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thats just wrong... f**k circuitcity!

if you earned it they should have 0 right to fire you cause your making to much

A "computer tech" ?

Im from the UK and i dont know anything about circuit city but i thought they were a Electronics Retailer?

I think i answered my own question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firedog

Yes, but they have their own Computer Services brand, called Firedog. It actually covers computer and home entertainment services.

And pyehac, unless she's been there for a LONG time and is making over the cap for her position, she's fine.

Nope does not work that way here, and a lot of states are "at will" states. Meaning if you are about to quit you are expected to give 2 weeks notice, but if they want to fire you at anytime for any reason they can.

Just another big business doing what they do best, stepping over the little guys to please shareholders and increase CEOs pay checks so they can buy another Ferrari or maybe make sure that Little Sarah gets the new Benz she has been wanting for her 16th Birthday. This is the way big business works in America though, and since the big boys have the money to snuggle up with the lawmakers that's the way it will stay.

Sorry to hear that. The UK's employment laws are obviously alot more geared to protect the Employees than they are in the USA.

Exact opposite here which is why companies like Enron could run wild for so long before finally being punished and taken down more of the little guys with them. Big business has the money and the power to lobby the lawmakers, and congressmen. A couple of lobster dinners here, a suprise package with an all inclusive vacation there, and like magic you can do whatever you want.

Can we get Eddie Giffith to make a visit to every CEO and have him drive their car?

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Nope does not work that way here, and a lot of states are "at will" states. Meaning if you are about to quit you are expected to give 2 weeks notice, but if they want to fire you at anytime for any reason they can.
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At will means that you or the employer may termintate at any given time. Of course employers WANT you to give two weeks, but you are in no way obligated to do so.

I'm also from the UK and I can tell you, from personal experience, that the law here is also shxx. I represented someone at an Industrial Tribunal where they paid him off because they didn't like him (technically in the UK I believe it's your job that's made redundant - not you. My friends job was filled by someone else and the company were still running his machine and taking international orders even during the tribunal (which was 9 months after his job was made redundant)). We tore them to shreds in the hearing (had them contradicting each other, blatantly lying and refusing to answer questions). However, what they didn't know was that the tribunal has force of law behind it. It is a bit more informal that a court - but that is what it is, a court. The management were forced to answer the questions we put. Some of them were literally [i]shaking and sweating profusely. Like a court - they were not allowed to hear the testimony of any witness before they testified. Whether their own legal council had made this clear to them or not, I don't know. But they tripped themselves up, lied, cheated (made up documents - and I know that for a fact because the documents were supposedly an annual appraisal showing how badly this worker had done and went back 5 years. I worked for the same employer for 7 years (I'd left the previous year) and I'd never seen or even heard of these appraisals). I could not believe it when the tribunal found in favour of the employer. Another company had done the same thing, got away with it - and this had set a legal precedent The UK has the weakest employee rights in the whole of the EU. I do believe, however, that an employer would have difficulty doing what happened to those poor guys at circuit city - firing people en masse. However, what has happened here is that they sell the business to someone else (conveniently that 'someone else' is also owned by the same people who own the entity being sold) and then the 'new' owners fire the staff. There are so many loopholes - the law is a fuxxing joke. MPs (US equivalents of Senator or Congressmen) are usually rich people with shares in companies and a vested interest in those companies making the biggest possible profit (after their political career is finished they usually sit on boards of directors of these self same companies, doing little more than collecting their pay cheque for lending their name to the company's board of directors). However, I'm afraid this is just human nature - greed. Not all business people are like this, of course, but the majority are.

Lt-David... I would read into employment law in the UK if I were you. If they are making you redundant now, they are not allowed to re-hire for your position for a length of time. If they do, you have grounds to take legal action against them. Even though they are an American company, their UK branches are covered under UK employment laws. Don't let them get away with it.

The work around for that is eliminate the position, create a new position and new title with 99.9 the same tasks.

There's a loophole for everything

I'm not sure he's even talking about the same things. Sounds like he's just being laid off.

I'm assuming that you can't just lower somebody's pay... Otherwise that would have been the smarter move.

You can lower someone's pay. (Wife is CFO and in charge of her office's HR) But if you do that... the person generally will quit or do worse work... they tend to get disenfranchised... aka "why should I put in ANY effort for this money", vs the new employee is happy to get the new job. (theoretically)

As for me, I stopped going to CCity years ago, the sales people were frickin sharks.

Well, then that makes sense as well, though it sucks for the employees.

And they're not going to be sharks anymore... CC is no longer commission-based. In my experience, as I worked there for about 2 and a half years, now that they're not commission-based, they're a hell of a lot better at sales than they were before.

There are people that were fired that made less than 11 dollars an hour! There were poeple who had been with the company for 15 years making less than 15 dollars and hour. There were people in hourly management positions making 17 dollars an hour and having been there over 11 years. Please tell me what incentive someone has to treat the customers well and do a good job. Good luck finding anyone with any knowledge now. They got rid of anyone who had been there for any length of time. Don't be fooled. The big wigs are still bringing in the big bucks. They screwed the people who were dedicaded, hard workers. There weren't many left.

i totally agree. the first thing i thought when i heard this yesterday was "guess i'm not shopping there anymore"

I would agree that there in definitely an anti-worker sentiment in America that is very unsettling... but you'd be hard pressed to find many alternative products & alternative stores if you boycotted all the companies that crapped on their employees.

CCity employee - overpaid compared to the market place, laid off, can re-apply for job at market value.
XYZ employee - underpaid, laid off, has to find entirely new line of work, as XYZ & their competitors are now outsourcing those positions overseas.

I'm definitely not trying to be a Circuit City apologist, because it is indeed a crap move, but looking at recent trends in other areas, CCity doesn't come off as bad imho.

YaddaMe,

This is something we've been seeing in the US for the past 3-4 decades -- corporate loyalty to their employees -- it nolonger exists. The story I saw this morning on GMA was that of a man who had been employed by CCity for 20 years -- 20 years -- yes he should be making 18 an hour and not 10-13. We are talking about adults with families and homes not 17-21 year old kids that still live at home with their parents and have little to no financial responsibility. That is one of the main reasons also that employees are always on the look out for a better position then what they have now because you never know when you're going to be looking for another job -- so in essence even if you are employed -- you NEVER stop looking.

This is indeed the first time I've ever heard of a company laying off people because they are making too much. We were not frequent shoppers at CCity and now I'm going to be an even less frequent shopper -- we only purchase DVDs and music from them anyway -- I can order those online from Amazon.

If they wanted to cut salaries -- how about starting at the stop and work your way down. CCity is practicing what is termed "top-down management" -- where the decisions are handed down from the top.

I don't think it's allowed either.
I never saw a Circuit City in Canada, perhaps they are referring to The Source CC?

yea they are referring to, although the source is a joke as it is. Circuit City bought the name, not the store, InterTan still makes the products. (same products radio shack had but different packaging.)

How dumb are you? You just based a whole country off of a business now i hate my country but your just an idiot!

see post 7

I've worked at places where a given position has a salary cap. When a person reaches it, the response at review time is simple: "You've reached the salary cap, so no matter how good your review, you cannot get a raise." This leads to the people happy with their jobs staying, and those upset by a lack of a further raise going elsewhere on their own. This is Circuit City's own fault for calling it a salary cap and then ignoring it.

Wow, in my area it's completely switched around. I hear nothing but horror stories about working for Best Buy whereas I did enjoy the management at my Circuit City store quite a bit. CC does need to get its act together on employee discounts, but that was the only thing that I heard was better at the Best Buy around here. In fact, before I left the store I worked at got a huge influx of Best Buy people who were ****ed off and wanted to work elsewhere, and they loved it at Circuit City.

It all depends what region of the country we're talking about. In certain areas, Circuit City does better but in most areas, Best Buy is the one that makes the most revenue. Hell, here in New Jersey, Best Buy is planning to open a few more stores in the next year while CompUSA and Circuit City are either closing most stores down or literally rehiring everyone to do cheap labor.

But think about it. When someone gets a job, they have the ambition to work for a raise but what will this move by CC do to job seekers? That if you get hired don't be expecting a raise but you have to work as hard as you can?


Good luck with that, Circuit.

or people won't want a raise cause they'll get fired because they will be considered overpaid

"congratulation johnson, you had a great year. You deserve a 10% raise."

"No thanks, I don't want to get fired for being overpaid"

lol that's pretty much the inside joke now. nobody wants a raise.

aint that the truth! ... it's those greedy executives that are being payed to much! ... damn shame though it seems the higher you go the easier it gets and the more you get paid ... dont make sence to me... if you work hard physically/mentally you should be paid atleast something decent.... which i can bet those "high up exec's" aint working hard (if at all lol) all there doing is working to shaft the employee's while shinning up there image for the shareholders etc etc etc.

+1 (for your comment)

So you would rather have EVERYONE at Circuit City lose their jobs? Why don't you give it some thought and figure out how much it would cost to keep all those underperforming stores open and how much it would cost to save all those jobs. Compare that to what the execs make. Stop making ignorant statements without thinking.

You think people in those executive roles didn't work hard to get there? Think they don't still work hard? They have stockholders to report to, and everyone's jobs depend on them. No pressure, right? I suppose people that work hard to get someplace high and deal with copmplex problems shouldn't be paid any more than anyone else. Come into the real world and put yourself into their shoes before making baseless, classist remarks.

Do you think CEOs just walk into those positions? You can't attract a good CEO and pay them poorly. Business is business no matter where it takes place. If YOU were the CEO of Cricuit City, would YOU take a pay cut to keep a handful fo employees working? Let's say you cut his calary by $200,000. That's about five employees it would save. Where else will all the money come from to keep the staff? Cutting the wages of an executive is a drop in the bucket. Cut execs pay and they will go elsewhere. Replace them with lower-paid, less qualified people and see how far that gets your company. That's called being penny-wise and dollar dumb.
So exactly what does the CEO's earnings have to do with keeping thousands of jobs? Nothing. My guess is that it was stated in the paper to elicit class envy. Again, look at the big picture and start crunching some of these numbers.

"This job would be so much fun if it weren't for the f__king customers."