Satire: Does Your Company have an Affirmative Inaction Program?

If so, there's a problem.

Affirmative inactionPhoto byCartoon by Lambert-King

Many companies I’ve worked for have policies, written or otherwise that aren’t right. Did they know they weren’t right? Yes. Were they going to do anything about it? No.

The term affirmative action implies a course of action that isn’t right is going to be corrected by positive action. Affirmative inaction indicates a company knows a policy or practice is wrong, they just don’t plan on doing anything about it. We’ll consider some examples.

There should be no doubt that there should be equal work for equal pay.

Amazingly, that’s not the way all companies work. If a pay inequity exists, what can a company do? Well, they could chop men’s pay to match that of women’s. I doubt that many guys would like that idea.

While equal work for equal pay sounds great, we all know that's not always the reality. Other factors, including nepotism and cronyism, come into play. What’s the difference between nepotism and cronyism you ask?

Nepotism means an employer is showing favoritism to a relative or someone he feels compelled to show favoritism to. For example, a lazy brother-in-law might be a prime candidate to show nepotism to. The business owner might think the guy is a bum, but to keep peace at home, said bum retains a job and salary he doesn’t deserve.

Cronyism is a situation where the boss or business owner wants to show favoritism to a certain employee based on their relationship. For example, the favored employee might be a drinking buddy or old high school pal.

So how does that work in real life?

I worked for the State of Oklahoma during the 90s and had a grievance. Just a quick overview of how the grievance system worked: There was a three-step process in place. After an employee exhausted those three steps, the employee could then go to the state’s Merit Protection Agency.

On my grievance, the first step decision-maker was the guy I had a grievance with. Strike one.

On to the second step decision-maker. The second step decision-maker was reportedly his drinking buddy. Strike two.

The third step process involved a three-person panel. The panel also decided against me, but there was a caveat. My attorney asked for the original findings of the panel, not the edited one I saw.

The original findings of the panel were more favorable to me.

On to Merit Protection.

Long story short, I got satisfaction in the Merit Protection system. Ultimately, the case resulted in some minor changes to the system. The whole process took two and a half years and was all so unnecessary.

The fact that I worked for a government agency gave me more options than most employees have. Still, that saying you can’t fight city hall” isn’t entirely true. You can win, just be prepared for a battle and decide if it’s worth it or not. Sometimes it is.