>>What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
California
Our girlfriend was fired yesterday, June 11th, 2010, near the end of her first week of employment. The reason given for firing her was that she failed to purchase new auto inusrance through her new employer, a Farmer's insurance agent.
As far as we know, this is illegal; when she checked with Farmer's they specifically said this was illegal, and that they have no policies requiring employees to purchase all their insurance through their agencies.
In addition to this firing, our girlfriend was verbally abused daily, berated with screaming and yelling when she refused to break the law on a regular basis at the behest of her employer.
Her research showed that if she wrote and sold insurance policies without a license the insurance policies would be legally voided by the company in the event of a claim and she would become personally and fully liable for all damages claimed.
Her employer insisted she write and sell policies on her own, without a license, and abused her when she limited herself to either writing policies or selling policies written by her employer, but not doing both activites concurrently for any one customer, which would break the law as she understands it.
We are grateful that, to the best of our knowledge, this employer has not tricked our girlfriend into breaking the law by having her sell policies written by her unlicensed coworkers that he might have misrepresented to her as his own work.
The previous person to hold our girlfriend's new job was also fired after only one week for not purchasing insurance though this employer.
This employer owns two insurance offices and a restaurant and requires all employees at all three sites to purchase all of their insurance through him or else be terminated.
We desprately needed this job to avoid being evicted from our home. What recourse do we have? We have never particpated in a frivolous lawsuit; we have shunned the law in general because we typically believe it is too frequently abused, so we are uncertain whether we have a right or responsibility to pursuit this matter.
We believe this employer is an abusive bully breaking numerous laws, in addition to putting his employees and clients at risk.
Other issues that appear to be illegal employment conditions include:
Requiring her to sell insurance on her own time, without pay, to her family, friends and neighbors.
Requiring her to clock in early for time that would not be paid before her official start time of 9 AM, and then clean the office until 9 AM without pay.
Requiring her to take her lunch breaks in the office, not allowing her to take a full hour for lunch, and requiring her to work during her lunch break, without pay, if she was needed.
How should we proceed?
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Grigori Rho Gharveyn, aka Roger Holler, Greg Gourdian, etc...
Background:
We share the same employment background as this employer, we both used to work for IBM as IT specialists. Similar unfair employment practices were rife in IBM, which may be why he thinks it is appropriate for him to abuse his own employees the same way we were abused by IBM; he was almost certainly abused by IBM in a similar manner.
Please note, we have no financial resources at this time, our disability income is insufficient to cover our joint expenses without a second income from our girlfriend.
California
Our girlfriend was fired yesterday, June 11th, 2010, near the end of her first week of employment. The reason given for firing her was that she failed to purchase new auto inusrance through her new employer, a Farmer's insurance agent.
As far as we know, this is illegal; when she checked with Farmer's they specifically said this was illegal, and that they have no policies requiring employees to purchase all their insurance through their agencies.
In addition to this firing, our girlfriend was verbally abused daily, berated with screaming and yelling when she refused to break the law on a regular basis at the behest of her employer.
Her research showed that if she wrote and sold insurance policies without a license the insurance policies would be legally voided by the company in the event of a claim and she would become personally and fully liable for all damages claimed.
Her employer insisted she write and sell policies on her own, without a license, and abused her when she limited herself to either writing policies or selling policies written by her employer, but not doing both activites concurrently for any one customer, which would break the law as she understands it.
We are grateful that, to the best of our knowledge, this employer has not tricked our girlfriend into breaking the law by having her sell policies written by her unlicensed coworkers that he might have misrepresented to her as his own work.
The previous person to hold our girlfriend's new job was also fired after only one week for not purchasing insurance though this employer.
This employer owns two insurance offices and a restaurant and requires all employees at all three sites to purchase all of their insurance through him or else be terminated.
We desprately needed this job to avoid being evicted from our home. What recourse do we have? We have never particpated in a frivolous lawsuit; we have shunned the law in general because we typically believe it is too frequently abused, so we are uncertain whether we have a right or responsibility to pursuit this matter.
We believe this employer is an abusive bully breaking numerous laws, in addition to putting his employees and clients at risk.
Other issues that appear to be illegal employment conditions include:
Requiring her to sell insurance on her own time, without pay, to her family, friends and neighbors.
Requiring her to clock in early for time that would not be paid before her official start time of 9 AM, and then clean the office until 9 AM without pay.
Requiring her to take her lunch breaks in the office, not allowing her to take a full hour for lunch, and requiring her to work during her lunch break, without pay, if she was needed.
How should we proceed?
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Grigori Rho Gharveyn, aka Roger Holler, Greg Gourdian, etc...
Background:
We share the same employment background as this employer, we both used to work for IBM as IT specialists. Similar unfair employment practices were rife in IBM, which may be why he thinks it is appropriate for him to abuse his own employees the same way we were abused by IBM; he was almost certainly abused by IBM in a similar manner.
Please note, we have no financial resources at this time, our disability income is insufficient to cover our joint expenses without a second income from our girlfriend.
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