Please people, lets quit with the schoolyard lawyering and stay with the objective data in this case. Its pretty simple to analyze.
Interesting, its schoolyard lawyering if it is us, but when you speak, its supreme court time?
Someone said "they are working as directed".... TIEGUY asked "seriously"..... Who is correct, in the legal sense? What would stand up in arbitration?
Assume is a great word. Never ever did the poster say they were instructed to accept jury duty pay. He offered, they accepted. There was no mention of guaranteed paid time. We dont know what the wild card is, namely why he offered to pay that many people for not working. Maybe he had them working at his house, we just dont know.
Forget about all your "FEELINGS" about the case and deal with the facts.
We are
First, lets start with how this got started. It was the SUPERVISOR who made the offer to the employees and NOT the employees asking the SUPERVISOR. This is important because there has to be an "IMPETUS" to the action.
Yup, I offer to kill your wife for you. So because I offer, and you accept, I am the only one to commit a crime? Especially after you accept the offer and benefit by it?
Clearly, the "IMPETUS" was created by the supervisor and it was the supervisor who has the OBLIGATION to inform the employees of ALL CONSEQUENCES when being "DIRECTED".
No where did it ever indicate that they were "directed" in any manner. It was an offer. Now, dear sir, where does the contract mention that when a sup is dishonest, and involves employees, the sup must get an informed consent to do so? As a matter of practical law, there is nothing that involves dishonesty that mentions anyone must get informed consent and has an obligation to inform anyone about all the consequences involved. Again, you are reading a lot more into the post than was posted.
This includes informing the employees that the suggested action carried terminable consequences. This fact cannot be ignored. In arbitration, establishing the person responsible for the initial action can determine the "CULPABILITY" of the other persons involved.
Please......you ever heard about sting operations? I have seen LP "salt" packages to see if the person of interest takes a bite. I am sure they had a PCM about not stealing right before they started the sort.....
A supervisor who is conspiring to commit a dishonest action against the company has NO RIGHT to involve the employees he is responsible for managing.
No argument there. No one has the right to involve anyone else in a criminal act. But far beyond that, is the right of the other person to not only refuse to accept the dishonest money, but to actually turn the sup in.
The employees, whether or not knew the action could be considered dishonest can be relieved of that responsibility by virtue of being reliant on "DIRECTION" from a superior in charge of the operation.
That would only be the case if the supervisor used or implied force. If the sup, at the time said you have to take this jury duty money or I will fire you, then he has used his position to intimidate the employee. But that only covers the employee initially. It will not hold up that a day later, the employee did not have ample time to turn the sup in.
Now, that does not mean the employees are in the total clear. An arbitor would make them repay the days they were "IMPROPERLY" coded, but award them to be made "WHOLE" for all the days they were out on discharge.
Again, you are stretching the actual post. No where were they actually improperly coded for the work. Had that been the case, the drivers would never have been fired in the first place. This scenario would as us to believe that only the sup knew about the coding. That is not what was posted. They knew they were to be paid for something that they did not do or deserve. That is pure dishonesty. As far as the repayment, that would be in addition to termination. They were not "mis-payed", they stole. Period.
Working as directed is the critical key to the defense of these employees.
They were not working........Wow, you keep reading things into this that does not exist. They were off. They were offered Jury duty pay for what ever reason, and they accepted.
Regardless of coding, the dishonest action began with the supervisor and he had NO RIGHT to involve the employees on a scam to defraud the company.
The scam was committed by both the sup and the employees.
One of the biggest problems with UPS is the failure to supervise their own supervisors. There are literally hundreds of instances where supervisors are "CHEATING" the system and go undetected.
While I have seen some cheating of the system by management, I can not speak to hundreds as you claim.
The problem is systemic at UPS and this case is just one example of the corruption of the system at large.
Dishonest people exist at every level of a company. They shine a bad light on the vast majority of those that are honest and do their work with integrity every day. Just because of those few does not mean the problem is systemic.
In arbitration, this case would be a slam dunk for the Union, and I hope the local involved takes this case all the way.
The case was a slam dunk, for the company.
Personal feelings, morality and the like do not suffice for objective circumspect, so all of you who believe the employees are guilty of dishonesty dont know CRAP about the legal implications.
I believe you have shown more personal feelings in your post than anyone else on this post. Any way you want to cut it, the sup offered, they accepted. They stood to gain from the offer. AT no time was force or intimidation mentioned. So regardless of the feelings you have toward the situation, the guilt glares so strongly for the normal person, you are blinded by your feelings.
The situation is indeed corrupt and somewhat funny, but it starts with UPS and ends with UPS in responsibility.
Responsibility and consequences are two different things. But both the sup and the employees had the responsibility to choose. They all chose badly. The employees stood to gain more than the sup in this case. So your contention of their being totally without blame is frankly laughable.