Boulder, Co. (TN) — Vanguard CEO, Salim Ramji, says, “You will own nothing, and you will be happy about it. We’re making great strides to reinvigorate indentured servitude at Vail Resorts, and we’re more than pleased with the results.”
As of Friday, more than 1,900 employees have signed up to join the lawsuit against Vail Resorts, a subsidiary of the Vanguard investment firm. The lawsuit alleges that Vail knowingly violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to pay their workers for tasks and services they performed while on the clock.
Alan June, an instructor at the resort, said, “Hell yeah, I signed up for the Lawsuit. Look, can I be honest with you?” Looking around to make sure we were alone, he said, “I can’t take it anymore. The only people who ever come up here are those rich pricks’ kids. Yeah, I sell them some blow, but not enough. Those Tictok’ed 18 year olds can’t even get through an eight-ball without hitting their limit. It’s not like it was in the 80’s, we had spirit, I’d of used a shovel if I could’ve fit it in my nose back then. May as well forget moving weed, that all went tits up with the legalization. Honest businessmen can’t even make a decent living in this town anymore. My rent alone is basically my entire salary—and I still commute over an hour.”
The lawsuit alleges that more than 24,000 employees are eligible to participate in the lawsuit, while only 1,900 have joined. Sources for the defense cite remarkably low engagement with the email campaign launched months ago, sent to their work email addresses from a lower-level law firm, asking them to sign up for a lawsuit.
Karen Francis, a local tour guide and ski instructor at the resort, said, “Who wouldn’t click on the email. Yeah, of course, it was in my spam folder, but it promises you’ll get a lot of money. Who in this country couldn’t use a little more money? It’s hard everywhere; no one has enough. It’s a good cause too—for the life of me, I can’t understand why people wouldn’t click the link in their work emails.”
Vail IT workers faced a little backlash last week as a result. Mark Kipling, IT Consultant, said, “No, there’s no such thing as an internal retribution list for people who signed up for the lawsuit. Of course not, that would be illegal. Yes, we do discourage people from opening spam emails that may be harmful, and yes, there are administrative punishments for accepting said emails.” Sighing, Kipling said, “No…we didn’t start the IT awareness training program to punish anyone.”
Ramji simply said, “I can see everyone who signed up for it. It’s 1,900; we employ thousands. We’ll keep them on for a year, and then they will have no choice but to pursue better opportunities elsewhere. Losing 1,900 is a drop in the hat when there are literally tens of thousands of people literally begging to work here.”
While Vail’s ownership seemed passively confrontational, they showed a remarkable lack of concern for the lawsuit, citing the low turnout. Vail is confident they will be able to resume taking advantage of their employees in no time. Until then, they are using their time brainstorming possible consequences for the dissidents who “don’t know a good thing.” While Vail was vague in their ruminations, the term—scorched earth—was thrown around with wild abandon.
