TLDR: I ended up working for Badger Daylighting twice: the first time I was laid off due to COVID. Witnessed OSHA violations, contacted the union, was vocal on issues. The second time I was employed there they sent me home early and told me to reach on my way to the office the next day. That turned into almost two months of them stringing me along about coming back in to work and maybe being able to give me hours if I stuck through it.
I've been on this reddit for about a year now so I thought maybe this may be a good place to start? If anyone has any ideas on how to proceed further, I am all ears. At the very least getting it out in a place with likeminded people is helpful in itself.
I'm sorry for the long read. This has been bugging me since my former employer, Badger Daylighting, ghosted me from work near the end of February this year. And its what made me really start to be more of an advocate for Anti-work movements in my life.
For pretence, I'm not using the term “ghosted” as like a cheeky aside for them firing me or anything. Legitimately ghosted as in 2 months of me trying to gather information from my former manager and boss for clarification so I can either:
A) Accept a new job offer if they can no longer keep me employed, or….
B) Know when I could return to my job and plan my finances accordingly.
The backstory:
I started working for my areas branch of Badger Daylighting initially in the beginning of March 2019 till the beginning of April 2022 when COVID lockdowns came into full effect and I was laid off.
The company itself is a Hydorvac contractor, doing construction and infrastructure work. The Operators get contracted out to anything from general trench clean up, city work projects, road construction, etc. To worksites more hazardous like oil refineries, nuclear power plants, bridge construction – any worksite that can result in fatalities if not safe or in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I was a dispatcher that worked in our main office. Prior to being laid off, my manager and I were the only 2 dispatchers, for our 24/7 business that covered our whole state, and half of another near us. Without being too specific on my state, I will say that in general, my state is large
Prior to COVID the workplace was occasionally pretty hostile, with a lot of backstabbing from my manager and abrasive, borderline combative, behavior. I can recall many instances where the workplace would turn extremely political in favor of Trump. My manager, their boss, and other likeminded coworkers would then be very aggressive and combative to myself and other coworkers who didn't agree with their political opinions. I also witnessed a lot of passive aggressive racist comments to other coworkers who were either a POC or supported Obama.
There was instances of when an Operator, within their union rights, would stop work if they deemed the conditions at a worksite unsafe. My manager and boss, regardless of saying they care about safety, would still become irate if an Operator did so. To the point where after, they wouldn't schedule the Operator on the work schedule for a week in retaliation for “being lazy” or “not wanting to make money and work”, as my manager would put it. Things like this happened on many occasions.
When our Safety Rep would step in, and do what they could, it was nothing but extra hostility to other coworkers in our dispatch office which made even going on lunch intolerable. Or talks about the Safety Rep behind their back.
I appreciated that I at least had my own office and was able to just close the door to hide and do my work.
I will say, I don't hold the company to blame for laying me off because of COVID, HOWEVER I do have animosity and issues with how they handled COVID in the first place leading up to me being laid off.
As time went on with COVID coming into my state, my manager and boss refused to take it seriously.
They refused to let me work from home and not be around the Operators who were around the public. My managers reasoning was that I “worked 5 minutes from the office so I shouldn't be concerned with just coming in”. I tried to explain it wasn't due to the drive, but my worry of getting myself or my 3-year-old at the time sick. It didn't matter because it wasn't a “legit concern” because “COVID wasn't as serious as the media made it”.
It was only until myself, a few Operators, and the Safety Rep started becoming more and more vocal about accommodating for COVID that they finally took some action. They decided to allow them to have a zip-lock bag with soap, and a water bottle, in their work truck to wash their hands.
A good week or so later, I was laid off and I do believe that my speaking up is in part of that.
I was given severance and told when lockdown lifted, I would be hired back in my old job position.
In retrospect I'm frustrated with myself that regardless of all that, I kept trying to get in contact to be rehired. I was not in a good living situation during lockdown and was dealing with domestic violence. I was desperately trying anything to find a well paying job to live elsewhere, even if it meant dealing with that place momentarily so my child and I could move somewhere safer. I struggled to get an answer from them, even in regards to trying to get my W-2s for that year.
Welp…
After quarantine lifted, I worked a dead-end job at a call center to try and keep afloat. I was able to move out of my abusive living situation and survive paycheck to paycheck in my own place with my daughter.
Fast forward to November of 2021. I get a text message from my old manager, asking if I would like a similar job description with more hourly pay, better benefits, and the ability to move up in the company. Admittedly I jumped the gun as I was desperate to get out of that call center and into something, I thought, that would provide better for myself and my daughter while I gathered the work experience and found something even better after.
I go in for the initial meeting on what my new job would be. They inform me that Badger isn't permitted to hire anyone for an office position. However, I would be trained as a Field Technician, so the skills I had from working there previously would be used in the as a loophole to be in the office and I could be out in the field as well if they needed. It would be a union job, which I thought would help protect me in the instance of being laid off.
With that I accepted the job offer.
I didn't account that later down the road, they would deny me info to my union every step of the way so I couldn't sign on and receive my benefits.
The first day I was hired in I started assisting the coworker they hired in my old position, which wasn't too big of an issue to do, but it did sit wrong with me at first.
Within my second week I was pulled aside by my manager after talking to an Operator in passing, that I “couldn't let the Operators and other Field Technicians know that I was mainly working in the office as it would cause problems because they were out in the field and I wasn't”. Which was a red flag, but admittedly, I kept quiet as I really needed the paychecks to keep up with rent.
My manager would also try and have me make cheat sheets for Operator testing for hazardous work sites, like those oil refineries, etc. That way, they could skip all the training info and just get badged to be approved to go to the job. I was uncomfortable with doing that and expressed it. I was greeted with passive aggression but it seemed to have been dropped for the time being.
Besides that, the manager them-self would login to the training courses for the Operators, take the test so they didn't have to schedule them out of the field for the day, and give them the badge to be safety compliant in order to go to the jobsite. That was incredibly unsafe and I put in an OSHA report, but I'm not sure if anything ever came of it.
During this I kept asking my manager, my boss, and the dispatcher I worked with for the unions contact information because I wanted my benefits and to talk to them about what was occurring (not that I mentioned that part to them). Every time I was either given an excuse on why they kept forgetting to get me the info, or why I couldn't talk to the Operators about it for fear of “my job security”.
Finally late February of this year comes and Corporate shows up for a meeting at the office. I'm not sure what was discussed but both my manager and their boss sent me home on halfway through that day and said to contact them tomorrow before coming into the office.
For the next week they would respond something to the effect of “oh, we can't have you in yet. Corporate needs to approve and sort out when we can have more scheduled office hours. It's considered Unbillable time. We'll keep you posted”.
That turned into almost 2 months of me going back and forth with my manager and boss about coming back to work. I would ask if I was let go, if I could claim under/unemployment, if they could work me in the field then like they said they would. I was met with either no response or with “we can probably have you in once the weather clears up” or “I know its hard but hang in there”.
I started reaching out to some other coworkers I had the contact info with for our unions information. I hoped the Operators I spoke with spoke up too, but I was finally able to reach the union and inform them. When, what was supposed to be my union rep contacted me, he said since I wasn't signed on there wasn't anything he could do. And considering that I was never used in the field, and that I was just in the office, that his hands were tied.
I feel fortunate that I had savings from my tax returns that I could stay afloat while I looked for another job during all that.
But every time I think about it, it pisses me off.
I hope Badger Daylighting goes bankrupt and closes. I don't know how my branch at least is still in operation. I've contacted OSHA, I talked to the union for them, and I'm not sure what else to do, but I'm really hoping that places gets whats coming to them.