A department head's view on the DSA

Firestone Discussion
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So I know the DSA has alot of opposition, but I want to talk about why I support it.

As a department head, a big part of my job is having to deal with disciplinary problems. I don’t really like having to write people up, but it’s part of the job. However, the current employment laws make it extremely difficult to discipline department members who do anything wrong.

Over the past year or so, we’ve had many cases in SCFD that have ended up going to court, or with the threat of going to court. It’s gotten to a point, where we barely can discipline anyone in the department. With that, there’s employees who decide they don’t have to follow our rules, and they know they can get away with it, cause unless every part of the employment laws are met. Most disciplinary cases in SCFD now I have to go to a lawyer to look at everything, and in some cases every word I say to a person in a disciplinary situation is spoon fed to me from a lawyer, cause I know it will most likely go to court. There’s been a few ex employees who have used the employment laws to repeatedly sue us and terrorize the department. So my job has been made ten times harder by all of this and it puts alot of stress on department command when being sued.

Additionally, we’ve seen a real increase in disciplinary issues over the past year, but an increasing amount of them are unable to be resolved by action due to the strict laws on evidence and having to make every problem in the department defendable in court.

Some examples I’ve seen over the past 6 months include, cases where an employee on team was standing outside of a place clearly in Firestone causing problems with his name showing, but since the GUI for FS wasn’t in the picture, his attorney said that it can’t be proven it was in firestone.

Or there was another time where an employee was driving a vehicle doing a violation of some sort, but since his name wasn’t showing, even though his callsign was on the plate and the avatar was visible, we didn’t have proof of evidence for ID either.

Or a more recent case where an employee OC’d someone and we had ID and he was the only one around, but since the video cut out the 2 seconds the person was OC’d, we only were able to discipline the person after getting a confession.

These are just 3 cases, where obviously a person did something, but employment laws got in the way. We also get stuck giving people many many warnings before we can even take action so we can show in court that the person was aware of the wrongdoing.

Letting all these things slide, is not good for a department’s health.

So I think that the courts and laws are being abused by the employees.
I understand alot of your fears that a department head can just go crazy and tyrannical on employees. That is not what I want either, and I believe most departments head won’t.
I agree there should be checks and balances on the departments and heads, and it should lie within the executive branch, rather than a court of law. The court of law’s standard for evidence doesn’t allow common sense as you can see in my examples. If it doesn’t exactly show the offense, even if we have a ton of evidence and common sense shows it’s clear the person did said offense, the court can still strike down the action. So I think the executive branch would better be suited to use more common sense when handling these things, rather than dealing with loopholes in a court of law.

Now things I do agree with the employment act on, I agree that the employee should be notified they are under investigation, I agree that they have the right to be informed why they are under investigation , and I agree they should have freedom of speech, expression, and the right to contest the stuff. I just don’t believe the system we have now with the courts is working and is doing more harm than good.

So in conclusion, I think that the enforcement of laws should be a little less strict, and the contests should be handled either by the executive branches of the state and county gov’t, DPS, or maybe even set up a separate magistrate or court that has less stringent evidence laws, and can make rulings based on common sense rather than every little piece of the puzzle being there.

This is just my experience as a department head and how it appears from a command standpoint.

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As another department head, I agree that the current employment rights make it incredibly difficult to take disciplinary action. Employers should be able to manage their employees, within reason. Maybe the DSA isn’t the final solution but I liked what the DSA offered in terms of staff management.

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It’s very important to hear both sides of the discussion, and I believe you summed up your perspective very nicely. I agree that we must protect our employees while also looking to protect the flip side - the people who provide a job for those employees.

As a private business owner, I’ve come across a few of the same problems department heads like mrzip are facing. In one case, in particular, an employee of ours was dismissed for inflicting drama between my business and another major business in the state. He had served us well but was a pretty consistent source of trouble. Without getting too deep into the details, the courts ruled in favor of my former employee simply because he didn’t use foul language and there wasn’t clear evidence to support that our business was harmed as a result of his actions. Had this situation been resolved through an executive entity (like the Department of Commerce) instead of the courts, we would have likely had a better outcome since there were no “nitty-gritty” court rules, just a plain situation that could be solved mutually. In no way am I upset with the court’s ruling - I believe it was fairly ruled and sets a good precedent for future employees - I honestly believe there can be a better way to protect both employees and employers at the same time without compromising one or the other.

I have a lot of respect for the people who are tackling this problem head-first with the intention of making Firestone a more enjoyable community. This isn’t a black and white issue and there are a lot of factors to weigh.

For my business specifically, I’d like to have the ability to take action when employees are harming the positive workplace containing both other employees and customers without the fear of being sued. Remaining sustainable as a business already consumes enough resources and handling a court case that lasts 2 weeks just adds another boulder to the backpack. These issues shouldn’t have to go to court, they should be structured in a way where a business and their employee can come to a resolution much easier and quicker without as many destructive ripples in the water. I’m all for protecting my employees to the highest level I can, as long as I am able to receive the same protection against an employee who may not share the same moral intentions.

If all else fails - how about we just all get along? Let’s work harder to put petty disagreements over a Roblox job behind us and enjoy our time together. This is one thing we can all improve on regardless of what you believe regarding employment rights.

That’s the stance of a Firestone business owner on employment rights. Happy to hear opinions.

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i also agree as a department head. it is hard to discipline people.

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i comment as a not department head.

employment rights help stop a tyrranical department head or tyrranical EB from being a dick to their employees.

there will be times where they can obstruct dept heads but for the greater good, it’s better that they stay.

however employment rights should be adjusted to make them easier and clearer to follow

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just issue punishments and hire an attorney lol. at worst you have to rehire someone you terminated :man_shrugging:

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As a former Department Head and a person who works within the Law Enforcement Agency’s of this great state

I agree

That Lil Nas x Invented Country Music

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I agree with most points you make here. Employees continually abuse the current employment rights to get away with pretty much anything. An employee within SCSO who does this to get away with unacceptable conduct on duty became involved in a disciplinary investigation on the employer side, due to having a semi-high position in the department, and then expressed how he believed the employment rights sucked because it basically doesn’t allow employers to take action in some cases and wastes a lot of time.
I do not, however, think that the DSA is a great solution to the issues. It does have quite a few flaws and downsides on its own. If these flaws can be fixed and a good balance between granting employees rights and allowing the employers to take action can be found, I’d immediately support such a bill.

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it’s not hard to follow employment rights…

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its ONLY the department heads that support this. it gives UNREGULATED access to fuck with our rights to department heads. Its a terrible idea.

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Employment rights aren’t the thing that makes stuff like POID required in court- that’s just regular court procedure, criminal or civil case you’re gonna need POID beyond a reasonable doubt, employment rights or no employment rights POID will still be required in court, these rights simply make it so you can’t fuck with an employee behind their back, now I understand maybe some things can be toned down within the rights, but you guys are literally complaining about the fact you need evidence to show someone did what they are accused of and that it was indeed them.

Department heads, I’m sorry you guys could be dismissed by the governor any day for any reason with 0 evidence needing to presented to you, but don’t try and drag us in the same boat as you, with your reputation and popularity as dept heads you could easily find re-employment if you got dismissed, but if we get fired then we basically become “undesirables” for other departments

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There are pros and there are cons with everything. The DSA had it’s pros and it’s cons, as do our current employment rights. When I joined Firestone two years ago, our employment rights were perfectly fine, employees weren’t being mistreated, department heads weren’t being ‘tyrannical’, everyone was happy. As time has gone on, the employment rights have evolved and quite honestly, it’s done more harm than good.

As stated, the employment rights seriously inhibit the ability of the employer to maintain good conduct, professionalism, etc. Department heads have been in the employees shoes, we’ve all gone through the chain of command at one point, working our way to the top. Department heads understand what it is like to be an employee and what it feels like to be mistreated, we’ve all been mistreated. Inhibiting the employers ability to punish those who have involved themselves in misconduct is not the solution. Reversing some of the employment rights would not harm the employee and would make it easier for the employer. You would still have the ability to sue, you would still be free from discrimination, it would just be easier for everyone.

Now, I’m not a department head but I did and still do support the DSA. Maybe the DSA isn’t the solution but reducing some of the restrictions on the employment rights is. No department head has sat down and thought “Let’s fuck with our employees rights and screw them over”. That just doesn’t happen and it won’t happen. If you have a department head that is thinking that, then the Governor that nominated that person has failed. At this point, department heads might as well just let their employees run rampant because it’s nearly impossible to impose punishment now.

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Half of the things inside the employee rights bill aren’t rights. You don’t have a right to know anytime someone says a word about you whether it’s positive or negative. Among other things the bill needs to be removed and replaced with as I’ve said like 45 times 2 separate bills for Private Commerce business and departments. What’s crazy to me is, there’s all this fuss about rights from the legal department, but if I go to them they’ll tell me to make a contract that waves employee rights which is what most departments and businesses do. Kind of funny to me to some degree that it’s that simple to dismiss the “rights” but it is what it is. I hope to be an instrument of change in this overreaching law hopefully we can find a balance between employee and employer.

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its ONLY the employees that support the current employment rights. it gives employees access to fuck with their duties UNREGULATED. The current employment rights are a terrible idea.

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As a former department head, and current deputy department head, I dislike the DSA.

Newsflash: the DA exists, and you can hire legal counsel. It honestly isn’t that hard to discipline people. Also, the DSA would arguably not even apply to you, it would simply remove employment rights, which is very dangerous for any county employee.

However, I agree with some of your points, and to that I say: the DSA is not the solution to the problems.
If we want to find a proper solution, let’s all sit down (employees, department heads, legislators) and discuss the problem, and maybe, maybe, we can find a solution. Then again this is Firestone - when has talking ever solved anything?

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All depends on who you’re trying to talk to.

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Newsflash: the DA doesn’t want 10000 civil employment cases because 1) the DA has better things to do and 2) the DA doesn’t really like employment cases all that much

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  1. its the job that you signed up for, like doing them or not.
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Funny you mention that because, fun fact, those contracts aren’t legally valid! The current law doesn’t permit such to exist, and the SC has ruled that one cannot surrender rights in multiple scenarios.

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wtf bro thats communist

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