Call today’s Roundup High Crimes, Blunders and Hysterics From the World of HR.
And my oh my, what a collection it is. Let’s start with the crimes part. A meaty tale it is.
Over the pond in the UK, direct hiring is still something of a novelty. Though it is growing, most companies still turn to agencies to fill vacancies and outsource some jobs. So when Rossel Vaz applied for a cleaner job with Tesco, the giant supermarket chain, he was directed to another company that did the recruiting.
There he met Helder Moreira. After hiring him, Moreira demanded copies of his bank statements, bank card, and passport. Weeks later, when Vaz noticed his bank account was out more than 1,000 U.S. dollars. He complained to the bank, which traced the expense to a butcher shop where, it turned out, Moreira had spent Vaz’ money buying meat.
Moreira was convicted; lost his job and his girlfriend. He got a suspended sentence.
The $186 Million Firing
Back in the states, a California jury awarded $186 million to a woman fired by AutoZone when she became pregnant. That staggering sum wasn’t one of those runaway jury things. No indeed.
Some of the most damming testimony presented against the company came from an ordained minister who was a district manager for AutoZone. He told jurors he was offered a promotion if he successfully managed to fire all the women working in the parts stores in his region. And this was at a meeting of high-level company executives.
If you suspect the company is planning to appeal, you’d be right.
Temp Workers Cause Disease, Crime
From the Alliance for the American Temporary Workforce comes this stunning pronouncement: failures by temporary employment agencies are responsible for everything from “sexual assault to the mass spreading of disease.”
The evidence the Alliance presents in support of the indictment is on the thin side; faulty background checks are the supposed cause, but you can’t really tell that from the cites.
Say What You Like, Just Spell it Uber
Uber, now, that’s a different story. The virtual ride-share company, valued at a hefty $41 billion, is under attack for its background screening process. Not that the problem is badly done checks, as the case was a year ago. Its current troubles — and plenty enough it has, mostly in the PR arena — come in the form of a class action suit alleging the company violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act when it failed to give drivers a copy of their consumer report prior to taking adverse action.