Newcomer Encargado Problems

[DaveDed]

In my building we have an encargado who is dirty, smokes in the hallways and all over the building, does little or no work and if you ask him anything his reaction is usually nasty. I asked him not to smoke in the hallways as the cigarette smoke comes under my door and smells up my apartment, as well his little "portería" office is right under my kitchen and bathroom window, and his incessant smoking causes the smell to come in those windows as well. When I asked him not to smoke, he said pretty much "too bad if you don't like it, I will smoke as much as I want". I told the administrator and he said he spoke to him about it, and that he can't really do anythnig either. I spoke to my neighbors, most of who complain about him, and they don't want to get involved for fear of getting on his "bad side". The guy has been the encargado here for about 5 years, before that he lived in the building and rented a room from somebody. So according to him he's lived here for 30 years and has the right to do what he wants. He's gotten really nasty with others in the building who have complained to the administrator but one lady told me that he threatened her and since she only lives here a few months per year and the rest outside of the country, she left it alone. Last week, when I was coming into the building, he stopped me, had red eyes, spoke with slurred speech and said to me that I should stop complaining because there could be "represalias" (consequences) for my complaining about his smoking. I asked him what those might be and he said "who knows, someone could scratch up your door". I ignored him and told one of my neighbors and she said absolutely nothing. Could it really be true that the people here are so unbelieveably immune to poor treatment and abuse that this could be happening? I am just beside myself about this, and nobody even reacts.

 

[JulianCE]

Missed this thread.
Some supers are hard / expensive to remove so people decide to live with them.
But if you have to add fear to filth and lack of respect you better do something about it. If the guy has been working for the condo only 5 years he might not come too expensive to remove but you better make your move if you're sure to win.
With that attitude things are not likely to improve in the future.
You should start by having your complaints registered by the admin so you can argue justified motives to remove the super. Can't remember if you could complain at their union but think that they do not look kindly at their members getting into trouble. He might get reprimanded and lose support if he ever decided to start any legal stuff.

 

[Frisel]

Sadly my friends had pretty much the same situation. Not so much the smoking but their guy didnt clean the halls, take out the rubbish so my friend's husband had a word with him. They ended up in a long standing feud with my friends car scratched up, covered in spit and eventually their appt. door was kicked in one Sunday afternoon in the 2 hour period when the encargado was off-duty having his lunch. They emptied their appt. The police didn't care about their suspicions as to the role of the encargado and they moved. It sounds cowardly to say so David but I really wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of this guy or any encargado. They know your schedules, what possessions you are bringing into your place...I believe firmly in justice and this guy will get his comeuppence at some point but unless the whole building is with you on this I wouldn't put my neck on the line.

 

[earlyretirement]

Odds are your building won't want to get rid of him. People are shocked how expensive it is firing a doorman. It doesn't even matter if they are totally in the wrong. I've had situations where a doorman broke into one of the apartments in the building and was using it and got caught and he was fired and still got HUGE severance pay.

The doorman union is one of the strongest unions out there so no matter the reason when they get fired they always get a very large settlement. More so than firing a regular employee.

And most people in the building are so cheap they don't want to pay the high fees to fire a doorman. It's insane how some of these things work. I own in a relatively new building in Palermo when they decided to fire the doorman. The building wasn't around too long when they fired the doorman for whatever reason. I think he got something like 50,000 pesos and the building had been up for just a bit over a year.

So if you make a "power move" against him, you better make sure all the rest of the building is up to fire him and pay the severance. Otherwise he could make your life very uncomfortable.

 

[DaveDed]

I left out a few things here, all of these problems started to crop up a few months ago, when our administrator died suddenly. The admninstrator was an apartment owner here and administrator for 30 years and good friends with the encargado. He was nice enough, but totally ineffective. So last night we had a meeting as we are interviewing new building administrators. It was a no nonsense very professional woman, who manages almost 30 buildings between Congreso and Microcentro and she has an office with 5 employees. After she finished talking to us about how she works, she asked "so what issues are you having in the building that if I take over the administration, should know about" and EVERYBODY except one lady started complaining about the encargado and how they are sick of him his smoke and his dirt. The winds of change are blowing!! She said that one of the first things she does is lay the law down when she takes over an administration, because what usually happens when they take over a new consorcio is the encargado tries to tell them how things are done. We told her about him leaving the front doors open, the smoking, how he doesn't clean and his attitude. Since we were just interviewing her, she didn't really say what she would do if we choose her, but she did say that she recommends to small consorcios such as ours (14 apartments) to remove the encargado and hire a cleaning service. It's much more cost effective and you can rent out the encargados apartment which can cover a good part of the cost. As for getting my door kicked in, that would be kind of difficult, they are huge solid oak 3.5 meter high double doors from 1920 with 5 locks (I am a New York City native) and a cross bar on the inside on the 2nd door. Plus we have a centrally monitored alarm system. He could definitely scratch the wood, but I think he knows he would be in major problems if he did that. He's 55 years old, weighs about 50kg, 1m 65cm tall, pot smoking drunk with hammerfingers. I am 95kg, 1m 78cm tall, bulldog tatoo, New York City native. And for stealing our stuff if someone breaks in, we have old computers, old TVs, and some antique furniture and standard gay couple crystal ballroom chandelier that I can see anybody walking out of the building with that easily. I am optimistic that we will overcome this jerk!!

 

[TaisonCer]

The guy is a jerk? Be a jerk too! (À con, con et demi as we say in French )

That's his job to clean the hallway? Notice his cigarette's brand and ask for some smoker friends of yours who smoke the same cigarettes to give you their smoked ones. Crush them under your foot and place a few every week in the hallway, in the stairs in upper floors (so that the clues don't point at you), etc.

Not only will he have to clean the mess but that'll make things more complicated for him.


Do you want to go really wild & vicious?! (optional).
The reverse doggie bag method: since that's also his job to clean the dog poos in front of the building, when you are in your restrooms doing your "daily duty", bring a sheet of newspaper with you and make him personalized gifts of yours that you'll toss at night on the street, in front of the building. Then enjoy the idea of him picking those up.

 

[DaveDed]

Those of us who want him out have calculated what his indemnization would be, and it's around $40,000. About $2,900 per apartment. Not that bad. And if he challenges it, which I doubt he would because he would then have to wait who knows how long until it went to trial, and the guy doesn't have a cent to his name. He has only been here for 5 years. So his indemnization is 5 months of salary, 1 month preaviso, unpaid vacation and whatever part of his aguinaldo is unpaid. That's it. 6.5 months of salary and he's out. And there are a very fairly wealthy people that live here and several of the units are offices. So I am not worried about people being able to pay. About an hour ago I was coming into the building, and he said hi to me. The last few weeks when I saw him I just looked away, because I am so angry about his behavior towards me and others. I felt kind of bad, I said hello back and went up to my apartment. I didn't smell and smoke today in the halls. But I am sure come monday the whole thing will start up again.

 

[earlyretirement]

Those of us who want him out have calculated what his indemnization would be, and it's around $40,000. About $2,900 per apartment. Not that bad. And if he challenges it, which I doubt he would because he would then have to wait who knows how long until it went to trial, and the guy doesn't have a cent to his name. He has only been here for 5 years. So his indemnization is 5 months of salary, 1 month preaviso, unpaid vacation and whatever part of his aguinaldo is unpaid. That's it. 6.5 months of salary and he's out. And there are a very fairly wealthy people that live here and several of the units are offices. So I am not worried about people being able to pay. About an hour ago I was coming into the building, and he said hi to me. The last few weeks when I saw him I just looked away, because I am so angry about his behavior towards me and others. I felt kind of bad, I said hello back and went up to my apartment. I didn't smell and smoke today in the halls. But I am sure come monday the whole thing will start up again.

I'd just double check to make sure what the exact figure is. In almost all of the cases, it always costs more to fire a doorman than what people think it will cost.

But yes if he is that bad, and everyone in the building agrees to fire him, biting the bullet and paying him will be the only solution. It's a horrible situation that even for cause you have to pay employees high amounts but the system is what it is and I doubt it will change anytime soon. Although it should!

Like bajo mentioned, it's the owners in the building that have to make the decision to fire him. The administrator is just the puppet to the consorcio.

Fortunately, most doormen I've met are really decent and good people. The one in my building where I lived worked almost 20 years! His salary was huge!

I always joked with my friends that if I had to pick any job in Argentina it would be a doorman in a nice building. They have a pretty good life for the most part.

 

[DaveDed]

I'd just double check to make sure what the exact figure is. In almost all of the cases, it always costs more to fire a doorman than what people think it will cost.

But yes if he is that bad, and everyone in the building agrees to fire him, biting the bullet and paying him will be the only solution. It's a horrible situation that even for cause you have to pay employees high amounts but the system is what it is and I doubt it will change anytime soon. Although it should!

Like bajo mentioned, it's the owners in the building that have to make the decision to fire him. The administrator is just the puppet to the consorcio.

Fortunately, most doormen I've met are really decent and good people. The one in my building where I lived worked almost 20 years! His salary was huge!

I always joked with my friends that if I had to pick any job in Argentina it would be a doorman in a nice building. They have a pretty good life for the most part.

I actually know exactly how to calculate indemnizations as I used to own a business and fired 2 people and when I closed down I paid indemnizations to my 2 remaning employees. All indemnizations are governed by the LCT - Ley del Contrato de Trabajo and you can even speak with the union that your employee belongs to, or the ministerio de trabajo who will guide you and confirm the figures when you are planning to let an employee go.

If they are a full time employee, out of the 3 month trial period it goes like this:
1 months salary (the best and highest in the last 12 months) for each year worked.
1 month salary for preaviso (30 days notice they are being let go)
Unused vacation (depends on what they are entitled to, depending on years worked)
Unpaid proportional aguinaldo, (whatever they are due divided by 1/12 x # of months worked, that haven't been paid yet)
AND THAT'S ALL.
It gets complicated when you have a high earning employee who has been there for many years, as their salary is compounded by 1% each year for "antigüedad" or if they work a lot of overtime hours, as the month with the highest pay will be used as the figure to calculate the indemnization.
Now if they start saying they worked overtime, or you didn't pay them for certain funcions, etc, then they can sue you, however in this case, what is the encargado going to say he did? Plus I found out they are recording his infractions in the libro de actas. And the dummy signs them!
In the building where I had my store last year they fired the encargada who was there for about 3 years. She got $17,000 pesos. She was nice but of course when she found out she was getting fired, she started saying they owed her overtime, and all kinds of other things. They said ok let's go to court, and since she didn't have a cent to her name and needed the money, she took what she was due and that was the end of it. She complained to me that the building worker's union called which is called SUTERH, did not help her. She went there and told them this and that and they barely listened to her. All this about huge indemnizations for engargados is a bit of an urban legend. The only time they get big indemnizations is if they have been there for many years and get fired without just cause.

 

[earlyretirement]

I actually know exactly how to calculate indemnizations as I used to own a business and fired 2 people and when I closed down I paid indemnizations to my 2 remaning employees. All indemnizations are governed by the LCT - Ley del Contrato de Trabajo and you can even speak with the union that your employee belongs to, or the ministerio de trabajo who will guide you and confirm the figures when you are planning to let an employee go.

If they are a full time employee, out of the 3 month trial period it goes like this:
1 months salary (the best and highest in the last 12 months) for each year worked.
1 month salary for preaviso (30 days notice they are being let go)
Unused vacation (depends on what they are entitled to, depending on years worked)
Unpaid proportional aguinaldo, (whatever they are due divided by 1/12 x # of months worked, that haven't been paid yet)
AND THAT'S ALL.
It gets complicated when you have a high earning employee who has been there for many years, as their salary is compounded by 1% each year for "antigüedad" or if they work a lot of overtime hours, as the month with the highest pay will be used as the figure to calculate the indemnization.
Now if they start saying they worked overtime, or you didn't pay them for certain funcions, etc, then they can sue you, however in this case, what is the encargado going to say he did? Plus I found out they are recording his infractions in the libro de actas. And the dummy signs them!
In the building where I had my store last year they fired the encargada who was there for about 3 years. She got $17,000 pesos. She was nice but of course when she found out she was getting fired, she started saying they owed her overtime, and all kinds of other things. They said ok let's go to court, and since she didn't have a cent to her name and needed the money, she took what she was due and that was the end of it. She complained to me that the building worker's union called which is called SUTERH, did not help her. She went there and told them this and that and they barely listened to her. All this about huge indemnizations for engargados is a bit of an urban legend. The only time they get big indemnizations is if they have been there for many years and get fired without just cause.

I'm not saying you don't know how to calculate indemnizations but there is one thing with what the law says on paper and quite another when they actually want to fight and get a lawyer and the consorcio decides they would spend more in legal bills fighting them.

How many times have you gone through firing a doorman?

Trust me..it's not an "urban legend". I've seen it happen plenty of times where a doorman that hasn't been around too long still got a fairly large settlement. Much more than what is stipulated in writing or law.

Unfortunately things in Argentina aren't just what is written by law. Firing a doorman isn't fun or cheap.

Hopefully your situation gets resolved but it's not always as simple or cheap as you think it will be.

 

[DaveDed]

I'm not saying you don't know how to calculate indemnizations but there is one thing with what the law says on paper and quite another when they actually want to fight and get a lawyer and the consorcio decides they would spend more in legal bills fighting them.

How many times have you gone through firing a doorman?

Trust me..it's not an "urban legend". I've seen it happen plenty of times where a doorman that hasn't been around too long still got a fairly large settlement. Much more than what is stipulated in writing or law.

Unfortunately things in Argentina aren't just what is written by law. Firing a doorman isn't fun or cheap.

Hopefully your situation gets resolved but it's not always as simple or cheap as you think it will be.

I actually had a business in a building where the encargada was fired, and it was pretty straight forward. Just like I stated. The only time it's more expensive is when there are many many years or there are multiple employees. This is 1 employee, 5 years, Category III building - as straight forward as can be. Period.

 

[earlyretirement]

I actually had a business in a building where the encargada was fired, and it was pretty straight forward. Just like I stated. The only time it's more expensive is when there are many many years or there are multiple employees. This is 1 employee, 5 years, Category III building - as straight forward as can be. Period.

Glad you didn't have any problems but don't assume just because you didn't in that situation it's the same for every other situation out there. Because that isn't how it works.

 

[DaveDed]

I personally don't think it's the end of the world to have to pay indemnizations when you let an employee go. Salaries are not that high here to begin with, none of these low level employees get 401K, none get profit sharing, there are practically no companies that pay performance based bonuses like in the US, they are limited to one month's lousy salary per year as a bonus (aguinaldo) and not much else. I know some people will disagree with this, but dollar for dollar and peso for peso, very few people here are making any good money. The encargado in my building in New York got: a 3 bedroom apartment, phone, electric, and gas for free (it was the largest apartment in the building at that), plus two free parking spaces in the garage, and he made $50,000 dollars per year. He also did some handyman work in the building to make money on the side. It was a condo building so his only responsibilities were the carpeted hallways and garbage, and the heating system. That's what I call a good deal. When I had employees here in Buenos Aires, every month, I used to put a few hundred pesos aside in a savings account so I had money on hand in case I had to let them go. When I closed my business, I had the money ready plus I kept it in a plazo fijo all that time and I didn't have to take an additional penny (or peso) out of my pocket. For me personally it was nowhere as complicated as what people make it out to be.

 

[earlyretirement]

I personally don't think it's the end of the world to have to pay indemnizations when you let an employee go. Salaries are not that high here to begin with, none of these low level employees get 401K, none get profit sharing, there are practically no companies that pay performance based bonuses like in the US, they are limited to one month's lousy salary per year as a bonus (aguinaldo) and not much else. I know some people will disagree with this, but dollar for dollar and peso for peso, very few people here are making any good money. The encargado in my building in New York got: a 3 bedroom apartment, phone, electric, and gas for free (it was the largest apartment in the building at that), plus two free parking spaces in the garage, and he made $50,000 dollars per year. He also did some handyman work in the building to make money on the side. It was a condo building so his only responsibilities were the carpeted hallways and garbage, and the heating system. That's what I call a good deal. When I had employees here in Buenos Aires, every month, I used to put a few hundred pesos aside in a savings account so I had money on hand in case I had to let them go. When I closed my business, I had the money ready plus I kept it in a plazo fijo all that time and I didn't have to take an additional penny (or peso) out of my pocket. For me personally it was nowhere as complicated as what people make it out to be.

I don't think people are saying it's the "end of the world". It's one thing if you have dedicated and devoted, ethical employees that work very hard up until they decide to take another path. And certainly there are those types in Buenos Aires that are ethical and hard working.

HOWEVER, it's NO fun when you have a situation where you have employee/s that have worked for years and then at the end they just come to work and do nothing for weeks/months. That's the time when it is no fun.

Also, it's not fun when you have to pay this severance even if they are stealing or getting fired for a good reason or just cause. Employers will rarely ever win and if they do, they will have spent money on legal bills fighting them.

And as far as employees.....if you have a few it's not a big deal. The headaches and problems occur once you start growing in size. 25, 30, 45, 50+ employees is a major pain. Having a handful is nothing and not too stressful but as you grow so do the headaches.