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This is one of the perplexing conundrums that comes around every year, and I can't figure out what's behind it. It's about the United Way, and the strong-arm tactics employers use to force employees to contribute.
My employer is a large and typically cut-throat Big Business. It does NOTHING for charitable reasons, and the employees themselves are worked to death while losing more and more of their compensation every year in cost-shifting of benefits. The corporation is so tight with money that when it keeps people working 24 to 36 hours straight on a "plant emergency," it won't even subsidize meals (the managers generally pay for meals for the team out of their own pockets). In order to circumvent labor hour laws, we are "off the clock" (unpaid) for anything over regular hours--which is "legal" since we're "exempt employees."
Every year the United Way drive comes up, and employees are blackmailed into participating. If you don't participate at all, you WILL be laid off in the annual reviews, no matter WHAT your job level or performance (yes, it happened more than once). The higher up, the more money you are expected to contribute, and for those of us in our peak earning years, the amount is VERY painful. Especially when you have your own charities that you like to support directly, and you don't approve of the United Way.
My question is this (and I ask this to those who have INSIDER KNOWLEDGE): What does the employer (the Big Business) get out of the United Way Campaign? It is NOT just goodwill, since this corporation has none, and could care less how people view it. Is it a direct payment to the greedy CEO and his top-level executives? Is it simply a power play, that the Narcissistic executives get a power-kick from forcing employees to give up their very hard earned money? Or does it have something to do with the fact that the corporations get to charge the employees bi-weekly, while only handing money over to United Way once or twice a year (a tactic used by UPS to get large amounts of interest on money that belongs to clients?)?
Some years ago I was involved in the management discussions about united way.
The rationale is actually very simple. It allows the corporation to do one fund raising drive and be done with it. Any other requests are met with a suggestion that the requester join United Way.
Otherwise you end up with a campaign a week. various employee groups favor various charities. You would lose significant production and have various battles fighting all the time.
So it is really a no brainer for management.
Our United Way campaign could easily be opted out of and you could also precisely target your donation to any United Way member. any forcing a contribution would be a local thing and likely illegal.
The only big issues I can remember involved certain charities becoming unhappy with UW and running their own campaign. The local management council generally got that stopped in a year or so.
This is one of the perplexing conundrums that comes around every year, and I can't figure out what's behind it. It's about the United Way, and the strong-arm tactics employers use to force employees to contribute.
My employer is a large and typically cut-throat Big Business. It does NOTHING for charitable reasons, and the employees themselves are worked to death while losing more and more of their compensation every year in cost-shifting of benefits. The corporation is so tight with money that when it keeps people working 24 to 36 hours straight on a "plant emergency," it won't even subsidize meals (the managers generally pay for meals for the team out of their own pockets). In order to circumvent labor hour laws, we are "off the clock" (unpaid) for anything over regular hours--which is "legal" since we're "exempt employees."
Every year the United Way drive comes up, and employees are blackmailed into participating. If you don't participate at all, you WILL be laid off in the annual reviews, no matter WHAT your job level or performance (yes, it happened more than once). The higher up, the more money you are expected to contribute, and for those of us in our peak earning years, the amount is VERY painful. Especially when you have your own charities that you like to support directly, and you don't approve of the United Way.
My question is this (and I ask this to those who have INSIDER KNOWLEDGE): What does the employer (the Big Business) get out of the United Way Campaign? It is NOT just goodwill, since this corporation has none, and could care less how people view it. Is it a direct payment to the greedy CEO and his top-level executives? Is it simply a power play, that the Narcissistic executives get a power-kick from forcing employees to give up their very hard earned money? Or does it have something to do with the fact that the corporations get to charge the employees bi-weekly, while only handing money over to United Way once or twice a year (a tactic used by UPS to get large amounts of interest on money that belongs to clients?)?
If what you claim can actually be proven, former employees should sue for wrongful termination.
I worked as an independent contractor for an employer who attempted to shame those who would not contribute to the United Way to do so. I was armed with information when my broker attempted to strong arm me. I politely explained that I supported a number of local charities also serviced by the United Way but that because I gave directly more of my money was used for the purpose it was intended rather than executive salaries and administrative costs at the United Way headquarters.
What I suspect is that your boss's supervisor is pressuring him/her to reach a specific level of participation or that it will directly affect his/her job or bonus. Socialism suxs!
I am skeptical of this claim because if you do work for a big corporation, as you claim, this would be grounds for harassment and there are laws against that.
Every victim thought this also, and investigated suing, but the only harassment laws that a lawyer will take are (1) if you are a minority, or (2) (much more rarely) a woman claiming sexual harassment. The liberal courts will give large settlements for those people, even if the corporation was 100% in the right. No lawyer will take a case for a white male no matter how ridiculous the treatment, and likewise even white females don't have chance unless sexual harassment is involved.
One fired employee later told me that the 3 lawyers he saw agreed it was incredibly unfair, they all said simply to go work somewhere else and forget it. They also commented that a corporation with an Executive level so crazy as to fire employees for United Way was a corporation you don't want to be a party of (how right they were, but well-paying jobs were NEVER plentiful or easy to get). One attorney said straight out, "The legal system is not the least bit interested in helping white males--or white females, either."
I bet any lawyers on C-D would agree they'd never take a case for a white male fired due to United Way--because the corporation will NEVER admit the employee fired for that reason. In fact, in this corporation, EVERY annual review is seeded with negative feedback that could be used in future layoffs and firings--a remnant of the first Robber-Baron CEO, who reduced the corporation from over 16,000 employees to less than 9,000--and created the new standard 80-hour workweek. He's also the one who stole the multi-billion dollar pension fund, and thus voided all our vested pensions, in a perfectly legal move.
The corporation would not settle out of court, but would go to trial, slandering the employee and making sure no employer in the future EVER hired the person. For professionals in this field, who have invested SO MUCH in our careers, we simply can't throw it away. We have to play the game. Plus, as long as the ex-employee didn't make a fuss, the corporation didn't slander his reputations, and the person found work elsewhere (ironically, they are MUCH better off not working for this corporation today, and were lucky to have escaped before it was too late).
However, your response was probably 100% correct as to why CEOs are willing to go to such lengths of destroying excellent employees' careers for a meaningless plaque. Robber-Baron CEOs hate and resent every employee, and wish they could fire every single one of us and thus take our salaries too. These insane Narcissists actually think the corporation would still be raking in money without employees to run the plants, get the product distributed, collect and account for the money, etc. They actually think the corporation exists and functions SOLELY as a result of their childish temper tantrums.
This is one of the perplexing conundrums that comes around every year, and I can't figure out what's behind it. It's about the United Way, and the strong-arm tactics employers use to force employees to contribute.
My employer is a large and typically cut-throat Big Business. It does NOTHING for charitable reasons, and the employees themselves are worked to death while losing more and more of their compensation every year in cost-shifting of benefits. The corporation is so tight with money that when it keeps people working 24 to 36 hours straight on a "plant emergency," it won't even subsidize meals (the managers generally pay for meals for the team out of their own pockets). In order to circumvent labor hour laws, we are "off the clock" (unpaid) for anything over regular hours--which is "legal" since we're "exempt employees."
Every year the United Way drive comes up, and employees are blackmailed into participating. If you don't participate at all, you WILL be laid off in the annual reviews, no matter WHAT your job level or performance (yes, it happened more than once). The higher up, the more money you are expected to contribute, and for those of us in our peak earning years, the amount is VERY painful. Especially when you have your own charities that you like to support directly, and you don't approve of the United Way.
My question is this (and I ask this to those who have INSIDER KNOWLEDGE): What does the employer (the Big Business) get out of the United Way Campaign? It is NOT just goodwill, since this corporation has none, and could care less how people view it. Is it a direct payment to the greedy CEO and his top-level executives? Is it simply a power play, that the Narcissistic executives get a power-kick from forcing employees to give up their very hard earned money? Or does it have something to do with the fact that the corporations get to charge the employees bi-weekly, while only handing money over to United Way once or twice a year (a tactic used by UPS to get large amounts of interest on money that belongs to clients?)?
It looks good for the corporation. It's the dance.
You can donate what you would privately to the United Way and designate your contribution to a specific agency. Then you are seen as a company person, but also send your money to the agency you supported all along.
As an added piece of info, i worked for a local government at the beginning of my career. Pressure was more subtle, but still there: we were absolutely required to go to the 3-hour meeting where United Way gave their pitch--and they even had multiple meetings on multiple days in case you tried calling in sick. Every single employee had a card with our name, SS #, our boss's name, and a list of choices for our paycheck deductions. All of the choices were very high amounts (or percentages) for someone just starting out, with a LOT of bills.
In order to refuse to participate, you had to SIGN the card, cross out all the potential donations, and write in "I refuse to participate" or some similar phrase. Then, just to make sure you were sufficiently mortified, you had to make a meeting with your boss, and DISCUSS why you refused to participate, and then have your boss sign off and send it to the DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR. Talk about making you look like a "problem employee" just when starting your career.
I have worked at other jobs between these two (though never with large organizations like these two), which made me really wonder what was going on. All of these posts are VERY helpful and make a lot of sense--or at least they explain the warped reasons this goes on, since it still makes very little sense to me.
When I was management at one agency, I asked what the expectation was. They said $10 a month. So I put $15 a month and designated it to Planned Parenthood... the agency head was a born-again..
Not allowed--any contribution less than the "Leadership Level" is the same as no contribution at all.
As you advance in this corporation (I've been here over 25 years), the corporation demands you donate a "Leadership" Amount. In terms of after-tax income, it is a MAJOR amount of money (which, with no pension, I really need for retirement).
Also, the very narrowly-defined United Way Charities are NOT the charities I wish to support--even if I wanted to dilute the contribution by adding on the administration costs of TWO separate middlemen. Therefore I find zero solace in supporting these charities.
Also, on the "local community goodwill" line, we are a nationwide corporation that really doesn't care about the people in the areas where the plants are located. And if you have followed my posts long enough, you know this is an industry that isn't going to get any local goodwill anyway.
You can donate what you would privately to the United Way and designate your contribution to a specific agency. Then you are seen as a company person, but also send your money to the agency you supported all along.
But then you lose a large amount to the administration of both the corporation and United Way--and United Way has HUGE administrative costs. No way they send my entire check to a specified recipient, and in fact I have ZERO confidence that they pay any attention AT ALL to those provisions. If they did, it would make the administration costs even more ridiculous.
I tend not to support the charities that are HEAVILY funded by our government already. After all, taxes are my family's #1 cost, and those largely go for the millions of social service "programs" (e.g., to help spoiled rich kids get off their designer drugs, or to help young single mothers who I do NOT want to encourage).
The charities I support get very little (if any) help from government: Planned Parenthood and other women's health services that the Religious Right hate, the no-kill animal shelters, the nature preservation groups that try to stop the destruction of natural habitat--these need all the help they can get.
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