for the LAST TIME: goon, henchman, and minion are LEGALLY DISTINCT CATEGORIES.
goons are unionized, part of the goonion. if you are employed at will, ESPECIALLY if you’re paid under the table, you’re a henchmen. and you’re only a minion if you’re being coerced and meet the legal standard for duress. recently this has been almost entirely brainwashing, but more traditional forms of duress still meet the threshold for minion.
if your employer pays you above board but you’re not part of the goonion—SIGN UP. don’t let your employer abuse you at work!!
traditionally, a cronie was a type of underling for financial criminals. underlings aren’t the same as henchmen because underlings are temp workers, and cannot work for a single villain by definition. financial criminals rarely want to permanently staff their operations, and while minions are a largely exploited class, controlling them is more overhead than the average bernie maydoff wants to shoulder. contrary to underlings, who can transition to a permanent henching position, cronies can’t, and thus they have to sign an FLSA waiver upon hire. The goonion has been trying to close this cronie loophole for almost a decade, but the NLRB considers this situation a natural hazard of illegal work and no administration has been willing to touch the issue.
in recent years, cronie has also been colloquially applied to the exempt management above the underlings, but this is management’s attempt at ingratiating themselves among their employees to prevent any organizing on the part of cronies. unfortunately, the colloquial use is more widely understood, as many associate cronyism with close villanous associations among the financial elite. the goonion does not endorse this interpretation, and neither does the NLRB.
in a fascinating turn of events, because of this linguistic shift, mook has been used to refer to temporary villanous employees, but that is also a misattribution. a mook is an independent contractor, not an employee. underling is still the correct term for temps.
hilariously, because cronies are required to sign the FLSA waiver, financial villains don’t need to misclass employees. thus, misclassing henchmen and underlings as mooks generally is committed by villanous corporations rather than embezzlers/scam artists/financiers.
in recent years, cronie has also been colloquially applied to the exempt management above the underlings, but this is management’s attempt at ingratiating themselves among their employees to prevent any organizing on the part of cronies.
