5 ms·

2 words: "At-will employment." I empathize with their situation but sadly there's nothing they can do about this. Kind of naive trying to attempt this in a stat

2 words: "At-will employment." I empathize with their situation but sadly there's nothing they can do about this. Kind of naive trying to attempt this in a state like California.

calcsam 9y ago
At-will employment has nothing to do with this. At-will employment just means your employer has no contractual obligation to continue employing you for any period of time. Certain actions are still illegal under state / federal law such as firing you for: * your sexual orientation * race * veteran status * political views * not sleeping with your boss * etc Organizing a union is one of these "protected" reasons why you cannot be fired. Of course your employer can pick another reason and say that's why they are firing you, which is what it looks like this company did. Whether that defense will hold up in court is another matter entirely.
- whoisjuan 9y ago
  This is more or less what I was trying to say with my original comment. Although unionizing is protected, "at-will employment" also leaves a lot of gray areas that can be leveraged for an employer to justify a termination. For example insubordination. The employer can claim that an employee was being hostile and creating a stressful work environment.
maxerickson 9y ago
The article is about a federal complaint they filed. There's like laws and stuff. https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employees/i-am-not-represented-union/your-rights-during-union-organizing https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employees/i...
mav3r1ck 9y ago
(commented out hastily-written comment, too late to delete).
- debt 9y ago
  I think he's saying that California is at-will employment. Not that unionization is bad, but that it makes it very difficult to unionize, if you can just be fired immediately and replaced.
  - mav3r1ck 9y ago
    I was reacting to > but sadly there's nothing they can do about this Even if legally one has no options, you can still try to do something. Like raise awareness, etc.
andrei_says_ 9y ago
Replacing one employee who refuses to sacrifice themselves for the employer’s profit is easy and relatively cheap. Replacing 5 is much more difficult and expensive. Replacing most could be quite expensive and dangerous. So, organizing could give leverage to employees to demand humane treatment even if it reduces profit for the employer. Even in at-will environment.
cstejerean 9y ago
You can’t be fired for attempting to unionize even with at will employment. You can get fired for any reason as long as it’s not an illegal reason (like discrimination). Attempting to unionize or lobbying to improve worker conditions are generally protected. Of course the company is trying to get around this by claiming that they were terminated for other unrelated reasons (layoffs).
pslam 9y ago
This is not true. There are ways in which "at-will" termination can be illegal. Most obviously, protected-status discrimination. Termination related to labor organization is illegal. However, recourse (for the employee) generally fails because of the time scales involved, with the inevitable failure to form a union, but the employer will have to deal with the fallout eventually. That does not make it naive, and you should not further participate in making this self-fulfilling.
dragonwriter 9y ago
At-will employment means you can be fired for any reason other than specific prohibited reasons in law (the alternative is systems where you can only be fired for reasons named in law; the difference is between “default allow” and “default deny”.) But firing for labor organizing is an explicit prohibition in both California and Federal law (the federal prohibition was the basis of Damore’s NLRB complaint against Google, for a recent example that has gotten much HN attention.)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rexpop 9y ago
It was naive of them to be fired in a state like California?
bspn 9y ago
IANAL, but I believe the Federal NLRA trumps any state-level at-will provision in much the same way as the EEOC operates. I don't even think formalizing a union is required, but simply banding together to improve working conditions automatically gives you protected status.

2 words: "At-will employment." I empathize with their situation but sadly there's nothing they can do about this. Kind of naive trying to attempt this in a state like California.

calcsam 9y ago

At-will employment has nothing to do with this. At-will employment just means your employer has no contractual obligation to continue employing you for any period of time. Certain actions are still illegal under state / federal law such as firing you for: * your sexual orientation * race * veteran status * political views * not sleeping with your boss * etc Organizing a union is one of these "protected" reasons why you cannot be fired. Of course your employer can pick another reason and say that's why they are firing you, which is what it looks like this company did. Whether that defense will hold up in court is another matter entirely.

whoisjuan 9y ago
This is more or less what I was trying to say with my original comment. Although unionizing is protected, "at-will employment" also leaves a lot of gray areas that can be leveraged for an employer to justify a termination. For example insubordination. The employer can claim that an employee was being hostile and creating a stressful work environment.

maxerickson 9y ago

The article is about a federal complaint they filed. There's like laws and stuff. https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employees/i-am-not-represented-union/your-rights-during-union-organizing https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employees/i...

mav3r1ck 9y ago

(commented out hastily-written comment, too late to delete).

debt 9y ago
I think he's saying that California is at-will employment. Not that unionization is bad, but that it makes it very difficult to unionize, if you can just be fired immediately and replaced.
- mav3r1ck 9y ago
  I was reacting to > but sadly there's nothing they can do about this Even if legally one has no options, you can still try to do something. Like raise awareness, etc.

andrei_says_ 9y ago

Replacing one employee who refuses to sacrifice themselves for the employer’s profit is easy and relatively cheap. Replacing 5 is much more difficult and expensive. Replacing most could be quite expensive and dangerous. So, organizing could give leverage to employees to demand humane treatment even if it reduces profit for the employer. Even in at-will environment.

cstejerean 9y ago

You can’t be fired for attempting to unionize even with at will employment. You can get fired for any reason as long as it’s not an illegal reason (like discrimination). Attempting to unionize or lobbying to improve worker conditions are generally protected. Of course the company is trying to get around this by claiming that they were terminated for other unrelated reasons (layoffs).

pslam 9y ago

This is not true. There are ways in which "at-will" termination can be illegal. Most obviously, protected-status discrimination. Termination related to labor organization is illegal. However, recourse (for the employee) generally fails because of the time scales involved, with the inevitable failure to form a union, but the employer will have to deal with the fallout eventually. That does not make it naive, and you should not further participate in making this self-fulfilling.

dragonwriter 9y ago

At-will employment means you can be fired for any reason other than specific prohibited reasons in law (the alternative is systems where you can only be fired for reasons named in law; the difference is between “default allow” and “default deny”.) But firing for labor organizing is an explicit prohibition in both California and Federal law (the federal prohibition was the basis of Damore’s NLRB complaint against Google, for a recent example that has gotten much HN attention.)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rexpop 9y ago

It was naive of them to be fired in a state like California?

bspn 9y ago

IANAL, but I believe the Federal NLRA trumps any state-level at-will provision in much the same way as the EEOC operates. I don't even think formalizing a union is required, but simply banding together to improve working conditions automatically gives you protected status.