Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do felons and addicts belong on the same list?
Why do felons belong on a list?
Logically they should not. After all the whole point of the sentence is that what they owe society is payed so they are clean.
This bakery will hire anyone
31–40 of 171 posts
Re: This bakery will hire anyone
#32The lack of second chances we give in America to some of our most unfortunate means that even non-violent offenses can have lifelong consequences. It's shameful.
This isn't about 'second chances'. Employers are picky because they can afford to be.
They will (mostly) always favor Ivy over state school grads, clean record vs. felon, good credit risk vs. applicant that declared bankruptcy ...and so on.
As low economic growth continues, this is only going to get worse. How many middle-aged people do you see working at Target/Wal-Mart now vs. 15 years ago? If you're not highly skilled with a clean record, things are going to be awfully tough for you.
This isn't 'right' or 'wrong', it's just reality.
Re: This bakery will hire anyone
#33I'm increasingly of the opinion that this open-hire practice could give businesses a competitive advantage. With the US having 5% of the world's population but incarcerating 25% of the world's prisoners, we've got a surplus of those deemed unemployable due to past convictions. A person with past convictions will generally be more loyal to the company that hired him vs. someone who isn't systemically punished by the job market. If hiring felons with competitive wages means having a more devoted workforce, then those businesses willing to sidestep punitive screenings might just come out ahead.
Re: This bakery will hire anyone
#34The lack of second chances we give in America to some of our most unfortunate means that even non-violent offenses can have lifelong consequences. It's shameful.
That's how I think about a lot of sentencing. Take sex offenders. After they are let out of prison, they have to register as a sex offender, can only live in certain areas, etc., which is equivalent to a life sentence. We can debate the kind of punishment sex offenders deserve (and don't judge too quickly - urinating in public, statutory rape of a minor 6 months younger than yourself, visiting a prostitute, and even…
> That's how I think about a lot of sentencing. Take sex offenders. After they are let out of prison, they have to register as a sex offender, can only live in certain areas, etc., which is equivalent to a life sentence.
The truth appears to be that the general public is OK with this kind of discrimination. Commit a crime, go to jail, get marked for life. It sucks. Make a dumb mistake when you're 17, and you're screwed.
We need to start doing a better job separating the people we're mad at vs. the people we're scared of. Scaling back drug arrests (especially marijuana) is a step in the right direction.
Re: This bakery will hire anyone
#35I think more employers would do this if firing was easier. It's perhaps counterintuitive that making firing cheap, easy, and without large liabilities could reduce our unemployment rate substantially. We should reduce the risk of employers taking a chance on people.
On a side note, firing an employee in Italy is excruciatingly hard and, as a consequence, it makes for a lower job growth. As the say goes, "It’s easier for me to get rid of my wife than to fire an employee”.
> "Article 18 of the Labor Code, passed in 1970, mandates that after a short probationary period, an employee fired from a company with 15 or more employees can bring a lawsuit challenging the dismissal. If the suit is successful, as is often the case, the employer is forced to rehire the worker and pay back wages and social insurance contributions, as well as a large fine." http://goo.gl/EE9P5e
Re: This bakery will hire anyone
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you both for the courage to post this, and for the link to Johann Hari's article. It is a real eye-opener. (If anyone is tempted to skip it because of the HuffPo link, take my word for it, this is well worth reading.)
Don't skip it because it's HuffPo, skip it because it's Johann Hari. He's a plagiarist and a cyber stalker. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
Yikes, I didn't know that, thanks for pointing it out.
Still, I think it would be a mistake to skip the article because of who wrote it. As I said, it was a real eye-opener for me, and I'm glad I read it.
I'm even glad I bought Hari's book Chasing the Scream. (I didn't even do my usual Kindle free sample, just a one-click purchase on the spot after reading the article, quite unusual for me!)
You did have me worried for a moment, though: do I want to support someone like that?
But he seems to recognize how he screwed up and is trying to make things right, apologizing to the people he mistreated, releasing the audio interviews used in the book, etc.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/02/johann-hari-int...
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/01/26/interview-johann-hari-o...
I too have done some things in the past that I'm ashamed of, and I'm grateful that the people involved forgave me.
Perhaps Hari is a bit like the other people in this discussion and deserves a second chance?
Re: This bakery will hire anyone
#37I think more employers would do this if firing was easier. It's perhaps counterintuitive that making firing cheap, easy, and without large liabilities could reduce our unemployment rate substantially. We should reduce the risk of employers taking a chance on people.
In the US at least, firing is really easy. "any hiring is presumed to be 'at will'; that is, the employer is free to discharge individuals 'for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all,' and the employee is equally free to quit, strike, or otherwise cease work."
Managers are people. I'd imagine there's a fair amount of guilt and shame around firing someone. I also think managers underestimate the damage done by crappy employees, and overestimate the difficulty in replacing people.
Less charitably, people given the power to hire and fire are likely selected for doing what they're told rather than doing what's best for business, so they're probably kinda spineless.
Re: This bakery will hire anyone
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you both for the courage to post this, and for the link to Johann Hari's article. It is a real eye-opener. (If anyone is tempted to skip it because of the HuffPo link, take my word for it, this is well worth reading.)
Don't skip it because it's HuffPo, skip it because it's Johann Hari. He's a plagiarist and a cyber stalker. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
So why should we skip it? Does it make the article invalid?
If he's a liar, I might think differently, but the mistakes you mention seem irrelevant to me.
Re: This bakery will hire anyone
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you both for the courage to post this, and for the link to Johann Hari's article. It is a real eye-opener. (If anyone is tempted to skip it because of the HuffPo link, take my word for it, this is well worth reading.)
Don't skip it because it's HuffPo, skip it because it's Johann Hari. He's a plagiarist and a cyber stalker. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
Do you have any hints that he plagiarised this article or do you follow the principle of "misbehave once, be damned forever"?
Re: This bakery will hire anyone
#40As someone with several drug related felonies on my record, I can do nothing but applaud the efforts of this CEO, although on a different level I wonder if any adult working a minimum wage job isn't living a very bleak existence anyway, and in fact isn't being exploited for having a brain disorder we currently call "addiction" The problem with people who let drugs seriously affect their life is that...they let drugs…
> I wonder if any adult working a minimum wage job isn't living a very bleak existence anyway, and in fact isn't being exploited for having a brain disorder we currently call "addiction"
Assuming you consider 28 years old to be "adult", I can confirm that there are such adults.