Fired Employee Won’t Give Sheraton a Break Until It Gives One to Workers
The issue is rest.
Victor Butler, 44, of San Diego won’t rest until he’s sure that his ex-colleagues at the Sheraton Harbor Island Hotel are getting their rest breaks.
He’s convinced that Sheraton is thumbing its corporate nose (“just like Leona Helmsley”) at a state labor code that ensures all workers a 10-minute rest break every four hours.
Admittedly, he’s got a grudge against Sheraton:
“It’s very simple: They fired me, so anything I can find against the SOBs, I’ll use.”
Butler was canned in May, 1991, after eight weeks as a $5.85-an-hour switchboard operator at the Sheraton Harbor Island.
The company said it was for non-performance. Butler said it was because of his age and gender, and he beefed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The commission looked at his complaint a bit and decided it was without merit. Butler says they’re a bunch of bleeping bumblers at EEOC.
Butler also complained to the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement of the state Department of Industrial Relations.
After spending considerable time at the law library in downtown San Diego, he had discovered that every employee is entitled to a 10-minute paid break every four hours.
He knew that switchboard operators only got a 15-minute break as a “tack-on” to their lunch break.
The local office of the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement commenced a correspondence with the Sheraton personnel manager. The manager promised to bring Sheraton into conformance with the law.
But Butler says he has the names of employees who’ll swear the old “tack-on” policy is still in effect. He’s steamed that the state won’t launch a major undercover investigation.
A corporate spokesman says that, Butler’s allegation notwithstanding, the company is now doing things correctly, rest-break-wise.
Butler is still jobless. He spends much of his time dogging Sheraton and asking the media and various public officials to do something:
“I’m just as intense, just as mad, as the day I got fired.”
Signs of Political Times
Signs, mayoral signs, everywhere signs (or not).
Peter Navarro accuses the Susan Golding camp of doing some computer hacking to mess up his campaign.
Navarro says his workers have discovered at least 30 phony entries on a computer list of people willing to have a “Navarro for Mayor” sign in their front yards.
The campaign knew something was wrong when people who were listed as friendlies started raising hell about having signs in their yards.
Navarro says the tip-off was that nobody could remember entering those names on the computer list and all 30 or so have incomplete ZIP codes.
“Cheap politics,” says Navarro.
The Golding camp denies any involvement and has its own sad sign story to tell.
The co-owner of the Los Angeles company providing the “Golding for Mayor” signs says an unusually high number are being swiped: about 40%, with the worst-hit areas being Mission Beach, Uptown and East San Diego.
“We anticipated that the (Golding) signs would be coming down, so we instructed our people to place them higher than usual” on trees, poles, etc., says Greg Hummel of Candidates’ Outdoor Graphics Service.
“The Golding signs are still disappearing, which means that some individuals or some organizations are going a long way to bring them down.”
The Navarro camp denies. . . .
Only Half Protected
Look here.
* Backers of Proposition A on the Nov. 3 local ballot, which would provide a half-cent sales tax for law enforcement, are sending out word:
If Proposition A was in effect, there would have been enough money for the Sheriff’s Department to have a second deputy in the van that night and thus prevent Johnaton George from escaping.
* Spare me.
Evelyn and Joe Alemanni of Elfin Forest think the recession has spawned a new style of home decoration.
They note a big ad in San Diego Decorating Magazine for Cliff Mills Design Inc., which promises “functional and ascetic ideas for your home’s exterior and interior.”
