Florida workers fired for wearing - ORANGE.

[kpete]

Florida workers fired for wearing orange


The executives conferred outside the room, returned and upheld the decision: all fired, said Lou Erik Ambert, 31, of Coconut Creek, a litigation para-legal who said he was terminated.

"There is no office policy against wearing orange shirts. We had no warning. We got no severance, no package, no nothing," said Ambert. "I feel so violated."

Meloney McLeod, 39, of North Lauderdale, said her choice of shirt puts her in a tough spot: "I'm a single mom with four kids, and I'm out of a job just because I wore orange today."

...........................

"Orange happens to be my favorite color. My patio is orange," said Doble. "My lipstick was orange today." She said she supervised 12 people who scanned, copied and mailed documents for the firm.

more:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-elizabeth-wellborn-orange-firing-20120316,0,486402.story
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/18/1075499/-Florida-workers-fired-for-wearing-orange

[Chipper Chat]

1. Does that mean Florida oranges can no longer wear orange skins?

I can't wait for Kroger to start selling oranges in their original green.

[SamG]

2. I don't understand at all. Is this something to do with...

St Patrick's day?

Or are the managment in this firm just Republican heartless paranoid fools?

[dems_rightnow]

3. There was some sort of protest where everyone was supposed to wear orange.

Those who wore orange were terminated, presumably for some sort of workplace disruption.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. It wasn't a protest at all. The employees wore orange on Fridays

to celebrate "Happy Hour" after work.

[alphafemale]

6. Wearing orange on St Patricks Day could be seen as being deliberately provocative.

You can't be Irish and Protestant. Even if the Flag says otherwise.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. Total nonsense, but blame the green beer

[tammywammy]

8. They weren't fired on St. Patrick's Day

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. Good point.

( I'm Irish)

[Blue_Tires]

18. they said in the story that they usually wore orange on Fridays?

and how many of the fired employees were irish, or even know (or cared) about the old unpleasantness?

[NutmegYankee]

37. That's as ridiculous as saying you can't be American and Atheist. nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. From the law firm's web site:

Elizabeth R. Wellborn, PA focuses on the representation of mortgage lenders, servicers and private investors since its inception. We provide foreclosure, bankruptcy, eviction, litigation, loss mitigation, title claims, REO Closings and title insurance throughout the State of Florida. Through our well trained, multilingual staff of attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants, and business professionals, our office is able to deliver comprehensive legal services to the mortgage banking community.

http://www.erwlaw.com/index.html

It looks like a one-attorney outfit that employs a bunch of clerical workers to process foreclosures and evictions for The Man. I don't know who "the executives" would be other than Elizabeth Wellborn herself. Most law firms list the names of all their attorneys - this one doesn't. I suspect she uses contract attorneys to do a lot of their dirty work.

[SamG]

10. That employer sure ain't no liberal Democrat !

Works for banks and mortgage holders... evicts people...and fires employees for no good reason.. nice!

[lpbk2713]

14. Now the employer can hire replacements at lower wages.

Some times employers look for a flimsy excuse to terminate workers so thay can do just that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Bravo for right to work (for less) states!

See, it's easy peachy.

[frogmarch]

11. St. Patrick is a Catholic saint, and

although St. Patrick’s Day is a public holiday in Ireland, the wearing of orange on St. Patrick’s Day could be seen as trying to stir up trouble, because orange is the Protestant symbolic color.

I doubt that the fired employees just happened to wear orange on St.Patrick’s Day. I think that firing them for doing so was over the top, but I also think the employees may have been trying to piss off Catholics , especially Catholics of Irish descent, by wearing orange. Have you ever heard of The Troubles? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

[tammywammy]

13. They weren't fired on St. Patrick's Day

They were fired on Friday.

[frogmarch]

24. oops, sorry. I was

wrong. I should have read the article more carefully.

[mackattack]

21. Every little thing that happens doesnt

revolve around Irish nationalism and Northern Ireland.


Seriously?!?!

[frogmarch]

25. No, it doesn't. I didn't

read the story carefully enough. I hate it when I go off on Rosanna Rosannadanna rants!

[mackattack]

26. HA!

Thanks for taking me back.


Sorry, I was on a short fuse because of the whole "IRISH IRISH IRISH ALL DAY LONG" stuff I endured over the weekend.

cheers

[frogmarch]

28. Taking you back?

You think I put you on Ignore? If someone did, it wasn't I. I don't put people on Ignore for merely giving me a good talking to. In fact, I'm not Ignoring anyone.

[mackattack]

29. back down memory lane!

Rosanna Rosannadanna

[tsuki]

30. This is Florida, not Ireland. There is a big pond between the two. nt

[Comrade Grumpy]

12. Non-unionized worker got no rights.

Wanna job? Pee in a cup.

Boss in a bad mood? You're fired. Tough shit.

The only recourse these fucked over workers have is public shaming of the law firm, but it's lawyers, so they're shameless.

Don't mourn for the fired workers, organize!

[DBoon]

15. "Boss in a bad mood? You're fired. Tough shit. "

Best summary of this article yet

At-will employment means they can fire you for wearing orange. Period.

[SouthernLiberal]

22. Exactly right!

All the boss needs to do is to cite some reason that is not prohibited by law.

So to avoid getting sued, he can make up any 'reason' at all. Fired for wearing orange on a Friday, might very well be followed up by getting fired on Monday for not wearing orange.

I don't know the details of Florida law, but here in South Carolina, there is a law that says that even if there is an employee handbook that says that orange is a permitted color to wear, and further states that no employee will be fired without a proper HR procedure, and even if that handbook clearly states that the employer considers it to be a contract, your employer can fire you for wearing orange, and not go through the documented procedures.

In this state, the feds would probably get involved quickly, if a company admitted to firing employees because of the color of their skin, but there is no protection for the color of a shirt.

[tblue37]

17. Orange is my favorite color, too. It

isn't even one that I wear well, but I wear it a lot because I love it.

I would have been in trouble that day, too, for wearing orange!

[GoCubsGo]

32. It's also THE hot color for this Spring's fashion.

I don't know how firing this woman is even legal.

[Fawke Em]

19. I guess there's very few University of Tennessee fans in Florida.

Seriously, though, this is outrageous!

[SharonAnn]

23. That's what I was thinking. Must not like University of Tennessee. Gators fans?

[BlueJazz]

20. I have a solution. When the boss gets back home from a week-end somewhere, She'll see this>>

[icymist]

27. This would be a bad day to be an ompalumpa...

or a Speaker Of The House.

[Javaman]

31. Life imitates art...

Stark Raving Dad

Written by Al Jean, Mike Reiss (and Sam Simon?)
Directed by Rich Moore

Homer comes down to get a clean shirt,
to find that they're all... pink?

Homer: Aagh! Pink?
Marge, I can't wear a pink shirt to work.
Everybody wears white shirts. I'm not popular enough to be
different...

The reason is that Bart put his lucky red hat in with the wash.
Marge assures Homer that nobody will notice. At the office, Burns
and Smithers review the tapes of the employees coming to work...

Burns: Why is that man in pink!

Smithers: Oh, that's Homer Simpson, sir.
He's one of your boobs from Sector 7-G.

Burns: Simpson, eh?

Burns: Well, judging by his outlandish attire, he's some sort of
free-thinking anarchist.

Smithers: I'll call security, sir.

Burns: Excellent. Yes, these color monitors have already
paid for themselves...

Homer's coworkers razz him about wearing pink, and
he is carted off by security to an interrogation room. He tries to explain
what happened, but Burns doesn't believe him. Smithers notes that the
body cavity search turned up nothing, nor did X-rays. Burns recalls
Smithers' penchant for bell-bottom trousers, but that was for the company
performance of HMS Pinafore.

[Hugabear]

33. This is what living in a "right-to-work" state means

You can be fired for just about any reason whatsoever (only exceptions would be federally protected classes - ie gender, race).

If your boss doesn't like the way you part your hair, you can be fired.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

34. No Oklahoma Aggies work there, either.

Go Pokes!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

35. They might appear to be out of luck in an "at-will" state like Florida, BUT.......

There are protections under the NLRB against retaliating against employees for "concerted activity." The best news? You don't have to be a union employee to be protected under the law.

So they were all going out that evening to happy hour? Is there a chance that work place related conditions might have come up in conversation between two or more of them? Highly likely, given percentages.

BOOM--Concerted activity there.

Sounds like a stretch? Given that one employee was able to file a NLRB complaint after she was fired for making a negative comment regarding their boss on Facebook. Because her co-workers were Facebook friends, this was deemed to be concerted activity and she had a case.

[Gore1FL]

36. contact info

The firm can be contacted here:

http://www.erwlaw.com/contact.html