ford motor company

Mike Maslanka

i see where ford has changed its rating system---employees got an a,b,c,or d,and if they were rated a c for three years in a row,they got fired...lawsuits arose from those fired,and the system was attacked...here's the question:is it sometimes better to pull a ford instead of fighting to the death...sometimes with clients they will get a lawsuit,and want to go into combat mode---we sometimes counsel--let's see the facts and perhaps just make it right---ask the person to come back to work(sometimes terminations result from people falling though the cracks)...any experiences to share...regards from texas,mike maslanka

Gillian

I think there are two problems. One is the employer who wants to go into attack mode when common sense will say that the problem can be resolved in a better way. The other is that many labor attorneys want to defend because that is what they are trained to do. I think that it is commendable that a labor attorney will counsel a client to resolve a problem at the beginning, rather than doing so when it becomes obvious that losing is on the agenda. I also think that some attorneys will drag things out in the interest of higher billings. Cynical, I suppose, but the opinion is based on serving as an expert witness in over 125 employment cases, for both defense and plaintiff. I see employers who are obviously wrong defending themselves by trying to turn the employee into the problem and plaintiff attorneys who would like to settle but either the employer or the labor attorney want to drag it out. The legal system is adversarial by nature. The Ford Motor Company made a good decision to change their process.