Workers forced to take unpaid vacations

A lot of the illegals left and went home because of the bad economy.  It isn't those people who are facing unpaid vacations but people who had worked here all their life and if you really think about the option of total unemployment then taking a vacation might not be the best but it sure bets having no job at all.

Many companies are giving their worker the choice that they can take off days without pay.  This let them take off an extra day or two over the holidays as well.  Yes, it take a bite out of your paycheck but it beats no paycheck at all

How about the high end execs, are they taking 2 weeks as well?  The times are tough for everyone but them.

They probably are, but they get paid anyway

take a little time off to save your job?  Sounds like a good idea.

Funny, but even while I am on vacation, I usually work a little bit, and I have never minded.

But, if I'm on unpaid vacation, then I certainly wouldn't work at all, which would mean the first real vacation in years and years.

I would absolutely take a month off without pay to save my job.  I'd have to cut back a lot for a couple of months, but that one month of a real vacation would probably be worth every single minute.

The Japanese to English translation of "Shaka Zulu"  means self righteous, pompous a$$.

Shaka....interesting you would say something about people being with out brains..who would you be refering too? I am sure there are very many smart illegals here now..but..if they are so smart why do they allow so much unlawful people to ruin their own country? If they are so smart why can't they create new jobs in their own country? Rather than come here to get work work why can they not work at making their own country better and safer?

40% of DUKE University's engineering grads were reported to have not found a job last year - thanks to the foreign ones brought in. 

That researcher in the article has a $500 a month bill to repay her tuition.

Less than 30% of Americans graduate from college - many go, few finish. 

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE???  America needs a revamping of the education system and the immigration system needs to be fixed - neither one is working very well.

I'm a California State University Sacramento Electrical Engineering Graduate Student completing my Master's Degree and let me tell you; you are exactly right about the foreign engineers brought in the U.S. under the H1B program. I've been attempting to find a job for the better part of a year and have had NO responses to my resumes. My solution to the problem would be to do what the Doctors and Lawyers do and make EVERY Engineer (no matter what discipline) take the P.E. exam. As you know, to practice Law or Medicine in the U.S. you need to take the BAR Exam or the Medical Licensing Exam. The same requirement should also be applied to Engineers. This way, the actual demand for Engineers could be accurately measured by the number of licenses issued in the United States. This would also make it more difficult for companies that want to exploit cheap foreign labor and depress wages since the P.E. has only a 15% pass rate and you would have to pass the EIT/FE exam first.   

DZ, you are not the only engineer I've heard say this, and it is disturbing to say the least - on many levels.  Not only should American engineers get first dibs, but as a parent paying tuition the thought that a 5+ year education does not necessarily pay off to my kid job-wise is well, infuriating.  There needs to be a reckoning, American employers need to get a grip on reality when hiring, and consumers need to see past saving a few bucks and buying foreign. The exam idea sounds very good.

Best of luck to you with your Masters, being in school is the best thing for young people in these times.  (I wish my kid would go to Sacramento - pretty downtown, but he'll probably end up in Socal.)

good to see free market economics doing so well these days..... oh wait a minute.

6% cut. that's gotta hurt. I really feel for you guys.

DZ have you though of applying this side of the pond. I'm in Transmission & Distribution and the bogus "market" we have in Europe kinda makes us recession proof (ish). Of course you'd need to get chartered at some point, but no rush.

Not too sure about the reasoning behind H1B, or what it is even. But over here some branches of engineering have become decidely un-sexy - T&D being one. We are happy to get anyone qualified.

shaka zulu; fairly arrogant reply when you don't know who I am or what I have worked for and accomplished because you we to college you are more intelligent, anbetter person tnan me? because I work out doors and work a rough job I'll say it like I would fu@k you bit@h

I work full time but we get one day off without pay in a two week period.  That makes for a seventy two hour paycheck.  The last two weeks were unpaid leave.  This September the job moves to another state.

The business that I own (seperate) will continue on as it has for the last thirty six years.

I am allready applying for another job.

Many at the Company where I work will just be @!$%# out of luck.

Keep trying and Happy New Year!

Rick..to a degree you are right...in some lazy folks..but consider that our own government has give away programs all over the place....too many are allowed to collect money for doing nothing. 

However ,l makes me wonder just how much cut the CEO's will take if any?

How about our Flippin Politicians taking cuts in pay and Healthcare, How about taking lazy fu-ks off of Welfare, How about all CEO's taking cuts..Crap they always want the middle class to take all of the burden and pay all of the taxes...WE as LEGAL AMERICAN TAXPAYERS need a break...

Just put everyone on salary, then instead of having people take days off, you can just dock them the 8 hours and have them come in anyway. 

If things get tighter you can dock them 16 hours and have them come into work anyway.

I am getting paid for 12 hours a week now, but it is still better than nothing.

 Nope.  Place a bounty on their American employers.  That ought to fix the illegal problem really quick.

Wildwonderful, sending the illegals back home can't work. Remember the U.S government is broke, very broke, now enforcing deportations  requires lots of money which government doesn't have. And we can't borrow anymore from the chinese since they have realised they will never be paid their money back - Anyway i have read in media that some Texas detention centers sometimes set illegals free, no place and resources to retain them. Now with Mr BO coming in office, i have a feeling that all illegals will be granted status. I think the other argument with the whole illegal immigration is that, the jobs they do most if not all american born folks dont want to do them. And also some employers will agree with me that most of these illegals have an excellent work ethic, come on time, very efficient and reliable, not like some americans who would fake sick-days, jump from one job to another, ask for more pay than what they deserve etc..

Bottom line. Go to school, get a great education in "real stuff" or "real hard courses" that are promising - i suggest healthcare, engineering and sciences. Business Ad, Pysc, Sociology, Arts, American Idol studies/Women studies etc.... don't cut it, you will end up at McDonalds at the end. Again you need a great background right from HS, remember we foreigners if we can do it despite all odds against us, sure you can.

A "great education" is no guarantee of a good job, only a guarantee of a large student loan payment.

deporting all the illegals would just make things worse! We have the same issues in the UK with the right wing @!$%#ing about eastern europeans, coming over here taking our jobs. blah blah blah blah.

They are doing all the jobs no one here wants. And at piss-take wages that no one indiginous could afford to take. But without them, produce costs would soar. It is possible that illegals are being exploited soley by their employers, but I think if you looked real close you'd see that it goes a bit deeper than that. theres a whole black ECONOMY going on.

How is 40,000/yr double the median income? You better check your facts...

The median income per person in the average household is $26,036. Her income is still well above it. I still have a hard time feeling sorry for her.

Hey, if she doesn't like it, spend the two weeks looking for a new job.  That will put things in their proper perspective.

Since when do we import illegals?  How does one get imported? Some flaws in your thinking big guy...................

Pepster, please don't be so simple.  You enact unenforced policies and laws, make it well known that you do not enforce them, offer amnesty to illegals that give them permanent residency, make their children born on U.S. soil immediate citizens like no other country on Earth, etc. etc.  Just create the right cllimate, "Build it and they will come".  That's how you import illegals.

Who are the chosen elite in this so called conspiracy?

pep - the crooked employers, who take advantage of these illegal serfs and of Americans, artificially depressing wages.  Last year alone, 3 big INS raids happened in MS, IA, and SC, 600, 400 and 400+ illegal workers busted, but at least in Iowa they arrested the management and HR.

I am very aware of that, it happened in Colorado also.  Packing plants used to pay 19.00 an hour w/ benefits ten years ago.  Now they pay 9.00 w/no benefits.  And you get what you pay for...........e-coli, Hep, from workers that could care less about cleanliness.  I just don't see the conspiracy he is talking about.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now does not apply for nor does it receive any federal grants.

ACORN has had contracts with other nonprofit organizations to perform work on projects which received federal grant support. For example, ACORN has received contracts to:

• Identify families eligible to receive food stamps and assist them to apply.
• Identify homeowners facing foreclosure and deliver them for housing counseling and loss mitigation services.
• Provide lead paint remediation services to households with children living in older neighborhoods.

The contracts that ACORN receives on these projects are for delivering specific activities, all of which are tax-exempt qualified in accordance with federal grant guidelines. No payments are received until work product has been delivered.

None of ACORN's contracts to perform work on projects receiving federal grant money has provided funding for voter registration.

http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=17857&tx_irfaq_pi1[showUid]=161&tx_irfaq_pi1[back]=P2lkPTE3ODU3&cHash=3b5f677fec

You need to get your facts straight before you present your argument.

The number of foreign engineers is getting very large.  They are well educated and here to take your job.  They are unlikely to be illegal though.  Your government wants them here to compete with you.

I've had some Engineering students from India in some of my under-grad and grad courses, and they weren't anymore talented than the U.S. born students in my courses. They are more likely to cheat on exams and work together on individual projects than the other students. They also somehow obtained exams from previous semesters and distributed the material among themselves. In one particular instance, I caught one cheating on the final exam. I confronted the person in question about the incident and gave him the choice of either turning himself in or I would report him to my professor and the Dean's Office. I later found out (confirmed with the instructor) that he received an F for the course. My point is that the foreign engineers are no more "talented" than U.S. engineers. I think the government allows for the abuses in the H1B VISA program because of what PartysOver mentioned about the federal income tax the government will end up keeping and bribes from lobbyist groups like the Chamber of Commerce who want cheap labor readily available. At any rate, if EVERY Engineer in the U.S. had to take and pass the P.E. Exam to practice engineering in the U.S., we would see if the foreigners are indeed more talented since the P.E. has a pass rate of 15%. That's worse than the BAR and  the Medical Licensing Exam.  

you cant expect all the politicians to spend their own money while buggering things up for you :D

In the US you have the best politicians that money can buy! and you never need to worry about them being outsourced.

The depression has set into you already, that is obvious.  You are a "half-empty glass" person, and that is not the attitude that is needed to build up.  We live in a country of 700 million - mostly smart - people.  Thinking dooms' day scenario isn't going to help us.  Food, Guns and Ammo are going to run out in your 'secure living arrangement".

Food and secure living arrangements is what we all need.  And that is something that we need to focus on.  I know that the upcoming government is.

On top of what you say here, of course remains the question on how many employers have shoved some of their workers on the street with the remark that their work wasn't good enough.  With that remark of the let-go, the employer will not be charged with UI payments through the state, as the person who was put on the street will have no right to claim UI benefits.

Let me see, UNIONS had nothing to do with the Big Three or any of their problems?  Unions are like holidays they too need to come and go.   Unions take  fees from employees (Manditory) and dont' do sh*t for it.  They do not represent the employees as they once did, and they need to realize, we the consumer can not afford the insane benefits they fight for. 

Union won't help much when the company goes bankrupt.

if the company goes bankrupt its because managment ran it into the ground and pissed away money chasing big oil not what consumers wanted,

its not because of having to pay fair wages.

Having worked in both union and non-union facilities, I think shops run smoother. The union members work better together because they know there is a fair system in place for them to fall back to if needed. Job postings, work shifts, and overtime are all done by seniority not by whom the boss likes the most. There are still plenty of good reasons to have a union in a work place.

Syd,  That is exactly right! The Unions   When they started, got the workers a decent wage, Ins. and decent working conditions. THAT is where their VALUE stopped. Since then, they have jacked up wages, which was good for  THOSE workers, but it caused prices to skyrocket on their product, so the people out here in the real world, can't afford them. Hence, they have priced themselves out of a market. This is in the Big Three.

  Now the unions just sit there and take the workers money. For doing what? Nothing! Absolutely NOTHING!!!!!

Unions are going under everywhere. As they should. They are no longer needed.

Could the workers not have banded together and bought the company? It's been done before.

Are they still in business?

Yes, you may be doing business with them when you book travel!  The new owners belong to a private equity group owned by The Blackstone Group of New York.

That amount is a small amount compaired tp the government bailouts for the banks and auto industry.  This would be a better solution.  The employees are usually the ones that know how to actually make the money.    

Are you actually suggesting that professors, researchers and educators are not required @GK?  Or did you just feel the need to place a posting before you went to watch your local hockey-game?

Researchers and educators pave the way for our future, and offer us a glimpse of our history.  Professors permeate their brains with knowlegde; knowledge they want to share through their writings, postings, editorials and public appearances.  They appear in guest colleges to share their knowledge, giving younger minds the chance of picking up pieces and learn even more through their own research.

Preparing class presentations and grading isn't work, it is stuff that needs to be done.  Students, at least the serious ones, don't care about the time you spend on grading their paper... they care about what you teach them, and how you teach it.  And a serious student can have his/her grade lifted from a D to a C (54% to 56%) by expressing interest in the class, participating in class, and having heart for the subject they study.

Students should care about the time you spend grading their papers, and the correct answers on tests, because that tells them how much they learned.

No @Trying, the students should be bothered with looking up the answers to correct their own tests, to assert how much they absorbed of the material.

I am holding a final in my hands, I know that the teacher said that almost the entire class got the answer to number 2 wrong, and I did also, according to the teacher. 

I got a 91 on a 100 question test so that means I that I had 9 wrong answers. 

For any good student that is unacceptable. 

If the problem is semantics I need to understand what the difference is between answer B and answer D that makes B the correct answer and D the wrong answer. 

Looking up answers in the textbooks only offers me the opportunity to prove that my answers were correct, not that the teacher's answers were wrong.

It's odd that Reps want to go slow.  Because when the Bushinator was still in full force, and not in his lame duck days, they were all over the checks being sent out to people.

You give people some money, and then you artificially raise the gasprice from $1.90 to $5.50????

What does the speed of an economic stimulus package and the price of gas have to do with this seed on workers taking unpaid vacations?

Eight years of mismanagement @TtfW.  That is what it has to do with it.

The incoming administration is working a lot harder than the outgoing administration has done @jbdaad.  Obama has already scetched out policies - even before taking office-, has surrounded himself with a team of subject specialist for the top of his cabinet, and a whole backup team to boot.  Obama doesn't want workers to take unpaid "vacations".  I don't think Obama 'giggles' at the crap he has been given by his given by his predecessor.

The incoming administration is just another bunch of politicians....just like the last administration was a bunch of politicians....what's your point David Elm? Obama is not the saviour of America, just another rich politician elitist who bought an election, and who will get richer because of his position as POTUS. Why did you vote for someone who burned US flags in college?

http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2008/dec/judicial-watch-announces-list-washingtons-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2008

Here.

even before taking office-, has surrounded himself with a team of subject specialist for the top of his cabinet,