Cavalcade of Capitalists

Today's list of bottom-feeding private companies and their raggedy-ass ways:

• Family Dollar in Spring Hill, Tennessee: fired employee Kolonie Sims from a $7.00 per hour job for taking time off to travel to Long Beach, Mississippi to rescue her teenage sister and brother after Katrina hit. After coming under blistering exposure in the national media, Family Dollar flip-flopped and offered her her old job back plus pay for her time off. I don't think she should take it. Once media exposure died down, I think Family Dollar would find a way to make things unprofitable for her. If they fired her for taking care of her family, should we expect anything better from them in the future?
• Positronic Industries in Mount Vernon, Missouri: CEO John Gentry fired assembly-line employee Barbara Roberts who took time off to stay at home with her grandchildren after their parents, who were on a business trip, got trapped in New Orleans before Katrina hit. When initially asked about the firing, Gentry rationalized that Positronic Industries had made monetary contributions to the Katrina relief effort. After the media turned up the heat on him, Gentry offered Roberts' job back to her. I received a Positronic press release that made excuses: "the nation has never before experienced a disaster" like Katrina and the company's disaster policies needed to be "updated" to deal with such disasters. It also said that Barbara Roberts has accepted their invitation to take her old job back. They should probably give her a raise for her troubles, too.

One is left to wonder what these swamp rats would have pulled off had the mainstream media not honed spotlights on the mistreatment of their employees.