Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
More and more employers are enforcing non-compete and confidentiality provisions in court, employment lawyer Sara A. Begley told me as she was heading into court Tuesday on a related case. More important, she said, courts are more willing to enforce these types of contracts.
Why? Because of computers. These days so much company information is on computers, so it's much easier to notice if documents, such as trade secrets or customer lists, have been removed. Begley, a partner at ReedSmith's Philadelphia office, said that in the past, judges were reluctant to curtail the ability of a departing employee to make a living absent very specific proof that company information had been taken.
Now that proof is much easier to get, she said, although it may require a computer forensics expert to find it. The economy is also a factor. The recession allowed companies to prune their staffs, retaining the very best they had. That means that each of those remaining employees is potentially more valuable and more worth spending the legal fees necessary to keep them from using company info if they jump ship. Begley usually represents management.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
An employment lawyer and a labor lawyer walk into a bar... OK, that was to lure you in, but I spent some time with Michael D. Jones and John A. DiNome from ReedSmith's Philadelphia office. Both are employment/labor lawyers on the management side and they had some interesting comments about the difference between the two related disciplines.
The difference, Jones explained, is that labor lawyers understand that the "the parties have to live together after the lawyers are done," he said. Unlike the legions of lawyers who handle employment cases, the number of lawyers who work with unions, either on the management side, or on the union side, is relatively small. The lawyers on both sides know each other and face off frequently, often working with the same set of arbitrators over the years. It behooves them all to behave.
On the other hand, the general employment bar is large enough that "it's completely adversarial," he said. "There's a scorched earth policy." Lawyers for both sides are hyper-aggressive, knowing that the chances of them meeting again in the near future are relatively slim. Plus, the cases that need to be settled tend to be once-and-done, and don't require the two sides to communicate much once the case is closed.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
One more story about the state's department of Labor and Industry closing its unemployment compensation service center in Philadelphia... another one that is just replete with irony.
Maybe you saw the story in Wednesday's Inquirer -- the news that 75 or more people who process unemployment claims and answer the phones for the laid off will lose their jobs as of Aug. 15. None of the other eight centers in the state will be closed. The state says unemployment claims are down, which is true. The employees were told that rents are too high at their Northeast Philadelphia offices.
I interviewed Kathy Jellison, who heads the Service Employees International Union Local 668 -- the union that represents many of the state workers in the office. She was in the office Monday when the state government officials made the announcements. She said it was one of the worst closing announcements she has ever seen. Her people, she said, were in shock, truly distressed by what they had heard. That's no surprise.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
The details of Nicole Cogdell's firing are laid out in a lawsuit -- she believes she was fired because, as an African-American, she did not fit the blond-haired, blue-eyed image that the trendy chain Wet Seal wanted for its King of Prussia mall store. When she told me about it last week, there was a small detail that I kept coming back to, even after Frank Kummer and I finished writing about the case in the Inquirer.
"I was told by my district manager that I was being terminated," said Cogdell, who had been transferred to that store as a promotion from her previous store in Springfield, Delaware County. "She was in tears as she was telling me. We worked very hard together."
Imagine having that job. Of course, you can't assume that the allegations in the lawsuit are correct, but if they are, what happens when your company asks you to do something that is patently wrong? Keep in mind that March 2009, when Cogdell was canned, was a time of extremely high unemployment. No wonder the district manager was crying. Cogdell said the district manager was Hispanic.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
The bargaining involved in the Sunoco refinery was unusual for its mutual respect, desire to succeed and level of collaboration, participants said. Two lawyers involved said they had never experienced anything like it in decades of bargaining, and a member of the United Steelworkers Local 10-1's bargaining committee said the negotiations represented the highlight of his union participation.
"This is the most respect we've ever been shown by a company," said Bill "Rock" Rachubinski, 50, of Philadelphia,
The effort by the union and the company to keep the Sunoco's South Philadelphia refinery open saved hundreds of jobs, with the tone at the bargaining table set by Sunoco's new leader, Brian MacDonald, according to the stories written by my colleague Andrew Maykuth. (Click here to read his story about the Sunoco-Carlyle deal). But the company had a willing partner in the union. (Click here to read my story about the union's role.)
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
Philadelphia isn't Silicon Valley in California, or Silicon Alley in New York, but Philly's tech community, Alex Hillman told Technically Philly, should strive to be itself, only better -- with its main strength coming in the cohesive, connected relationships the people in the tech community build with each other.
"The end result of [talent density] is success, ultimately in the fact that it’s really easy to find people who are not just physically proximal to each other but are also increasingly well-connected individuals. People are here to form relationships, not just sit next to each other,” Alex Hillman told the online tech news site. Hillman is co-founder of co-working space Independents Hall that sits at 22 N. 3rd Street.
Click here to read the entire Technically Philly story on Philly's Old City tech community. You can read mine by clicking here, for Sunday's Inquirer piece on the community and here for my Monday Inquirer story on WebLinc, an e-commerce community which also owns the local watering hole, National Mechanics.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
WebLinc, the e-commerce software design company with its offices above the National Mechanics bar on North Third Street is growing so fast that co-founder Darren Hill is worried about keeping the company's funky, relaxed culture intact.
The company has doubled in size in the last few years and now employs 82, with plans to hire more, I learned when I interviewed Hill for a story on the company in Monday's Inquirer. It was a follow-up to my Sunday story on the tech corridor along Third Street.
Here's one company tradition that Hill absolutely plans to maintain. Every Friday at 4 p.m. there's a company meeting. People update each other on their projects and whatever sales initiatives are happening are discussed. But the pressure is on for new employees. Each employee must give a 15-20 minute presentation about himself. "It's become a little bit of a fun process," he said.
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
It's Friday night as I write this and I'm thinking about how great it would be finish up this last bog post with a nice cold Yards IPA. If I worked at Dmg Ctrl L.LC., a tech company in Old City, I'd wander over with my mug (or probably my coffee cup, cleaned, I hope) and pull a draft from the office's newly installed beer fridge.
I met Dmg Ctrl co-founder Jason Allum while reporting on Sunday's Inquirer article on the Third Street tech corridor. Naturally, I had to find out all about the beer, so I asked him why he added a beer keg to his office, especially when so many HR experts advise against drinking on the job. "Number one," he answered. "It's enjoyable. Number two. We have a fairly relaxed atmosphere and number three, if you have a beer at 5 in the afternoon, people tend to stay longer. You have a beer. You mellow out and you don't mind putting in an extra hour or two."
That's important, since Allum's company charges by the hour to do just what its name suggests -- figure out what's going wrong with their client's technology. (We've all been there!)
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
Until recently, Phil Matranga, 23, held the title of "minion" at Dmg Ctrl Ltd., a tech company in Old City. His job description? We turn to the dictionary: "A servile or slavish follower of somebody generally regarded as important." Synonyms: Gofer, assistant, underling."
"We hired people as minions at a reasonable starting salary to run errands and do things for people," explained his boss Dmg Ctrl co-founder Jason Allum. Here's an example: Suppose one of Allum's highly-talented tech folks has to wait at home for the cable guy for three hours. Instead, if the employee agrees, Allum sends the minion to wait. That way, the tech guy can stay in the office and generate billable hours at a much higher return. Picking up dry cleaning? Ask the minion. Need takeout lunch? It's the minion's job. While he did the minion's work, it's doubtful that he was required to be servile or slavish."
So what's in it for the minion? The other definition of minion provides a clue: "A highly favored person." In between Matranga's minion duties, he was assigned to read software manuals and take online courses. Before he started at Dmg Ctrl, Matranga was slinging boxes on a loading dock. Now, Allum said, Matranga, the ex-minion, is "automating quality assurance for iOS and the web using Javascript, Python and other languages." And he knows what that sentence means!
Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
So, who should pay for unemployment benefits? Should employers pay the brunt, as they do now? What about workers? After all, it's an insurance policy for them. How about the unemployed themselves? Maybe if they got a little less, or if fewer of them qualified for benefits, Pennsylvania's fund wouldn't be bleeding red.
Pennsylvania legislators are chewing over this problem now in Harrisburg and you can read my story about it in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Now a little weed-whacking: Employers in Pennsylvania underwrite 93 percent of Pennsylvania's Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund. Ordinarily, it would be 100 percent, but in tough times, there's a provision that kicks in some cash from employees' pay checks. Average annual contribution from employees is $37.
