The “Penny Pincher” gets sued for retaliation — an update on a 2021 Worst Employer finalist

A OK Walker Autoworks and its owner, Miles Walker, a 2021 Worst Employer finalist, finished dead last in last year's voting, garnering only 7% of the total weighted vote. They may win the prize after all, however. The Department of Labor just filed a lawsuit against the auto repair shop and its owner for retaliation under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Announcing The Worst Employer of 2021 🏆

The ballots have been cast. The votes have been tabulated. The results have been certified. It's now my honor to announce the Worst Employer of 2021.

VOTE for The Worst Employer of 2021

Today is the day you’ve waited for all year. I’ve made my list. I’ve checked it twice. It’s voting day for The Worst Employer of 2021.

Here’s how voting will work. I’ve culled my list of 15 nominees down to the worst 8. To vote, you’ll rank the 8 finalists from 1 (the worst) to 8 (the least worst). Please rank all 8, because every point counts in the final results. The employer with the most points wins (or loses, depending on your perspective).

The polls are now open, and will remain open until 11:45 pm on Monday, December 20. I’ll then tally the vote, certify the results, and announce this year’s winner on December 22.

Click here to vote: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RW7PR82

Follow this link for a refresher on this year’s 8 nominees. The ballot also contains hyperlinks back to the original nominating posts.

Happy voting, and good luck to all of the nominees. May the worst employer win!

The 15th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the (Not) Better Boss

A little over a week ago Better.com — a digital mortgage lender that Forbes.com recently called a $7.7 billion Unicorn — received a $750 million cash infusion from investors. Two days ago its CEO, Vishal Garg, gathered 909 of the company's employees (nine percent of its total workforce) via Zoom and let them know that their services were no longer needed.

The 14th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the Singing Supervisor

You can tell by the smell that your girl's not doing well when the end of the month rolls along. You can tell by the stink that your girl's not in the pink when the end of the month rolls along.

That's the first verse of a song Brian Mamott, an employee in the Village of Lancaster, New York's, Department of Public Works, sang to his co-workers during a July 15, 2021, workplace meeting. And that's the least offensive part of the song. According to WGRZ (which obtained a video recording of the performance), the remainder of the two-minute ditty included verses, "about women being 'bitchy' during their period and about sex acts with women while they're menstruating."

The 13th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the Abortion Forcer

I literally have no words for this, the 13th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2021. Here's the headline, from NBC News:

D.C. assistant police chief says she was told to

'have an abortion or be fired'

The 12th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the Pregnancy Prognosticator

If I know one thing, and only one thing, as a man (okay, two things) it's these: NEVER joke about a woman's weight and never ask a woman if she's pregnant. The former will never end well. The latter may end with a lovely conversation about her impending bouncing bundle of joy and the perils of newfound parenthood. But it's also just as likely, if not more so, to end in tears and embarrassment.

An employer in the UK just learned these lessons the hard way, and earned my 12th nomination as the Worst Employer of 2021.

Shredding documents during litigation is a bad, bad idea (a “Worst Employer" nominee update)

Activision Blizzard was my 11th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2021. Among the alleged sins that earned its nomination — a key software developer named the hotel suite he'd use to groom female subordinates "The Cosby Suite."

The hits for this employer just keep on coming. The State of California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which is actively investigating Activision Blizzard for having a pervasive culture of harassment and abuse toward its female employees, now accuses the company of shredding documents relevant to the investigation.

The 11th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the Cosby Suite

If you're my age, when you hear the name Activision you think of games like Kaboom!, Pitfall!, and the Atari 2600. If you're younger you might think of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or Call of Duty. No matter your age, after you read this lawsuit, you'll only be able to think, "OMG, what the hell is wrong with them?!"

According to the lawsuit the State of California is bringing against Activision Blizzard, "During a company event … [key World of Warcarft developer Alex] Afrasiabi would hit on female employees, telling [them] he wanted to marry them, attempting to kiss them, and putting his arms around them. This was in plain view of other male employees, including supervisors, who had to intervene and pull him off female employees. Afrasiabi was so known to engage in harassment of females that his suite was nicknamed the 'Cosby Suite' after alleged rapist Bill Cosby."

The 10th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the transphobic terminator

Kimberly Grinage was born male but identifies as a transgender woman. That fact presented a huge problem for her during her employment at an Extended Stay America property, as she alleges in her lawsuit. She claims that her Christian manager fired her specifically because he did not want a transgender woman working for him.

The 9th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the enslaving employer

Today, a break from talking about the CDC and masks (but more tomorrow) to bring you a truly awful nominee for the Worst Employer of 2021.

For the past two years, a human trafficker or enslaver hoisted the "Worst Employer" trophy at year's end. Will 2021 bring us a threepeat?

NBC News reports on a strong contender:

The FBI was at a massive Hindu temple in New Jersey on Tuesday that has been accused in a lawsuit of luring Indian men from marginalized communities to the U.S. and forcing them to work nearly 90 hours a week for around $1 an hour.

The 8th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the vaccine vetoer

In a stunning show of ignorance, a Miami, Florida, private school has informed its staff that because the Covid-19 vaccine poses a health risk to those in close proximity to those who have been vaccinated, those who have already received the vaccine must physically distance from students and anyone vaccinated will not be permitted to return to work after the summer break. 

The 7th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the penny pincher

The law of every state I can think of requires that an employer timely provide a departed employee with his or her last paycheck. I know of no law that says how that final payment must be paid. There should be a law, however, that prohibits an employer from doing so by dumping a pile of oily pennies in someone's driveway.

That's exactly what happened to Andreas Flatens, who quit his job at A OK Walker Luxury Auto Shop because of the toxic work environment created by its owner, Miles Walker. He claims Walker then left his final paycheck of $1,000 (that's 100,000 pennies) in front of his home in pennies covered in some oily substance.

The 6th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the deportation threatener

Full disclosure — I love Tate's Bake Shop's gluten free cookies. Prior to gluten free Oreos hitting supermarket shelves (I dare you to tell them apart from their full-glutened sibling), I bought Tate's gluten free chocolate chip cookies all of the time. The allegations raised by this story, however, gives me great pause in ever buying their cookies again. 

It seems that Tate's is in the middle of a union organizing campaign and the baker is alleged to have threatened with deportation undocumented workers who support the union.

The 5th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the safety ignorer

Nine days before Christmas, one of my neighbors posted the following on my community's Facebook page.

Any prayer warriors on here, please keep the roofer who just fell off one of the townhouses in your prayers. It doesn't look like he's moving. So so sad 😢.

Courtesy of OSHA, we now know exactly what happened. In addition to being completely tragic, it was also 100 percent avoidable. A local roofing company sent a 14-year-old boy up on a three-story roof with absolutely no fall protection equipment and then tried to cover it up after he fell. 

The 4th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the socially distant mass discharger

Repeat after me. Thou shalt only fire people in person, and never by phone call, email, or text message. If, because of COVID-19, you absolutely must fire someone by Zoom, at least have the decency to turn on your camera and mic.

Apparently, the Washington Football Team did not receive this memo. It just mass fired its entire staff of cheerleaders via Zoom, with the camera and mic turned off.

The 3rd nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the pregnant pauser

Pregnancy discrimination has been illegal for at least 43 years. You'd think employers would know better. You'd also lose a lot of bets if you bet against the ignorance of some employers. 

Meet Awon Phie LLC, which operates a Holiday Inn Express in Corpus Chrisi, Texas, our third nominee for the "Worst Employer of 2021." How did it earn its nomination? According to a lawsuit the EEOC filed against it, three weeks after hiring an employee to work as a housekeeper, the company's operations manager, noticing her stomach, told her she was a "liability" because of her pregnancy, that she couldn't employ a pregnant woman, and fired her.

The 2nd nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the stillbirthing leave spurner

When I close out this contest at the end of each year I ask myself, "Jon, will you be able to find sufficiently awful nominees for the next year?" Each year answers this question with a resounding yes. 2021 is no exception.

I bring you the District of Columbia Public Schools, which denied maternity leave to a teacher after she suffered the tragedy of delivering a stillborn baby. 

The 1st nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021" is … the bogus bonus payor

We all felt for Clark Griswold when, instead of his expected year-end bonus, he received a one-year membership to the Jelly of the Month Club (the gift that keeps on giving the whole year). 

Think about Clark's outrage when you read this story, which recently made the rounds (c/o The Verge):

What's the cruelest prank you can make on employees who are struggling during a pandemic when millions of people have lost their jobs or lives? GoDaddy … tried to find out when it sent employees a fake email informing them they'd receive a $650 holiday bonus. …