Today In Why We Need Unions

[sabotabby]

Starbucks fires a little person for needing to use a stool or stepladder. (The article uses the term "dwarf," which I understand is Not Cool; correct me if I'm wrong on this.)

What I don't understand, besides why anyone drinks coffee at Starbucks to begin with, is that while there are many disabilities that are invisible at the time of hiring, this barista's disability clearly isn't. So they hired her, knowing how tall she was in comparison to the counter, and then fired her three days later? This seems fucked.

When people rag on about unionized workers, keep in mind that this is the alternative they are proposing, in which people get fired for having a disability and the only recourse is costly, time-consuming lawsuits.

It sounds like El Paso needs the Starbucks Union.

Comments

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

No doubt the manager of the store hired her, and when corporate found out about it they isntructed the manager to fire her. That happaned at a few chain-owned places I've worked, where higher ups order the managers to discharge people.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the regional manager or whomever higher up was thinking "falling off ladder=lawsuit!" which is ridiculous because

1. Other employees don't use ladders?

2. ADA accommodation fail.

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

True; I've been hired by personnel and fired by management before.

In my ensuing lawsuit, of course, I invoked the ADA.

[cdaae.livejournal.com]

2. Yeah, surely this is blatantly illegal? I hope the woman sues.

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

Apparently “dwarf” is current AP style. Um, not that that makes it right, obviously.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered whether there are policies of only hiring tall people at such places, and whether that is allowed or is discriminatory, and whether people working behind bars get stools to stand on. I would need one, and I'm not a dwarf/midget/achondoplasiac/sausage...what is the word? I told my boyfriend and his mental health worker off for saying "midget" the other day (about an old acquaintance who is a person of restricted growth) and they asked what they should say instead.