That I understand. Still, those companies have no right for personal invasion. If someone is dumb enough to leave their profile open for viewing or makes ridiculous status updates on Facebook, that's their own damn fault.

 

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Companies will pay as little money as they can get away with in order to get as much value as they can get away with. That's jus good business.


Expecting companies to be decent to employees is stupid. Companies don't succeed by being nice. They succeed by mercilessly exploiting their workers precisely as far as they can get away with just like they would any other resource they have.


As long as companies have more bargaining power than workers (which is always true in a non-unionized system) they will screw over workers any way they can.

Pretty much any job that you can name "in the minimum wage territory" has at least some companies paying over minimum wage.

In fact I'd bet 100% of the jobs you can name.

 

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In such a job, there would not be some lackey asking you for a FB password in an interview. There would be legal contractual agreements and official channels/auditors doing the verification/checking. Further, the company would already know about any FB shenanigans in your background for such a job before the "interview" process.

Companies are doing this now because they can - to bully people who, in a sihtty job market need ANY job...

 

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Of course they don't have the right to force you.

Just say no and walk away.

 

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I'm not sure it's all that blameworthy. When you have 10 applicants for every job you can afford to be picky. Wouldn't you rather have a worker who's not a total moron on facebook? If you hold all the cards, why not try to hire the best of the 10?

You've had some pretty bad luck with companies if that's your impression.

I've worked for 2 like that and neither was as successful for the companies I've worked for that treated employees well.

 

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Have you ever interviewed people?

You're not allowed to ask about all kinds of things during the selection process.

If you're not aware, if someone gets your FB PW, they can request an entire history of everything that's been done on your FB account whether or not it appears on your "wall" or whatever. They can even get PM conversations between you and others that you've deleted...

As for trying to hire the best - if the company needs your FB password to see what you've written on your FB profile, then you're not a moron on FB and know how to set your privacy settings.

If they have a "right" to know what's on your FB page, they also have a right to your personal e-mail accounts and your cell phone and home phone information as well as any other correspondence you've had with anyone ever...

 

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Sometimes the best way to exploit a resource is to husband it.


There is a reason the higher up the chain you get - in general - the better workers get treated. Skilled workers are a valuable asset, like fancy machinery. You don't see companies kicking their fancy machinery around either or failing to do routine repairs.


Unskilled labor is like raw ingredients. No one gives a crap about taking care of a pile of sand. There's plenty more where it came from.

They don't have a right to any of it. They do have a right to ask if they want.

I'm in favor of taking away that right for positions below some reasonable dollar value.

 

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