Posts Tagged ‘ Charlton MA ’

In Charlton MA, A Case for Suing Your Current Employer?

July 9th, 2010. By Hunter West

In 2003 Curt Meskus had a long-standing commitment to the Charlton Fire Department as a call firefighter. At any time of the day or night he could be called in to help fight a fire, or help manage some other emergency the fire department might respond to. He would be paid an hourly rate by the fire department, a service provided by the municipality.

Then, seven years ago, Meskus was hired as the Building Commissioner for that same municipality. The latter would be a full-time job v. the on-call, as-needed structure of his fire department gig that he intended to keep.

Why not do both? Months could go by without a whiff of smoke. If he was, indeed called out during regular hours of his building commissioner job, he could always make up the lost time after hours.

Some may say Meskus has initiative. Others might call him greedy—you know, double-dipping*. But no one could argue Meskus’ status as an honest citizen who is completely above-board. When he was hired by the municipal selectmen for the building commissioner job in 2003, Meskus was up-front about his firefighting responsibilities, which he had no intention of abandoning. In fact, Meskus was the assistant call fire chief.

The municipality didn’t appear to have a problem. In fact, Meskus has been re-appointed to the position of Building Commissioner every year since by the municipal selectmen in Charlton, MA, without hesitation or debate.

Then someone complained. Another municipal employee questioned if the arrangement Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Charlton MA, Curt Meskus, Employment, FLSA
Posted in Emerging Issues, Employment | 4 Comments »