I am being stalked

"ImmoralMinority" (araimondo) 10/12/2017 at 09:32 • Filed to: None

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For some reason, Pumpkin is following me around the house this morning. She has already been fed, so I don’t know what is up. I pet her, and she turns her back. Cats are weird.

I have mediation today for a dairy farmer. His former employee claims there he was discriminated against by being denied certain work because he can’t speak English. This is a dairy farm in California - most workers speak little or no English. While some of the guys in the work he wanted speak some English, others do not. From a jury standpoint, there is not a single worker who can testify without an interpreter, and questioning immigrant workers about their knowledge of English is pretty damn touchy.

The other workers told my investigator that the problem was that the plaintiff was a asshole, and no one wanted to work with him. Ever have a nightmare co-worker? This was that guy. The farmer moved him around to find someone he could work with, but everyone hated him. He got into a disagreement with a co-worker in the barn, and he sprayed the guy with water. He was fired.

He says he could not take meal or rest breaks, but the other workers say that is not true. They say he was always telling them to cut the breaks short so they could finish the work and go home.

The only claim they have is a problem that can occur when people milk cows at night. You have a shift from 7pm to 3 am. The shift cuts across 2 calendar days. On your day off, you get off at 3 am, and do not come back until 7 pm the next day - substantially more than 24 hours off.

But because it cuts across 2 calendar days, the other attorney says this is not a “day off.” California law requires overtime on the 7th day if someone works 7 consecutive days in a single workweek. They say he is owed these wages, because although he got more than 24 consecutive hours off each week, that time cut across 2 calendar days.

If he is right, the guy is owed about $8000. They have valued the case at $388,000. Lawyers suck, and litigation is bullshit. This is straight up extortion.

Ash78, voting early and often > ImmoralMinority 10/12/2017 at 09:38

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We have a disproportionately large amount of Latino workers here in Alabama (both construction and agriculture) and these stories crop up all the time. It’s always a lot worse if they’re undocumented, since they’re easier to pressure into doing whatever the boss says. But in reality, the boss can get in a lot more trouble for hiring them and failing to verify employability....but the workers often don’t know that. There are tons of nonprofit agencies now that cater to educating Spanish-speakers on their rights.

I won’t get into the merits of legal vs illegal immigration, but the bottom line is our labor force needs more people and there are only two ways to fill the need: Have more babies or allow more immigrants. Or forced slavery, which is how some of these situations feel at times.

Side note: We just adopted cat #2, named Pumpkin (orange, 2 months old). Meanwhile we just castrated his older brother, Mario (6 months) and it’s already helping them get along better...for now.

Wacko > ImmoralMinority 10/12/2017 at 09:39

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Dude you look to be too honest and generally too good of a guy to be a Lawyer. That being said, don’t you ever change!

bhtooefr > Ash78, voting early and often 10/12/2017 at 09:49

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Or make work conditions/wages/benefits such that the existing unemployed people will take those jobs, or where possible add automation (although dairy is probably as automated as it gets already).

benjrblant > ImmoralMinority 10/12/2017 at 10:06

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The star was for Pumpkin, not your mediation situation.

Just so that’s clear.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > ImmoralMinority 10/12/2017 at 10:11

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Maybe she wants to practice some yodeling???

shop-teacher > ImmoralMinority 10/12/2017 at 10:28

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Hammer has been following me around a lot today. Probably because he’s not sure why I’m home. Daycare is closed today .... for the third time in a week ... so I had to burn a sick day.

itschrome > ImmoralMinority 10/12/2017 at 10:45

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Cat behaving oddly?? Probably plotting to kill you soon. Be safe, keep alert!

punkgoose17 > ImmoralMinority 10/12/2017 at 11:26

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She either misses human company or knows you are stressed?

S65 > ImmoralMinority 10/12/2017 at 11:36

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that’s why I have snakes, easier to read. Also doggo

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ImmoralMinority 10/12/2017 at 14:54

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My brother-in-law was in construction; public works. They built schools and fire stations, primarily in Oakland and East Bay surrounds. They paid a settlement one time to a local who fell into a hole that never existed.

My wife got struck by a 16-year-old driver who took off with his windows iced up and he never saw her. (We had a four-month-old at the time who was breast-fed.) We got this high-powered attorney who said he liked us, but then the case didn’t turn out to be worth as much as he’d hoped and one of his consultant buddies managed to get paid a chunk of the money as an “expense,” and the lawyer was wearing $1,000 handmade shoes. Bastard.