In one sense, the workers agreed to be out there. They could have walked away. It's obvious they wanted to when they went willingly with the guy to the mission. It was nice to give the workers the $40, too.

I've seen sign holders out in Oswego, NY for a furniture store before in VERY cold weather. Why I never thought they were at risk was the giant signs on the poles they were holding blocked their whole body from wind.

Every day I hate those Linens N Things liquidators a little more.

I worry for the people out there in the summer heat in Florida too. If I were going to do that, I'd just make sure I had a hat and some water.

I see these "hired contractors" every weekend here in north jersey. They usually are holding signs for what I would I would consider bargain furniture retail stores. I always wondered how much they made and would have guessed around $50.

This woman may be a concerned citizen, but no one put a gun to the "hired contractors" head and made him hold the sign.

So these people were voluntarilly doing their job by standing outside and this guy decides he is going to rescue them AND pay their daily wage? Can he pay my wage today because it's -16F here in Minnesota and I am in putting myself in danger by going out to start my car this morning. So now there is zero chance of these people ever working for this contractor again since they all essentially walked off the job.

I understand the citizen was concerned over their safety, but it's not as if they were being forced to hold the signs against their will. They agreed to holding the signs in exchange for pay.

Perhaps all they needed were warmer clothing rather than a rescue?

Forced? Seems a bit strong. They weren't even Linens workers. It's a heartfelt and touching story during the holiday season, but the article title makes it sounds like actual employees were compelled to stand outside. Rather, these were workers who were hired to do a task and were "bailed out" by a kind person with some cash to spare.

I'd gladly pay a Giant's Stadium security agent (who stands outside rain (snow!) or shine to head inside. Maybe then I could take the first row unoccupied seats, for a lot cheaper than they'd be if I'd purchased the tickets in the first place.

I really really really hate when I see those store closing signs being held by people. I don't care what the weather is like, it's degrading. I don't blame the individuals who take the jobs; a job is a job. If I needed to, I would do it too. It is the contractors who think this a good idea and don't give a #$%# about the people standing on the corner that piss me off. Major props to you, SD citizen.

i've done the sign-holding gig before, for a jo-ann fabrics store that was moving (switching from traditional store to superstore). i did it in the summer, though, so i wasn't really at any risk. except the risk of dying of boredom, i guess.

it's true that the people who signed on to do the job agreed to stand out there in the cold, but they must really be hurting for money to willingly do that. it makes one think the contractor is kind of exploiting these people because he knows no one else will do it.

@OmniZero: It says the workers were staying at the shelter, which means they probably have very limited employment options. It is an employer's responsibility to make sure that employees have a safe work environment. That's why OSHA exists. Sure, they could have gone inside or walked off the job, but they probably really needed that $40. It was 4F here on Saturday and -3 Sunday. I couldn't be outside for more than five minutes without feeling pain in every exposed inch of skin (like my nose and eyes). Cold weather is dangerous and, at a certain point, no amount of bundling up - unless you have some serious outdoor gear, which I doubt these people have -is going to help.

The real key to this story is revealed in this line:

After that exchange, the resident says he took the workers to Union Gospel Mission in downtown Sioux Falls, a place where the workers had reportedly been staying for food and shelter.

I'm not into that whole "class warfare" thing, but this is a clear example of greedy people exploiting the powerless.

@sockrockinbeats:
So, the folks want money and the contractor wants to pay someone to hold a sign.... why is the exploitation and not the definition of work.

@sockrockinbeats: That's what I don't like about it -- you know anyone taking money to stand outside in that kind of weather is probably damn hard up for whatever pay they can get. It is exploitation, and I find it shameful that companies do it.

It's only seventy degrees in my office. Please come rescue me. Will cuddle for warmth if rescued by the right person!

So for all of the people essentially saying "Hey, they took the job, they need to suck it up": do you really think if you were living in a shelter and someone offered you a job you would turn it down? Do you think someone living in a shelter is going to have proper clothing to stand outside in subzero weather? I am really surprised how callous some people can be.

@wgrune: Like they say, give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Beat him to death with a fish, and he'll never be hungry again.

I hate to do this, but I must take issue with the title of this story. I read the title thinking this as some Linen & Things employees being locked out of a store waiting for someone to let them in to work, and they couldn't leave for fear of getting fired.

I am from Central NJ, and live near Route 9. Route 9 is "plagued" with sign holders, to the point where local governments are passing laws to stop this practice. You can tell the "veteran" workers by their ability to be asleep and hold the sign up at the same time. These people aren't "forced". They work willingly, and know what the job is, and dress accordingly. This really sounds like someone who thinks they know "better" than the people who "are obviously being taken advantage of", which they aren't. Sorry if I stepped on anyones toes.

the same thing happened here in millbury, ma

the the workers were out in the cold blizzard like conditions, standing on medians in a dangerous intersection

cant help but to feel bad :(

I hate this business of having people standing around holding signs. What, exactly is the point of getting people desperate for cash to stand arounf for hours in all sorts of weather to hold up a sign? They can't plant the sign in the ground?

This is one of those bullshit businesses, where some guy thinks he's "doing them a favor" by giving them work I wouldn't even want animals to do, paying them a tiny wage. Maybe they did sign up for this, but that doesn't mean that people can be treated as cattle.

@mynameisrita: I can tell you (as a Safety Professional) that OSHA has very little power and staffing, especially when compared to the EPA. OSHA doesn't have the people to police all of the employers, so they hit large employers (GM, Ford, Boeing, Dow, etc.) and high risk workplaces (petrochemical, steel mills, etc.). Little companies like this almost never have an OSHA inspection unless someone dies. Additionally, OSHA standards are mostly out of date and bare minimums. Any company that cares about its employees will use OSHA standards as a bare minimum.

@duncanfj:
My issue with the situation would be if they didn't have enough clothing to be warm. I don't know if thats the case, and if that is the sole objection then I get the orignal post.

However many of the respinses in this thread have acted as if being paid to hold a sign was exploitation in itself. Its a low level job for sure, but like all job its an arrangement between the worker and the employer and both agree to the terms.

Now, if the folks look endangered due to temperature, get on the phone and give let the employer know that you are calling OHSA unless the folks are given better clothing for the temperature.

But the job, in itself, isn't exploitive.

@wgrune: Even easier, just wait until the people freeze to death and you don't have to pay them, but you still have sign holders, right?

@duncanfj: After attending school , working, and helping out in a soup kitchen/food pantry in Newark, NJ, I can say that most homeless people are damn good at staying warm. I have seen homeless people sharing tips on how to take everyday "garbage" and use it as insulation. The biggest thing that sucks the heat out of you is the wind/rain. As long as you block the wind, you can stay very warm very easily.

@G_Money21: You could say the same to sweat shop workers. "Hey, no one's putting a gun to your head. There's a law firm right down the street you could work in."

Sarcasm aside, there has to be minimum standard for workplace safety.

G_Money21 -

I too am in North Jersey.
See these sign holder guys on Route 46 and sometimes near the Willowbrook Mall.

As for these guys standing out there...hey a job's a job.
I had the job of wearing a stupid chicken costume for a restaurant that was opening years ago.

@wgrune: Your driveway is not your workplace. If you get to work and it's that cold there, call OSHA. You can get homeless people to beat eachother's brains in for money, doesn't make it right. It's taking advantage of desperate people's, uh, desperation, to get them to work for slave wages in unsafe conditions.

@NefariousNewt:
Nope legally they can't plant the sign in the ground in most of those places. This is simply a way to get around the sign laws in place in many locations.

That said, other than the safety issue due to the temperature, I don't get your objetion to the business. Folks need work and money. The company needs folks to hold signs. They agree on a deal.

I see nothing exploitive about that in and of itself.

I see so many people making the same comment. Essentially, someone with no education, during a recession, of their own free will, chooses to hold a sign. Right. If that were true, there would be no sweat shops and no prostitution.

Wealthy people have free will. The poor have to survive.

@OmniZero: This time of year $40 can make a biiiiig difference...

It's like offering a bottle of muddy nasty water to man who hasn't had anything to drink for days. Odds are he's going to drink it.

@OmniZero: It's 40 bucks, man, no one stands out in freezing weather all day for 40 bucks if they have options. It's exploiting their desperation. Plus, I seriously doubt these people have sufficient cold weather gear to be out there for that long. The reason you do this with independent contractors is you have to pay employees if their fingers drop off.

@JulesNoctambule:

So is it exploitation when people work in coal mines, or other dangerous professions? In some places a coal mine is your only option if you want make a living wage so people take those dangerous jobs.

@ThomFabian: Why is it exploitation?

Because the pay doesn't adequately cover the risks but the person needs the pay so they can't really say no.

Wait, so he took people from a shelter who were working for a wage, stopped them from working, and gave them a handout for their "opportunity cost"?

Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. I wish we had more busybodies like that around here!

@NefariousNewt: That is exactly it. Most governments have made laws against planting signs in the ground. By me, there would literally be 20-30 signs in a hundred foot stretch of road advertising the same business. It was an eyesore, and also became a hazard/liability when the signs were never removed as they would get blown into the road and then you had to have somebody remove them before you could mow the medians. In NJ, after an election, you have 7-10 days to remove your political signs before they start hitting the party with fines. So some "smart" person realized that if a person was holding the sign, and they weren't "loitering" on private property, they could legally hold a sign/advertisement and could get around the fines and also the printing cost of hundreds of signs.

@wagenejm: People who are staying in shelters do not have access to "warmer clothing." It's possible that the "rescuer" could have bought them cheap, but warm jackets, hats, gloves, and socks for less than 40 dollars (and they would have had warm clothing once they left work, too), but there are even more considerations.

People in shelters are disproportionately likely to be ill-fed, sick, scrawny, and otherwise more susceptible to severe cold. If you're going to stand people out in the bitter cold, you should choose the fat, healthy, strong workers, not the miserable creatures from the local flophouse.

@Applekid: Yes...I know we've brought sign holders cups of coffee before. It's not as cold out here as up there though. Today was the coldest, and even then we were still above the negative numbers.

@wgrune: Weak analogy.

@NefariousNewt:

They aren't allowed to plant the signs in the gound. Most cities have ordinances against placing temporary signs in the ground, especially on city property. Otherwise every business on earth would plant a flippin' sign on street corners for free advertising. The "solution" is to have a person hold a sign, which to my knowledge, is not illegal.

@JulesNoctambule:

How so? Both groups of people need money to survive. Both groups of people take risky jobs for not a lot of money to survive.

Come up with a better analogy instead of a two-word criticism of mine.

@mynameisrita: I know cold weather is dangerous. I live in Rochester, NY. Driving in snow, being out in the cold wind and air.....done it my whole life. I laugh at those who freak out over an inch of snow. What I'm saying is there comes a point when human common sense has to take over. If the job description said "Jump off a bridge with no safety attached", would people do it? Probably not.

um... i see all these people saying that no one forced the workers to stand out there with the signs .... but also, i seriously doubt that the 'concerned citizen' kidnapped them to take them back to the shelter.
and how did the OP know where they wanted to go to get warm if they didn't say?
obviously they also LEFT the job of their own free will, probably after realizing just what they had gotten themselves into.

and had it been me calling the liquidator, i wouldn't have said 'i'm a concerned citizen' - i would have said 'i'm a potential customer'

@ThomFabian: "Exploitation" and "work" can easily overlap. That's why we have child labor laws, occupational safety laws, overtime pay and a minimum wage.

Good lord, was $40 bucks for the whole day, sub-minimum wage? Six hours? Four? The sign holders near me -- in good weather -- are working way too hard if they're getting less than $15 per hour, because they're not just wood post replacements, they do tricks and acrobatics with the signs.

What rules exist vis-a-vis workers -- independent or employees -- and weather? Do security guards making rounds have an exposure time limit?

Some people have a very strange understanding of choice. Yeah, no one put a gun to the head of any of the sign holders, but that doesn't mean they had a free choice. What they had was a highly constrained choice. The acceptable level of constraint is an ethical and moral issue. I'd say that no one should ever be in a situation where they have to choose between holding a sign in the bitter cold and nothing. That they had to make this choice says something about all of us, and about the kind of society we live in, not about them.

As for everyone who said something like, "rescue me I have to start my car and it's only 70 degrees in my office," you just don't get it. Some people really, actually have it worse than you -- and it's not because you're smarter, or because you work harder, or because you're a better or tougher person. It's luck and randomness. Any of us could end up in that situation, and if we did we'd be pretty happy if someone helped us out instead if saying I got mine, get yours, not my problem.

I hate to blame the consumer here, but I agree with the majority that noone forced those people to carry the signs. They chose to be sign carriers instead of an executive of a multinational bank splitting almost $2B in taxpayer money in bonuses. That was their choice and they should live with it.

@Drew5764: I was thinking something similar. People actually pay (ticket, parking, food) to sit in the cold weather just to watch a football game so there's nothing wrong with someone being paid to hold a sign in the same weather. Of course if I was holding a sign then i'd gladly come out of the cold if someone offered to pay me what I would've made for the next 5 hours.

On second thought, since this is Sioux Falls, that's pretty bad.

My acid test on this would be "Are any other laborers outside working right now?"

If yes, then these folks might have just needed more clothes/food to stay warm. But I sort of doubt that late December is prime landscaping and construction season in that area.

I think most of the people spouting off about how the workers were doing this voluntarily have never been in an environment where it's so cold that being out for more than 5 minutes is a hazard to your health. It was below zero! Those people could've gotten serious frostbite on any piece of exposed skin. What the "contractor" was doing is abusive and should be investigated.

Im surprised it took this long for the socioeconomic issues to be brought up.