to the CEO, however, he simply has his wife stir up another batch of hot chocolate.

I know the employer has the right to schedule your vacation whenever they like, but all we get is the first two weeks of January every year, year after year. After we drink all the beer in the ice hut and the Ski-Doos are out of gas, there’s not a lot to do.

We have contacted the Canadian Union of Public Employees to see if they would be interested in organizing our workforce and negotiating a contract for us. All we got in response was a letter indicating that they were not prepared to organize our workplace since it was unclear what province had jurisdiction over our remote community. They did invite us, however, to submit union dues if we liked, to support the larger labour movement. We thought that was a nice idea so we sent them some hot chocolate.

We have left long messages with a number of individuals working for the employment standards branch at the Ministry of Labour. We have explained in voice mail, in detail, our concerns. No one ever calls us back. They are ignoring us. It’s like they think we’re crank callers or something.

To top it off, we believe the CEO is finally losing his marbles. When we recently organized a committee of workers to confront him on these issues, he wouldn’t stop laughing and rocking about long enough to let us get a word in edgewise. When his giggling wife showed up with a tray of hot chocolate and homemade cookies, we finally gave up and went back to the shop for some peace and quiet.

We sincerely hope that you will give consideration to this letter and provide your advice. Because of the manner of our remuneration, we have no legally recognized currency to offer you, but presume upon your charitable nature.

Signed,

Desperate and Alone

Dear Ed: I am the CEO of a Canadian manufacturing organization. It has come to my attention that advice has been sought from you by my workers.

You, of course, are free to dole out your professional advice as you see fit. It is a free country and I certainly support the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Do you remember that train set you got that played musical tunes on its xylophone track? Do you still have the clown who plays music when you twist his nose?

I note that I have received several letters from individuals with the surname of Canning. While I always endeavour to satisfy all the desires of my clients, there is that saying about not being able to please all the people all of the time.

Please consider the above and govern yourself accordingly.

Yours sincerely,

You Know Who

The first letter entails a multitude of issues which would doubtless blossom into more issues and require an incredible amount of time from our offices. In the absence of the ability of the authors of the first letter to provide a sufficient retainer in anything other than hot chocolate, I am declining to respond for that reason and for that reason only. Really!

Happy Holidays.

This article was originally published by The Hamilton Spectator.