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In Reply to: Re: Another solution posted by Johnny Reb on September 03, 2007 at 19:42:12:
One of my first thoughts on reading about your mom's job loss was to wonder if she'd thought about talking to a labor lawyer or the state's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). A job firing based on (former) affiliation with a religious group is religiously-based discrimination, and a blatant violation of federal labor laws in the US. (I'm assuming your mom lives & works in the U.S., where labor laws are among the weakest among industrialized countries.)
I was thinking, How could an employer be this stupid?--Then it dawned on me. Did your mother misrepresent her involvement with TFI on the job application with some obfuscating information about employment with an "independent" missionary organization? Potential employers have a right to full disclosure from a job applicant, and if they discover they didn't get it, they have the right to fire the employee.
If the scenario I've just described is true for your mother, it isn't entirely accurate to say she lost her job because her system name appeared on Exfamily. She was fired because she misreprented the truth about her past with a fraudulent job application.
If she did misrepresent the nature her missionary experience, you might argue she had little choice because the employer would never have hired her knowing about her TFI involvement. That may be true, then again, it may not be. Here's where making amends for the past becomes a critical factor. Someone who has come to terms with their involvement in a criminal organization such as TFI should be able to say something to that effect: Yes, I made a mistake, and I realize now how wrong I was. I'm willing to live with the consequences of my bad choices, including not being hired for this job.
Of course, that's easier said than done if you're desperate for a job. A lot depends on the nature of the job. If an applicant uses their TFI experience as qualifications for a position--e.g., something in social services or church ministry--then it makes a huge difference to the employer whether the applicant is truthful and forthcoming. This speaks to the issue of trustiworthiness, which isn't exactly TFI's long suit.
Refusal to own up to years service in TFI when using it as relevant experience in a job application does not show a potential employer that the individual has successfully addressed fundamental issues associated with Family membership, such as misreprentation, fraud, and denial of involvement in a criminal organization.
