With the recent tremors in society regarding employment and class in our country, it should come as no surprise that the issue should be discussed from a student's perspec tive and in our own student newspaper.
However, this is probably not what you expected. I'm not trying to critique the Occupy and Tea Party movements or blame some political entity for making the economy worse. Other people have done that beautifully. Rather, I'm going to talk about something that I think has a lot to do with class and everything to do with employment: workers' rights.
I'm talking specifically about those workers in the state of Virginia; quite frankly, it's much easi er to blame the state than it is to blame people.
The situation that made me want to talk about workers' rights is probably the most important thing about this column, so I feel like it should be mentioned first.
In the past two weeks, a friend of mine who was employed by Longwood University alleged he was let go after he was found in the company of someone who was reportedly wasting re sources they had purchased from the school. His termination reportedly happened within a week of being hired.
According to my friend's account, my friend was reported to his boss for his friend's actions by another manager and promptly fired. Despite his efforts to explain that it was not he who had been involved in making the mess, his boss sup posedly still stood by their choice to fire him. The manager reportedly said he was unfit for employment because he was "a wasteful per son."
It seems like an open and shut case. Virginia, like most other states, with the exception of Montana, follows employment at-will laws that make firing fair game except when it clearly falls under discrimination or violates the worker's right to vote or serve in the military.
In fact, as referenced by online legal resource Nolo.com, the employer has to point out that they only fire for good reasons and is thought under the law to be at-will as a default. Like wise, Virginia is a right-to-work state that limits the activities of any labor unions. So the verdict is, in a place where employers have complete control, there is no legal claim against their hav ing hired and fired him apparently on a whim.
However, the ethics of the situation seem slightly stretched. A man, who even the report ing manager allegedly said he would not have wanted to fire, was reportedly punished for another person's actions in a place where he never worked.
It may be argued that the at-will stance gives employers the emotional distance they would need to continue good business practices and the freedom to keep their workplace free of dis ruptive persons without needing to go through the trouble of validating themselves. However, it seems that the loss of my friend's job was seem ingly, more than anything, the exercise of power. Herein lays the class element to this situation.
If my friend's account is completely accurate, termination for no reason other than his associa tion with the offending person and his label as "wasteful" shows a pejorative viewpoint that seeks to make the employee different and lesser than the employer. In many ways, an employer in different from a worker judging that they hold a higher stake in and have a more notice able impact on the business. However, it is inter esting and somewhat worrisome that the politics of the workplace should impinge on the human characteristics of the employee.
My friend is currently searching for another job and leaves the bad memories of his last employment behind. Though it is nearly im possible for him to make any gains against his termination, we should consider how closely we do protect our workers and the danger of not protecting them, thus not protecting ourselves.
*** This editorial is an opinion stated by the writer and does not represent the views
