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posted by martyb on Monday April 24 2017, @02:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the quantity-over-quality;-money-before-people dept.

Jessica Goodheart authored a story in Capital & Main (co-published by Slate) which reports:

While SolarCity has been an incredible job engine, for some workers the pace of growth has come at a cost. In lawsuits and interviews, workers allege being denied overtime, meal and bathroom breaks, minimum wages, and complain about managers' inattention to quality and safety.

"At first it was good", [former SolarCity employee George] Estrada remembers. But four years later, after SolarCity had exploded in size, from 2,500 employees to more than 15,000, Estrada quit, disillusioned by what he says was the company's focus on meeting sales goals over workmanship and the well-being of its employees.

[...] The industry also includes smaller regional firms such as Sullivan Solar Power in San Diego, where Estrada went to work after leaving SolarCity. Started in 2004, Sullivan Solar Power built its customer base slowly and aimed at creating a highly trained and well-compensated workforce. Estrada would find a different pace of work there, one that he says has allowed him to focus more care on each customer and to build a future as a skilled electrician, able to find work in any industry.

At SolarCity, crews are provided with "panel pay", a bonus system that incentivizes speed by paying installers for every panel they install if that rate is higher than their hourly wage. According to Estrada, the rapid pace led to leaky roofs when holes drilled to secure the panels weren't properly sealed, requiring return visits after customers complained.

[...] Estrada claims he was asked by supervisors to accept bonuses in exchange for not reporting overtime. Because of the pace of work, he was unable to get time off to be with his family, he says. In 2016, he quit, before the company began laying off workers.

[...] Some workers I interviewed spoke highly of the company, crediting SolarCity with providing ample training and promotion opportunities, generous benefits, as well as a chance to be part of an innovative company on the forefront of the move toward clean energy. One former installer, a graduate of Homeboy Industries' training program, described SolarCity as "the best job I ever had" and is now earning $55,000 a year as an inspector for the company. Kevin Midei, who worked as an installer in Maryland in 2015, and who now runs his own business, says SolarCity is "cool" and "forward-looking," and, he says, in reference to the 2016 layoffs, "like any other young industry," it faces ups and downs.

George Estrada, however, is hardly alone in criticizing SolarCity's employment practices. Ravi Whitworth, another installer, and four other plaintiffs, are seeking class action status in an amended complaint filed in March in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claiming that the company denied them overtime, minimum wages, meal and rest breaks.

The company did not provide its workers access to bathrooms during worktime, requiring them to urinate in bottles or buckets while on the job, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs--installers from various parts of California--claim to represent 2,000 workers at the company.

One of the lawsuit's allegations--that SolarCity failed to compensate installers for travel between jobs--was repeated in another lawsuit by former SolarCity crew leader John Zazueta, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2016.

Zazueta also alleges he was fired by SolarCity after he refused to perform electrical work under conditions he deemed unsafe. His charge echoes Estrada's claim that, when he worked out of the San Diego warehouse, certified electricians "would get fired if they asked too many questions".

Some of the lawsuit allegations are also echoed by "Jake", a Southern California field inspection coordinator for SolarCity who requested that his real name not be used in this article. He confirmed that installers clock out between jobs and also said the company was not always forthcoming with promised wages.

"There's the thing where they promise if you get it done in a certain amount of time, you get this bonus pay, but it never happens", he said.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:34AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:34AM (#499204)

    These illegals and visa abusers are there to do the bidding as an instrument of the capitalist oligarchy. Therefore they can't run around uncontrolled. And to build a future the people of the country needs to have some constructive behavioral patterns and education to contribute with high productivity which many of these categories will not. So either they will drain welfare or pick pocket because they got to eat.

    And there's a reason the elite is elite and not others. Voting them out isn't that simple.

    Another mistake worker enabling politics tend to orchestrate is that one to snuff innovation and people willing to risk their resources on new enterprise. So both needs to be enabled. As soon as someone tries to tell others what to think and do, there's a problem. Be it government, capitalist or ideological brainwash. The result is usually the same given time.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @07:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @07:30PM (#499506)

    Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III just announced that he would be going after those who harbor undocumented people.
    Now, let's see if he actually does that and starts arresting the employers.
    My bet is that it's all bluff and bluster.

    they [mustn't] run around uncontrolled

    "Vher are your papers?"
    Time to Godwin this thread already?

    Communism (the end state of successful Socialism) has no national borders.
    Labor is free to move about as easily as capital is currently free to move about.
    When there is Egalitarianism in the world and there is no longer a Capitalist class (only Workers), all of this "my country, not your county" nonsense becomes moot.

    Step 1: Stop consuming the Oligarchs' drivel.
    Locate some Socialist thinkers and find out what they have to say.
    At first, you will probably be shocked at how logical they are compared to the garbage you've been getting from Lamestream Media.

    constructive behavioral patterns

    Clearly, you have never had any contact with first-generation USAians.
    They're the hardest-working people in the country, family-oriented, and fun-loving.
    (I have heard comedian Ron "Tater Salad" White describe them the same way. That guy is VERY cool.)

    If you tried to do the work those folks do, you wouldn't last a week.

    ...and when they're all gone, just watch what happens to the price of your food.
    These are the people who make that stuff happen--and they get paid peanuts to do it.

    Construction, yard work, housework, food service, hospitality services, child care, elder care, yada, yada, yada; these are the people who get it done--again, for peanuts.
    A USAian whose family has been here multiple generations would never take those jobs--especially not at that wage.

    there's a reason the elite [are] elite

    A poorly educated, easily distracted proletariat consuming Lamestream Media ("Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"); people with malformed amygdalas who are under the delusion that overlords are necessary; and, of course, just plain corruption.

    WRT that last point, we only need 2 things to fix the system for good:
    1) a constitutional amendment for publicly-funded election campaigns
    2) ranked voting.
    Y'know, REAL DEMOCRACY.

    Voting them out isn't that simple

    On his weekly syndicated (Pacifica Radio) program The Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Ralph regularly notes how few people it takes in each congressional district to get things going (3 percent).
    He points to the success of the Tea Party taking over the GOP.

    education

    Amen.
    ...and not just rote memorization and lessons on how to accept flag-waving serfdom, but actual analytical thinking.

    Another mistake worker-enabling politics tend to orchestrate is that one to snuff innovation

    Utter nonsense.
    I often point to Mondragon in the Basque county of Spain.
    It's a cooperative that started in 1956 with 6 worker-owners.
    They have expanded to over 100,000 worker-owners and now have dozens of divisions producing various products.
    They compete with Capitalist operations and regularly eat those guys' lunch, based on superior offerings and superior production methods.
    That you never hear about that is, yet again, a major shortcoming of Lamestream Media.

    and people willing to risk their resources on new enterprise

    Co-ops, spreading the risk over multiple individuals, and having a democratic organization to curb risky ideas and nurture good ideas works very well for Mondragon and the thousands of co-ops in northern Italy.
    You are simply wrong.
    You clearly haven't followed the Marcora Law link and you remain ignorant.

    As soon as someone tries to tell others what to think and do

    Now you're talking about top-down Capitalist Oligarchy which is the opposite of the REAL DEMOCRACY I'm talking about.
    Again, follow the link and become less ignorant.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]