So stupid, it has to be our government at work
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Funiture movers as envisioned by the EEOC
A California moving company that uses student athletes as movers is being sued for violating age-discrimination laws.
Meathead Movers, a company that prides itself on using clean-cut youthful workers, is being pursued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The Fresno based business is said to have failed to recruit and hire workers over 40 into positions within the company.Images from their website and social media show movers for the company are all relatively young people who are physically fit.
Employees also compete in the Meathead Olympics in which they compete against each other by assembling and jumping over boxes.
Workers are frequently pictured with biceps, and are seen jogging from a truck to a house when not carrying any furniture.
According to the EEOC, current employees are asked to scour local gyms, colleges and places where they would frequent to pick up new employees.
The agency had started an investigation into the company in 2017 on its own back, and not from a complaint.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the agency and Meathead Movers had attempted to negotiate a settlement in their case.
The outlet reported that the EEOC had wanted around $15 million from the company, before dropping this to $5 million. Meathead Movers offered to settle for $750,000.
Speaking to the WSJ, company owner Aaron Steed said: 'We are 100% open to hiring anyone at any age if they can do the job.
'People love working at Meathead, or they are turned off by how hard it is. You have to move furniture and run to get more.'
Friends of mine and I spent two summers when we were in college working as packers and furniture loaders for a national moving company. Our crew of four 19-20-year-olds (3 from Williams College and myself, the dummy from BC) moved as many as three houses a day, worked 15-20 hour days, and often slept in the warehouse overnight. With time-and-a-half and double-time figured in, we were pocketing about $15 an hour at a time when the minimum wage was $1.75. I made enough in two months to pay for my college discretionary spending during the upcoming year and still take off for a month of backpacking in the Rockies where, thanks to the physical shape I was in after the previous months’ hard labor, I could tote an 80-lb pack up 9,000’ mountains and think it was fun.
That was then; by 40, there was no possible way for me to carry that kind of weight, nor could I have moved two grand pianos and three convertible sofas in a week, let alone in a single day. And I wouldn’t have wanted to if I could, yet the EEOC proposes to fine this company $15 million for not reaching out to 50-year olds. Stupid? No stupider than that other story I posted on earlier this week: The FAA is seeking people suffering from “severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities” to be air traffic controllers.
