Employer states I can't keep CCW in car

[45guy]

Gun at work

There are several types of lock boxes avable on line (Cabalas has several types on there site) get one and attach under the seat or in the trunk. Keep your gun in there. In most states only the police with a warrant may enter it. I think if your employer demanded access and fired you for refusing you would have a case against them, just like your home. Check with a lawyer for your state.
Be very discreet, do not allow anyone see you put gun in car, be off property when you do.

 

[45guy]

Shut up

Shut up, do not say anything about guns, or related, to your employer or your fellow employees, customers etc. You don't know nothing, you don't say nothing. Shut up!

 

[44 AMP]

Absent specific state laws covering you, your employer can pretty much decide all the rules about workplace conduct and what personal property you can and cannot have in their workplace. Period.

You could even be fired for refusal to tell them, even without their asking. It would depend on interpretation of "worker right to know" laws. As far as I know, it hasn't been tested yet, but based on the fact that ammunition is considered hazardous material (in some circumstances, ex: transportation), it might be that your refusal to inform management (and thereby fellow employees) of the prescence of a "hazadous material" on company property (concievably putting them at risk) would be grounds for termination.

Of course, you can always sue, and maybe, eventually, win. But then again, you might lose. Who you work for, and where you work is a voluntary choice, on your part. You (and all of us) choose to abide by their rules, in exchange for money. Difficult to claim oppression when all you have to do to escape it is...quit.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

A major employer has financial resources that far exceed yours. You would have to sue for real and punititive damages. Depending on the state, there are limits on such.

You would have to find a lawyer willing to take the case on contingency, which would depend if they think there would be a big settlement. They would take about 50-50% of that cash.

Unless, you have some organizational background - saying to just sue and expecting that threat to have impact or you will win is a touch pie in the sky.

The best remedy is legislative - but big business can turn even the 'conservative' gun friendly legislator against you (why - $$$).

 

[TeamSinglestack]

Under what law?

Under our constitution, the 4th amendment in particular!!

The ONLY way an employer can legally search an employee's vehicle is with the consent of the employee. Period.

LEO's are the only one's authorized to conduct a search of property without the consent of the owner, and only after probable cause and, or, a search warrant.

Places that have access control can deny access for search refusal, however, access control must be uniformed in their screening process and non-discriminatory.

But he does have the right to fire you for refusing.

Maybe, maybe not.

An employee that has agreed to allow the employer the privilege to search as grounds for employment could be fired if the employer has made it clear that a failure to comply will be grounds for dismissal. However, not if it wasn't part of the conditions for employment.

Where would it ever end? First they are looking for guns, next, drugs, than bootlegged CD's and on and on...

They can ban anything they want on their property, they can deny access based on trespassing law, but they CAN'T search without consent. The FBI can't do it, and Wal-Mart can't do it either....

Not without facing a civil suit for 4th amendment violations...

 

[Frank Ettin]

Under what law?

Under our constitution, the 4th amendment in particular...

Wrong!

The Constitution regulates the conduct of government. It does not regulate the conduct of private parties.

..They can ban anything they want on their property, they can deny access based on trespassing law, but they CAN'T search without consent...

And it is customary for prudent and well advised employers to provide, in employee handbooks and manuals, and on signage on company parking lots, and frequently on signage at employee entrances, and sometimes even public entrances, to company facilities, that (1) as a condition of employment an employee agrees that the employer may search his work area, bags or containers brought on company premises, and vehicles parked on company property; and (2) that permission to enter onto company property is conditioned on consent to search. Employers who know what they are doing have the consent issue covered.

...Not without facing a civil suit for 4th amendment violations...

But a private employer can not violate the 4th Amendment because his is not subject to the 4th Amendment and has no obligation to comply with the 4th Amendment. The 4th Amendment regulates the conduct of government, not private parties.

 

[qualfang]

CCW in car

If it is concealed, how would they know? They cannot ask to search your vehicle, even if it is on property. Tuck it out of view, b!tch about the stupid policy, and leave it at that.

Except if your have a hoplophobic supervisor / owner, the main reason for that policy would be corporate liability issues.

When i did field service, a we were not allowed to carry any weapon, including a pocketknife in our work vehicles, by the letter of the policy. There were several dozen guys who openly said they carried (concealed) on the job, and it would up being a case of the HR department ignoring what they had just heard.

Writtten policy is what helps protect an entity from litigation, it does not always reflect the personal views.

In the case of a fast food giant, they would be fearful of corporate image if they acknowledged ccw firearm rights.

 

[Frank Ettin]

If it is concealed, how would they know? They cannot ask to search your vehicle, even if it is on property....

[1] If the employer has properly covered himself in the employee manual, he can search your car or fire you for refusing to allow him to search your car.

[2] Sometimes things get discovered. In 2000 three off duty employees of AOL were found with lawfully possessed guns in a parking lot being used by the company? They were fired for violating a "no guns on company property" rule. They sued for wrongful termination. Ultimately, the Utah Supreme Court upheld AOL's firing of the employees, Hanson v. AOL, 96 P.3d 950 (Utah 2004).

So employees have been found with legal guns, fired for legally having guns on property property being used by the employer, and the employer has been upheld in court.

 

[brickeyee]

They cannot ask to search your vehicle, even if it is on property.

Of course they can, you are ON their property.

And they can simply fire you for refusing if they ask an you try to say 'No.'

 

[45guy]

Car Search

Each state is a different case, you will need to research the state where you are. But usually they can not search a locked container with out a warrant. As I said, it depends on the state where the search takes place. Also, it has been ruled that your civil rights are absolute and can not be contracted away. That any contract that calls for this is null and void.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Each state is a different case, you will need to research the state where you are. But usually they can not search a locked container with a warrant. As I said, it depends on the state where the search takes place.

[1] Private parties don't get warrants. A warrant to search is something only an LEO gets. A private party needs consent. If the private party is your employer, he has, if he knows what he is doing, taken care of the consent business with appropriate language in his employment policies, his employee manual and, perhaps, signage on the parking lot.

[2] The employer's policy or employee manual would usually say something to the effect that, as a condition of employment you agree that you will allow the employer to search your work station, any cases or bags you bring onto company property or your vehicle while parked on property used by the company.

[3] If the employer then asks to search your car, and you refuse to permit it, it's true that he probably can't legally break in.

[4] What he can do is fire you for refusing to allow the search. It's also possible that he treat the termination to be for good cause. That might mean, depending on the laws of the state, that you might not be eligible for any severance benefits usually offered by the employer to employees terminated without cause, nor unemployment compensation.

...it has been ruled that your civil rights are absolute and can not be contracted away. That any contract that calls for this is null and void....

Citations please. Note the AOL case cited in post 68.

 

[mack59]

Companies pass policies and for the most part if you don't follow them they may fire you. My previous employer banned smoking on company property and on all the public sidewalks and steets surrounding their building including all parking lots. They also banned all weapons (guns, knives, pepper spray) from all their property and parking lots.

Typically people in maintainence and tech support ignored the knife rule rather openly and routinely. The smoking ban was strictly enforced however and a pattern of smokers being terminated from employment, even if they complied with the rules, seemed to indicate that if you were older or a smoker or had a history of health issues - that you were not long for employment - probably to due with an unofficial/unstated policy of lowering health care costs for the company (some employees caught on and started trying to hide the fact they smoked). The company as part of the terms of employment reserved the right to search any employees car. Personally, if they would have asked me to search my vehicle I would have told them to pound sand and just looked for other employment.

In my personal opinion - companies, especially larger companies though some smaller ones can be the worst, typically will seek to control as much of their employees behavior both on and off the job as possible and will, unless they are sued and lose in some particular area, claim the right to run your life. Most employees take the job, do their job and ignore the rest of the rules - a sizable number are eventually caught violating one or some of the rules and are fired.

Companies of any size are run by lawyers and accountants - lawyers want to limit liabilty and accountants want to maximize profits - so if you are a potential liability or you may cut into profits - then you will be terminated - it doesn't matter how loyal or hard working or honest you are - the bottom line is money. Labor is cheap (helped by millions of illegal immigrants) and therefore few companies bother or worry about staff retention, as there is always someone else who will do the job for less.

 

[Don P]

However, the folks at Disney are challenging that. It seems they fired a security guard that kept his personal weapon in his vehicle and the he is challenging them in court.

Disney was able to skirt the law because of the fireworks the store and use at the park.
The lawyer that was representing him is Jon Gutmacher ESQ. He's a high profile gun lawyer here in FLA

 

[TheJ]

The smoking ban was strictly enforced however and a pattern of smokers being terminated from employment, even if they complied with the rules, seemed to indicate that if you were older or a smoker or had a history of health issues - that you were not long for employment - probably to due with an unofficial/unstated policy of lowering health care costs for the company (some employees caught on and started trying to hide the fact they smoked)...

This sounds a bit overly conspiratorial. Very very few businesses pay medical expenses directly. They may help pay for a third party insurance company to cover people but that is typically all. So finding excuses to terminate smokers simply to lower medical costs doesn't seem that would be very likely.

...Companies of any size are run by lawyers and accountants - lawyers want to limit liabilty and accountants want to maximize profits - so if you are a potential liability or you may cut into profits - then you will be terminated - it doesn't matter how loyal or hard working or honest you are - the bottom line is money. Labor is cheap (helped by millions of illegal immigrants) and therefore few companies bother or worry about staff retention, as there is always someone else who will do the job for less.

Turnover is in fact expensive and very inefficient. So the idea that most businesses don't cared about or even encourage turnover is simply ignorant of the facts. Between recruiting, hiring processes, training and the productivity lost until the new people get up to speed, it is quite expensive. So (contrary to what some may want you to believe) not only is actually taking care of employees the right thing to do but it actually makes good business sense too.

 

[brickeyee]

Under our constitution, the 4th amendment in particular!!

Only if your employer is the government.

The 4th amendment does not apply to private parties, especially on their property.

You must have missed that one in civics class.

But usually they can not search a locked container with out a warrant.

While that applies to the police (in general) it does not apply to private employers, absent a specific state law to the contrary (as have been passed in a number of states).

Without some specif law, you can be fired because it is Saturday and the boss does not like you hair.

It is called 'at will' employment.

 

[JohnKSa]

This sounds a bit overly conspiratorial. Very very few businesses pay medical expenses directly. They may help pay for a third party insurance company to cover people but that is typically all. So finding excuses to terminate smokers simply to lower medical costs doesn't seem that would be very likely.

I don't know how common this is, but my employer self-insures. They have an insurance company administer the program, but the the actual funds for making "insurance" payments to medical providers come directly from the company coffers. I expect that this is only likely to be done when the employer is quite a large company.

 

[Frank Ettin]

I don't know how common this is, but my employer self-insures. They have an insurance company administer the program, but the the actual funds for making "insurance" payments to medical providers come directly from the company coffers. I expect that this is only likely to be done when the employer is quite a large company.

It's actually fairly common, in a variety of forms, with employers having as few as 1,000 (or even 500) employees. Of course, employers toward the smaller end of that range usually work out some form or risk sharing mechanism with the insurance company. There are a lot of reason why these arrangements are popular, but they are rather technical; and we're already wandering far afield.

Suffice it to say that many employers are very much aware of the morbidity risks and the morbidity costs their work forces represent for their medical plans.

 

[mack59]

The smoking ban was strictly enforced however and a pattern of smokers being terminated from employment, even if they complied with the rules, seemed to indicate that if you were older or a smoker or had a history of health issues - that you were not long for employment - probably to due with an unofficial/unstated policy of lowering health care costs for the company (some employees caught on and started trying to hide the fact they smoked)...

"This sounds a bit overly conspiratorial. Very very few businesses pay medical expenses directly. They may help pay for a third party insurance company to cover people but that is typically all. So finding excuses to terminate smokers simply to lower medical costs doesn't seem that would be very likely."

Mid-sized company - self-insured except for catastrophic coverage - so company paid regular medical - and it wasn't just smokers - but also older employees and employees with regular health problems. So I am sure it did save them lots of money. And lots of companies go the self-insured with catastrophic coverage only route.


Quote:
...Companies of any size are run by lawyers and accountants - lawyers want to limit liabilty and accountants want to maximize profits - so if you are a potential liability or you may cut into profits - then you will be terminated - it doesn't matter how loyal or hard working or honest you are - the bottom line is money. Labor is cheap (helped by millions of illegal immigrants) and therefore few companies bother or worry about staff retention, as there is always someone else who will do the job for less.


"Turnover is in fact expensive and very inefficient. So the idea that most businesses don't cared about or even encourage turnover is simply ignorant of the facts. Between recruiting, hiring processes, training and the productivity lost until the new people get up to speed, it is quite expensive. So (contrary to what some may want you to believe) not only is actually taking care of employees the right thing to do but it actually makes good business sense too. "
__________________

Well it may depend on the field or the type of company - but getting rid on higher salary older workers or workers with senority who are up the pay scale and replacing them with new younger hires that can be paid less - seems to have happened where I worked - maybe it wasn't smart (personally I think the quality of service has decline significantly) - but it seems to have worked in the short term for them as they clear more money - when the new director took over the front line staff had between them perhaps 250 years experience working in the field - after 2 and a half years the front line staff has collectively roughly about 25 to 30 years experience. I know the CEO and CFO handpicked that new director and I assume that they took their marching orders from the CEO and CFO and I also assume they did the math and crunched the numbers.

Not a conspiracy, just business. I know the old business model used to be to value experienced employees - but I just don't see that for the most part anymore - companies seem to be much more short term profit focused - perhaps they feel constrained to make any immediate cuts they can due to tight budgets, falling profit margins, and intense competition for dollars.

Sorry this has wandered too far afield - the point is just that employers do under current law have alot of leeway to make policy regarding guns and their possession on their property - the only exception I am aware of - are those states that have passed laws allowing employees to store/keep arms locked in their vehicles in employee parking lots.

 

[dnr1128]

It is called 'at will' employment.

Every company I've worked for, from my first job at McDonalds, to a large oil drilling contractor, has a form in the papers you sign after being hired that states that you are an "at will" employee and can leave at any time and for any reason, and they can terminate you at any time and for any reason. As already stated by several posters, unless you're in a protected class, if you're get fired, you don't have any recourse.

Mid-sized company - self-insured except for catastrophic coverage - so company paid regular medical - and it wasn't just smokers - but also older employees and employees with regular health problems. So I am sure it did save them lots of money. And lots of companies go the self-insured with catastrophic coverage only route.

My company does that. My insurance card has the name and number of an insurance company, and they take care of all administration, but my employer pays the bills.