Company that wanted its workers’ stimulus checks apologizes for ‘ill-advised’ plan

WLNS ^ | Posted: Mar 31, 2020 / 11:58 AM EDT / Updated: Mar 31, 2020 / 11:58 AM EDT | Jody Barr

[Zhang Fei]

I know there's going to be a lot of snark about this company. But for management to resort to these measures suggests that this company is not long for the world. This bug will become the economic equivalent of Armageddon for a lot of companies - the last straw that sends them into receivership.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Not a big surprise. It’s Austin.

[aimhigh]

Always beware of “the greater good”.

[Fido969]

“ImageNet”?

Do they manage your internet image?

[Redcitizen]

Their image on the internet is mud.

[Deaf Smith]

Good chance some federal labor wage laws were violated by their attempt to extort their employees.

[BradyLS]

Pretty ballsy move. How did they imagine it would _not_ come to light?

[Alberta's Child]

I can actually see the company’s point if they were doing this to reduce the amount of money they were paying to employees who have been furloughed and are not working. The optics of this were terrible, because when the story workers made the rounds I had assumed that this was being done to employees who ARE working through this calamity.

[Alberta's Child]

That’s what I assumed at first, but now I’m speculating that wage laws would treat this differently if it was being done to employees who are being temporarily furloughed. If that’s the case, then the company is doing the employees a favor just to keep them on the payroll while they aren’t working.

[Zhang Fei]

[Good chance some federal labor wage laws were violated by their attempt to extort their employees.]

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They are paying people salaries for not working. Most companies are simply forloughing employees - idling them without pay. It’s possible that the alternative, which is about to materialize, is the unpaid furlough that everyone else is doing. No good deed goes unpunished.

[Zhang Fei]

Pretty ballsy move. How did they imagine it would _not_ come to light?

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They are paying people salaries for not working. Most companies are simply forloughing employees - idling them without pay. It’s possible that the alternative, which is about to materialize, is the unpaid furlough that everyone else is doing. No good deed goes unpunished.

[Deaf Smith]

Was “furloughed” stated in any of the previous FR threads?

[Alberta's Child]

It wasn’t. That’s why my initial reaction to this story was that it had to be fake. I didn’t see any legal basis for a company to reduce its compensation to employees for work they had done under an employer-employee relationship. Now, I’m assuming the employees ARE furloughed — so the employer technically doesn’t owe them a penny.

[Slainte]

No, they're copier salesmen.

Here's the CEO's mea culpa- https://news.imagenetconsulting.com/imagenet-consulting-releases-statement-on-covid-19-response.

Interestingly, about a week ago, they kicked off an initiative to assist hospitals by 3D printing medical parts that were in short supply- https://news.imagenetconsulting.com/imagenet-provides-3d-printed-medical-parts-to-hospitals. Oh well, so much for that goodwill.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

They do IT consulting and manage networks. I call utter BS. IT folks are up to their keisters in this setting up people to work from home and managing the office side to allow that work. Big and small companies are using outside IT people like this on a 24/7 basis. Companies like this are working their fingers to the bone at the moment and have no downtime. Business has NEVER been better.

[dragnet2]

I know there's going to be a lot of snark about this company. But for management to resort to these measures suggests that this company is not long for the world.

Too bad...Ya know what they'd say to individuals? "Ya should have saved more and been prepared."

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

PS. I am in that business.

That mea culpa rings hollow. Not a word of truth in it.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

Not a word of truth in what that guy said. It is an IT services company. Our industry is ass over teakettle right now supporting all the work from home stuff.

[ConservaTexan]

Easy question:

What's worse, what this company CONSIDERED or what the Kennedy Center did?

[Deaf Smith]

Even if they are furloughed, they should not be extorted. Do they have a written contract that says they will be brought back to work when this shut down farce ends?