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[BLOCKQUOTE][BR]----------------[BR]On 1/15/2003 7:53:41 AM Hopeful wrote: [BR][BR]WINGNAPRAYER:[BR][BR]AA is ran by Human Resources which are equivalent to a police department's Internal Affairs division....all employees are guilty until proven innocent![BR][BR]And these sea of lawyers you talk about. Not that easy! If you are a union represented employee and action by the company is taken against you, you must exhaust the grievance process all the way up to the System Board Of Adjustment, which is a Governement Mandated Entity. Only until after the SBOA has issued a decision can you now retain legal representation. A lawyer might be reluctant to try to undo what a governement blessed process had decided!----------------[/BLOCKQUOTE][BR][BR]Sorry to tell you, you are in error on some of your statement. No process, union or otherwise, can prevent any employee from exercising their rights under federal law. That includes the use of the EEOC. Your federal employment rights can [EM]not[/EM] be contracted away from you, it's illegal to do so.[BR][BR]Everyone is entitled to legal representation anytime they feel they need it. That includes taking an attorney with you to any meeting generated by the grievance process.[BR][BR]I agree with your statement about corporate human resources departments. AA's HR department's abuse of employees has landed it in more federal lawsuits than any other department. In the Federal District of Southern Florida alone, more than 50 employees filed suit against AA last year due to at least partially in part....their mis-treatment by Human Resources.[BR][BR]On the upside to this, if there be one, AA is comparable to most other major corporations in the USA when it comes to bad HR practices. This is the main reason why I suggest that every employee of any company review their personnel file kept by the company at it's headquarters (as well as any personnel sub-file kept at the employee's branch facilities) at least once a year....or every six months if you've had problems in the recent past.