The Daily Beast
Big Texas corporations demand unpaid storm survivors
The Washington Post / Mark Felix / GettyDALLAS – First, they had to deal with a winter storm nightmare, a historic attack that destroyed their energy, heat, water or all three at once. Now they have to deal with bosses who deny them payment. Company emails and internal text messages obtained by The Daily Beast indicate that dozens of employers in Texas, many of them in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, told people that they were unable to work or work remotely due to loss of electricity during the Winter Storm Uri who must consider lost days as holidays, or else go unpaid. They are also not small businesses. Several major companies are among them, such as Bell Textron Inc. – formerly known as Bell Helicopter – United Ag & Turf, BAE Systems and the city of Dallas itself. And the workers are boiling. ‘People are greedy’: absurd electrical bills aggressive Texans “We are forced to use holidays on stormy days, when there was no heating or WiFi, or I can lose money and get paid,” said a Bell Helicopter employee, who , like other workers cited in this story the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, he told The Daily Beast. “I am disappointed and nervous about next year,” said the worker, adding: “Even though I am a salaried employee, I am a beginner and any knock on my income will put me on the street – and that is scary.” or e-mail requesting comments, but e-mails sent by management and reviewed by The Daily Beast have made the policy clear: “Employees unable to fully devote their time and attention to the company’s business due to current Conditions must use the PTO available, vacations or flexible holidays if they wish to be paid today. Otherwise, employees who do not have remaining PTO, vacations or flexible holiday hours or do not wish to use the unused PTO, vacations or flexible holiday hours will not be paid today, ” read an email sent last week by Bell’s executive management. The worker told the Daily Beast that Bell’s premises were closed all week, but that at one point they couldn’t they continued to access the VPN – a “virtual private network” that allows access to the company’s systems – meaning that many Bell employees were unable to work from home even when they had electricity. Executives at United Ag & Turf – a John Deere equipment dealer – and managers at BAE Systems – a British multinational arms, security and aerospace company – sent similar messages. But they also allowed employees to effectively borrow paid leave, which would come out of their quotas or future payments, according to emails analyzed by The Daily Beast. Some employees did not like the offer. “[I] I just felt that people should know. It’s not right, ”a BAE Systems employee told The Daily Beast. A BAE Systems spokesman told The Daily Beast: “As hired by the government, there are regulations that we must follow for the work charged to our employees. Last week’s events are unusual and we are working with employees to learn how to properly handle times when they were unable to work. In addition, we have activated our Immediate Response Program to support our colleagues and provide financial assistance to affected employees and their families. they were even told that they should take responsibility for maintaining a balance of free time should such events occur in the future. This is despite Winter Storm Uri and the associated energy crisis being “the biggest insurance claim event in Texas history”. “To be prepared for circumstances like this in the future, each employee must manage their PTO and be encouraged to always maintain a balance for unexpected situations, such as health problems and bad weather. Such assistance will not be offered in the future, ”said an email from United Ag & Turf’s executive management. United Ag & Turf did not respond to a request for comment. “I feel angry. They could have said anything and got well. They could have paid people for the canceled days and looked like heroes. Instead, they chose to add insult to injury,” said a worker at United Ag & Turf. For-profit employers are not the only ones who told their employees that they should use their vacation days, even some government employees were affected: an email sent to the Dallas city library department told employees to use the time off for lost work. The veracity of the email was confirmed by a Dallas City Council member, Adam Bazaldua, as well as a city communications representative, Catherine Cuellar. “It is really disheartening that HR (which worked entirely at home last year, by the way) just decide whether people will be paid or not, ”said a city official. ‘This is a crazy nightmare’: Mom recounts the last moments with her three children who died in Texas Power outage, Cuellar told the Daily Beast that for those who don’t have time paid off, they can “buy time within the payment period. “or apply for paid emergency administrative leave. “Nobody can ‘just decide’ anything; we have processes and levels of responsibility for taxpayer dollars,” she said. it becomes an issue at the federal government level whether payment to the administrative emergency worker was a necessary expense during the weather event, “added Cuellar.” That has been the city’s policy for emergency climate-related payments for a decade, ”she said. When asked if the policy could be changed to cover all employees, Cuellar said things would be handled on a case-by-case basis. Austin Kaplan, an Austin-based labor lawyer, described these situations as a consequence of a lack of adequate labor protections in a state with notoriously weak safeguards for workers. “There is no requirement in Texas for people to pay for vacations. There is simply no safety net or anything, ”Kaplan told the Daily Beast. This means that it is entirely up to employers to decide how to deal with the consequences. Some, like Cisco, not only paid their employees for lost days, but also offered offices as a shelter and sent resources to support mental health. But it looks like they are in the minority. And with no clear sign of government action – Gov. Greg Abbott has suggested relief for workers facing sky-high electricity bills, but little else – they seem to be on their own. “In my opinion, the state that disconnected the power grid should be the payer,” said Kaplan. Read more in The Daily Beast. Do you have a tip? Submit to the Daily Beast here. Get our top news in your inbox every day. Subscribe now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. To know more.