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The real story is he has no employment rights because he's in America and he's "at will." They can dismiss him because they don't like his lunch selection that

The real story is he has no employment rights because he's in America and he's "at will." They can dismiss him because they don't like his lunch selection that day and he has no rights. That's at will employment. This type of situation plays out all over the country everyday.

JPKab 9y ago
It gets abused for sure, but more often, businesses get to fire bad employees, and this means they are more likely to give some people a chance who wouldn't get one otherwise. Hiring in certain countries is very risky, because it is so costly to fire a bad employee.
- ixacto 9y ago
  Bullshit. It is 100% advantage for the employee. Another employee and myself got laid off with 2 days notice from my former employer when they decided they were going to try to use less people. This is really annoying since I now am working as a temp for 6mo until I'm hired at another company and have to pay $400/mo out of pocket for insurance. This is in the biotech industry not the tech industry, maybe things are better there.
  - fouc 9y ago
    you mean for the employer?
- banned1 9y ago
  Which is why many companies don’t hire many people in France http://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/knowledge/publications/147348/ten-things-to-know-about-labour-and-employment-law-in-france http://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/knowledge/publications/14...
  - John_KZ 9y ago
    This is also why people in France have stable, long-term jobs, instead of being fired by Wallmart every 6 months due to some war veteran scheme that allows them to save 0.1% on employee salaries. In this particular case, if the man wasn't trained appropriately to handle international PR while doing so, the wrongdoing lies with the company. The article itself seems to adopt a certain attitude that I really dislike. For one, I don't believe that the employee clicked accidentally. It really sounds like a lie. Then the arguments alternate between "it's not my job" and "Why should we care about China/other countries? Why should just tell them to f-ck off!". The truth is that both the US and the company seem to have an opinion. The employee, either due to negligence or ignorance, broke that line, and the company faced a backlash. It's not like China is exceptionally evil or something. I hate people trying to vilify entrire countries and politicize everything. It sounds like the author is just looking for a reason to bash China.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      A lot of young people in France are on short-term contracts, precisely because long-term employees are hard to fire. Imagine that you are a startup in France, with long-term employees, and suddenly you realize you screwed up, and you have to cut your expenses in half. Today, that means your startup is dead and all employees are screwed, but in the US, your startup continues with a much lower valuation. Which is better for the worker? There is no right answer, but in France, there's a startup-killing answer.
      - John_KZ 9y ago
        Startups are a form of volatile research projects that could be done better in a corporate environment. Startups provide precarious and unstable employment, and on average they fail and lead to unemployment. I personally love working on new, potent ideas, but this is not a viable model of development for society. "Gig economy" is getting out of control, and it's better to kill the startups than to let people abuse the legal loopholes they require. If you cannot provide a certain minimum of employment time, you shouldn't hire people. As for short-term contracts, they were misused a lot post-2008, but the situation is much better now and most people won't work under such contracts.
  - realusername 9y ago
    From what I've discussed with a lot of small businesses in France, workers-friendly laws are not an obstacle at all and unlike what you can see in the news, it plays almost no part in hiring (the laws are actually very reasonable and it all makes sense). The main obstacle is by far the high taxes.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      You might want to also talk to small businesses in France that deal with with unexpected setbacks -- from what I have observed, this usually ends up with a dead startup.
      - realusername 9y ago
        Not sure what your point is, if you have no money, you are screwed whatever the country.
        greglindahl 9y ago
        In a similar situation, many US startups survive, after laying off of their half their at-will employees. That's my point.
        realusername 9y ago
        I don't know what perception of the country you have but it's not the Soviet Union you know, having financial issue is a valid reason to fire employees. The US is the only developed place without reasonable workers laws so it's more an exception than anything else.
        greglindahl 9y ago
        In the US, we call this argument "Red Baiting". Sure, let's accuse our opponent of starving 10s of millions of people to death! When there's a financial problem, there are multiple differing opinions as to what's reasonable. But if you want to call the US the "only developed place without reasonable worker laws", you might want to consider Denmark. Because they don't have the opinion you're propagating.
  - KyeRussell 9y ago
    Proponents of a largely deregulated labour market love talking about France. As someone working in Australia—a country with labour laws that are more sane than France (and definitely the U.S.)—instantly bringing up France just tends to stink of a false dichotomy and a line of rhetoric from people that try to justify the U.S.'s unjustifiably unfair labour laws. I suggest that people who aren't familiar with Australia's labour laws have a quick look at https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ https://www.fairwork.gov.au/. There are some problems, but it gives you an idea of practical alternatives to at-will employment. Main relevant takeaways: - Unfair dismissal legislation preventing employers from terminating employees unless they were grossly negligent, malicious, or didn't respond to performance management. - Unfair dismissal claim protection for small businesses provided they can show evidence of following a (very short, fair, and easy to read) code with regards to the employee's termination. It's extremely hard for me to empathise with business owners who openly have issues with these protections. At the very least, it's apparent that this dismissal wouldn't stand in Australia, as it shouldn't. Executives dismissing a support employee—out-of-touch executives who have probably forgotten how important an ongoing income stream is for people on low or even normal incomes—just to save face in a business relationship is in my opinion unjustifiable. Regardless of your view on labour laws I think most people agree on this.
    - hueving 9y ago
      >Regardless of your view on labour laws I think most people agree on this. Not if the other option was China shutting down a bunch of Marriott hotels and hundreds of employees losing their jobs instead.
      - fyi1183 9y ago
        See, this is an interesting thing about labor law: it can actually protect both parties. If Marriott was forbidden by law from firing the employee in this situation, then they could much more easily deflect the pressure from China. Make some token gesture and then say, hey, we'd like to do more, but those pesky laws prevent us from doing that. This is a case where everybody wins when there's stronger employee protection.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    A french contract has 1 to 6 months of trial period. New employees can be fired anytime with 24h notice and zero protection.
- andrepd 9y ago
  More often, you assert. But have you got any evidence to say so?
  - um_ya 9y ago
    Can confirm, I run a business. The biggest expense to my company are the employees. All the regulatory requirements and bullshit that comes along with it, not to mention the risk of an employee suing the company for whatever reason. There's a lot of risk hiring employees, that's why I try to minimize the number of employees I have to hire, whenever possible.
    - chillwaves 9y ago
      Your employees are also the profit generators so I would say it just comes with the territory.
      - darawk 9y ago
        Yes, but his point is that the harder the regulatory regime makes it to fire a bad employee, the fewer employees he will be willing to hire in the first place.
      - exolymph 9y ago
        > Your employees are also the profit generators Not universally true.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - FranzFerdiNaN 9y ago
      Every company tries to minimize the number of employees. But the fact remains that the employee always takes on more risk, as being fired at the wrong time, say during the crisis we just had, might end up in homelessness. Yet companies love to pretend they are the ones taking the risk and need the right to abuse employees, fire then at will, don't oay a living wage and all that.
kbenson 9y ago
> The real story is he has no employment rights because he's in America and he's "at will." At-will employment is state level, not nation level, so it's not really a "he's in America" thing. Most states subscribe to some version of at-will employment, but various states have different types of exceptions which make it much less clear to apply as a statement to the entire United States (much less the various other groups "America" could refer to).
- analog31 9y ago
  Is there another country that has "at will" employment to the extent that the US does?
  - tatersolid 9y ago
    Pretty much all of them except a few European nations.
    - zeth___ 9y ago
      Pretty much no other developed country has this. Hell most Eastern European countries don't have this.
    - badosu 9y ago
      I am not sure about that... Not in Brazil at least
      - somethingsimple 9y ago
        One of the few things I miss about Brazil is how much more protection I had there as a worker compared to the US.
        skookumchuck 9y ago
        I didn't realize Brazil had an affluent economy with a high standard of living.
eagsalazar2 9y ago
Forcing employers to keep employees they don't like, for any reason beyond discrimination, isn't the answer. The better answer is, IMO, better social safety net so people making $14/hr don't end up on the streets just because their job goes away.
- rectang 9y ago
  But in the USA, we insist that the unemployed suffer to fluff the moral vanity of the wealthy. It is the flip side of "meritocracy" -- wealth is evidence of moral superiority while poverty is evidence of moral inferiority, and more dramatic the comparison the stronger the proof that success is deserved. "There but for my own prodigious talent and relentless drive to succeed go I."
- JetSpiegel 9y ago
  The Flexi-Security approach to social security. The hard part is making sure companies pay their dues.
  - rectang 9y ago
    Having health care tied to the employer-employee relationship has worked out poorly. The less the safety net is subject to the whims of business, the better off we will all be -- including businesses.
  - ptaipale 9y ago
    How come? AFAIK there is no big problem in Denmark (which has the flexicurity approach) to collect social security payments. All employees have a person number registered at the civil registration system. Companies pay the social contributions and tax withdrawals with the PAYE system. The only exception is perhaps "shadow economy" of immigrant-dominated areas in some cities where rule of law is weaker and restaurants and other local businesses may use undocumented employees. But these cannot be very big business.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Denmark is famous for having a social safety net that makes sure laid-off employees have the skills to get a new job. It's a happy medium between excessive employee protections and lack of employee protections.
throwaway45074 9y ago
And yet all I see on HN is talk about how hiring a single false positive is supposedly so calamitous that it's better to reject (and waste the time of, and insult) tens, hundreds, or even thousands of false negatives.
- emiliobumachar 9y ago
  There's a lot of "natural" toxicity of bad hires, and it does inspire a lot of fear. Additional state-imposed toxicity makes it even worse.
functioningCog 9y ago
It sucks. I'm in a state with At-Will employment - it affects those with very expendable jobs. I've had plenty of friends get fired from restaurant jobs just for (legitimately) calling in sick.
falcolas 9y ago
In my opinion, there is a bigger problem with at will employment than being able to be fired at any time. If your employer wants to change your contract in almost any fashion, their continued employment of you is considered to be sufficient “consideration” for the change. They want to put you on call? No extra pay required. Change you to the night shift? You still have a job, that’s sufficient. It’s an employee rights disaster.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > They want to put you on call? No extra pay required. Change you to the night shift? You still have a job, that’s sufficient. How is it not? You can always threaten to quit if they don't give you a raise. The only way that doesn't work is if they can easily replace you with someone willing to work harder for less money. And in that case that's what they're supposed to do. You would only be willing to quit if you had a better option that the person willing to do this job for less money apparently doesn't. So then they should get your job and you should go take the better job.
  - your-nanny 9y ago
    Oh yeah the $14/hr employee is just gonna quit, because they can afford to go without income for the next few weeks while looking for a new one. Or not.
    - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
      > Oh yeah the $14/hr employee is just gonna quit, because they can afford to go without income for the next few weeks while looking for a new one. So spend a few weeks looking for a new job and then quit. More importantly, you don't actually have to quit, you only have to make the credible threat of quitting. Then you get the raise because it's cheaper than finding and training a replacement.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    I keep seeing this "supposed to do" tossed around when it comes to companies abusing their employees (and yes, changing an employees contract without more consideration than "keep working" is abusing an employee) like it's some kind of divine directive that drives capitalist corporations. It's not. A company can treat its employees well and still be profitable. There is no law that says the only job of a company is to maximize profits for shareholders; in fact, this has gone to court and judged to not be the case. So, no, a company is not "supposed" to do these kinds of underhanded things. Just because they can - just because it's legal - doesn't mean they should.
nemothekid 9y ago
This seems to imply that had Roy not lived at-will state he would have kept his job and completely misses the real bully in the article. Read the section on the threats Marriott got. China barred Marriot from making online bookings for a week. China would have done everything in their power to make sure someone was going to suffer for Roy’s mishap. At-will employment would have changed little about Roy’s situation vs a huge international political bully.
- mercurial 9y ago
  > At-will employment would have changed little about Roy’s situation vs a huge international political bully. That entirely depends on the country. There is no "huge international bully" clause in employment law. Not to mention that I'm not sure about "the real bully". If you think that underpaid customer care agents have the responsibility for executing your business strategy in China, maybe you should pay them appropriately. Or maybe you should ensure that someone higher up the food chain takes the fall.
gnicholas 9y ago
I see this pro-worker sentiment on HN pretty regularly. But I also see the "hire slow, fire fast" mantra. Are these views held by different people, or by the same people regarding different situations (like working for big companies versus startups)?
- quadrangle 9y ago
  different people most likely is my guess
  - gt_ 9y ago
    I wouldn’t be surprised by anything. Americans are shameless contortionists in the act of justifying inhumane business practices.
curun1r 9y ago
Or the real story is how much businesses kowtow to the Chinese government and enable their human rights abuses. I would be quite happy to see Marriott face blowback in the US and other parts of the world over this as people show their support for a free Tibet. Letting China browbeat businesses into submission for the privilege of operating in that market isn't a good thing and more businesses need to be made to decide between China and the rest of the world. Otherwise, the Chinese government will continue to get away with this. But it was the Chinese government that blew a single like out of proportion and threatened Marriott with millions of dollars in lost business. Marriott's response to scapegoat and fire the individual to appease China makes complete sense so long as we continue to allow companies to get away with that behavior. It won't stop until we make an example out of one or two companies to show that they at least need to consider the financial ramifications of appeasement too.
- azernik 9y ago
  Sometimes a story captures lots of little elements of the world we live in all at once.
  - LaGrange 9y ago
    That's crazy talk, every story is about one thing, everything has one clear reason, and there's only one flavour of ice cream, and it's raspberry.
    - your-nanny 9y ago
      Raspberry chocolate.
- exolymph 9y ago
  > Letting China browbeat businesses into submission for the privilege of operating in that market isn't a good thing I don't think "letting" is a very accurate word in this case — Marriott could pull out of China (likely at a loss) but the company doesn't want to because it would be financially stupid. In fact, as a public company Marriott is mandated to act in its shareholders' best financial interests.
sneak 9y ago
Mutual consent is very important in interactions.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
skookumchuck 9y ago
Anyone can also quit at any time. Doesn't matter if they need you or not.
gambiting 9y ago
Yep, once again, the real upsetting thing here is how US companies can just fire employees on the spot. That's just crazy.
gnulinux 9y ago
As an "at will" junior software engineer, if I one day get fired for my lunch selection, is there any legal actions I can take, assuming I'm an honest, skilled, competent worker?
- Retra 9y ago
  They probably won't tell you why you were fired.
  - gnulinux 9y ago
    And I can't legally demand to get more information, right?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
briandear 9y ago
Buyers and sellers of labor are just like the buyers and sellers of any good or service. Why we've elevated selling labor to a company as something more significant than a barber selling haircuts doesn't make much sense when looked at logically. If I get my hair cut at a barber every month for years. Do I owe that barber "rights" when I decide I don't want to cut my hair there anymore? I'm buying the labor. I'm hiring that barber to do a job for me. Is it my requirement that I provide that barber with "benefits?" No. I provide that barber with the cash he demands for his services -- then he can choose to buy whatever "benefits" he deems important. If the barber wants to charge me too much, I can find another barber who can do the same quality of job for less money. Perhaps I can't find a replacement, perhaps that barber is the only one with the unique experience to handle my hair -- in which case, he could demand more money since he has a rare combination of skills and experience that I'm willing to pay for. But, if his work is generic, then I can easily find another barber who has lower prices. If that barber wants to strike because he's mad I won't pay him more, then he can strike all he wants -- I'll go somewhere else or just stop getting my hair cut. Not my problem. The barber's success or failure in the marketplace is due to his ability to control his costs, improve his efficiencies or otherwise differentiate himself within the market. A smart barber will have saved a portion of earnings to mitigate those times when he loses a customer. A even smarter barber will be looking at expanding his skills, increasing innovation and efficiency in order to ensure he's providing a compelling value proposition for his customers. The not-so-smart barder assumes that past performance is an indicator of future results. Why we have this backwards notion that the employer, the "customer" of labor has to provide the seller of labor with "protections" is a mystery. To me, it seems like this whole idea is just a Marxist religious belief. Just as fatalism and "the will of God," is a thing in many many Catholic Latin American societies, it seems like this idea of the "worker" as an "exploited" cog in an evil capitalist wheel is equally flawed. This idea that workers need "protecting" serves to infantilize otherwise grown-up adults. Thanks to vestigies of Marxist/Leninist 20th century propaganda, there's an entire school of thought that has workers as victims, children or otherwise incompetent invalids unable to care for themselves. The French Labor Code was built around that very idea. I've been fired a few times with no-notice. I've also quit a few times with no-notice. I know what it feels like to have the carpet ripped out from under me -- but I don't feel like French style "protections" is the answer because, as quickly as I've been fired, I've been able to find new jobs because when there are fewer restrictions on hiring and firing -- it lowers the cost of hiring and firing. It provides liquidity to the labor market -- which is better for everyone. Restrictive and highly protectionistic labor markets ALWAYS lead to higher unemployement AND lower wages. Since firing employees is expensive in protected labor markets, that means, necessarily, that companies will be far more conservative in hiring employees in the first place. You aren't going to hire someone quickly. You're going to vet, vet and re-vet potential hires. You're going to discriminate aggressively. You're going to ensure that they have absolutely perfect credentials. You're going to hire people recommended by close friends and trusted associates and those within your existing social circles -- because it would be risky to hire someone with a Algerian last name or from a school you've never heard of or from a country with which you aren't familiar. This is exactly how it works in France. [1] If you look at Silicon Valley -- while a some level disrimination, it's one of the most diverse places in the world when it comes to national origin. The demand for labor is so high that a transgendered Nigerian midget with a criminal record will get hired if she happened to be an expert in Swift, Java, Go, AI, ML or Ruby. And said migdget could demand (and get) a salary that's 4 times higher that the same midget in Paris, with taxes 50% less and 18% more in after-tax, after-health disposible income. [2] The "problem" with Silicon Valley diversity isn't an unwillingness to hire, it's a relative undersupply of labor from particular groups. There are far fewer women software engineers than men. So it follows that it's going to be harder to hire women software engineers. Now, the reason for that supply problem is another discussion, but the fact is that a qualified anyone can get a job quickly in Silicon Valley -- specifically because there is a highly liquid labor market! At will employment reduces unemployment and increases market/wage efficiency. > They can dismiss him because they don't like his lunch selection that day and he has no rights. Yes, and he has the right to quit if he doesn't like their lunch selection. He isn't a child. Employment is a two-way transaction. I have labor you want, you pay me for it. If either one of us don't like the arrangement, we can walk away. Why is that such a controversial idea? Any transaction where one side or another is forced to act against his or her own interests is wrong. Forcing a company to justify a reason is just as wrong as forcing an employee to justify why they should be allowed to quit. It's about to be ironic when this post gets the inevitable downvotes -- downvotes from American tech employees and founders that benefit from the very labor liquity that I'm advocating. [1] http://www.strategie.gouv.fr/english-articles/economic-cost-workplace-discrimination-france-billions-euros-lost-potential http://www.strategie.gouv.fr/english-articles/economic-cost-... [2] http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/France/United-States/Cost-of-living http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/France/Unit...
pfortuny 9y ago
For me (Spain) this is unbelievable... That firing would be totally illegal here and the worker would have to be rehired and compensated. Man, what a country.
mantas 9y ago
In Europe he’d be fired for failing to do his job and/or tainting company image. No employee rights can save someone who made a mistake. He might go to court over that and try to claim that it was not his fault or that it’s not such a big mistake. But his chances wouldn’t be good in most countries. Oh, and he wouldn’t even be offered any kind of severance. It’d be seen as employ-fault firing.
brann0 9y ago
And that's why unions are so important.

JPKab 9y ago

It gets abused for sure, but more often, businesses get to fire bad employees, and this means they are more likely to give some people a chance who wouldn't get one otherwise. Hiring in certain countries is very risky, because it is so costly to fire a bad employee.

ixacto 9y ago
Bullshit. It is 100% advantage for the employee. Another employee and myself got laid off with 2 days notice from my former employer when they decided they were going to try to use less people. This is really annoying since I now am working as a temp for 6mo until I'm hired at another company and have to pay $400/mo out of pocket for insurance. This is in the biotech industry not the tech industry, maybe things are better there.
- fouc 9y ago
  you mean for the employer?
banned1 9y ago
Which is why many companies don’t hire many people in France http://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/knowledge/publications/147348/ten-things-to-know-about-labour-and-employment-law-in-france http://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/knowledge/publications/14...
- John_KZ 9y ago
  This is also why people in France have stable, long-term jobs, instead of being fired by Wallmart every 6 months due to some war veteran scheme that allows them to save 0.1% on employee salaries. In this particular case, if the man wasn't trained appropriately to handle international PR while doing so, the wrongdoing lies with the company. The article itself seems to adopt a certain attitude that I really dislike. For one, I don't believe that the employee clicked accidentally. It really sounds like a lie. Then the arguments alternate between "it's not my job" and "Why should we care about China/other countries? Why should just tell them to f-ck off!". The truth is that both the US and the company seem to have an opinion. The employee, either due to negligence or ignorance, broke that line, and the company faced a backlash. It's not like China is exceptionally evil or something. I hate people trying to vilify entrire countries and politicize everything. It sounds like the author is just looking for a reason to bash China.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    A lot of young people in France are on short-term contracts, precisely because long-term employees are hard to fire. Imagine that you are a startup in France, with long-term employees, and suddenly you realize you screwed up, and you have to cut your expenses in half. Today, that means your startup is dead and all employees are screwed, but in the US, your startup continues with a much lower valuation. Which is better for the worker? There is no right answer, but in France, there's a startup-killing answer.
    - John_KZ 9y ago
      Startups are a form of volatile research projects that could be done better in a corporate environment. Startups provide precarious and unstable employment, and on average they fail and lead to unemployment. I personally love working on new, potent ideas, but this is not a viable model of development for society. "Gig economy" is getting out of control, and it's better to kill the startups than to let people abuse the legal loopholes they require. If you cannot provide a certain minimum of employment time, you shouldn't hire people. As for short-term contracts, they were misused a lot post-2008, but the situation is much better now and most people won't work under such contracts.
- realusername 9y ago
  From what I've discussed with a lot of small businesses in France, workers-friendly laws are not an obstacle at all and unlike what you can see in the news, it plays almost no part in hiring (the laws are actually very reasonable and it all makes sense). The main obstacle is by far the high taxes.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    You might want to also talk to small businesses in France that deal with with unexpected setbacks -- from what I have observed, this usually ends up with a dead startup.
    - realusername 9y ago
      Not sure what your point is, if you have no money, you are screwed whatever the country.
      - greglindahl 9y ago
        In a similar situation, many US startups survive, after laying off of their half their at-will employees. That's my point.
        realusername 9y ago
        I don't know what perception of the country you have but it's not the Soviet Union you know, having financial issue is a valid reason to fire employees. The US is the only developed place without reasonable workers laws so it's more an exception than anything else.
        greglindahl 9y ago
        In the US, we call this argument "Red Baiting". Sure, let's accuse our opponent of starving 10s of millions of people to death! When there's a financial problem, there are multiple differing opinions as to what's reasonable. But if you want to call the US the "only developed place without reasonable worker laws", you might want to consider Denmark. Because they don't have the opinion you're propagating.
- KyeRussell 9y ago
  Proponents of a largely deregulated labour market love talking about France. As someone working in Australia—a country with labour laws that are more sane than France (and definitely the U.S.)—instantly bringing up France just tends to stink of a false dichotomy and a line of rhetoric from people that try to justify the U.S.'s unjustifiably unfair labour laws. I suggest that people who aren't familiar with Australia's labour laws have a quick look at https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ https://www.fairwork.gov.au/. There are some problems, but it gives you an idea of practical alternatives to at-will employment. Main relevant takeaways: - Unfair dismissal legislation preventing employers from terminating employees unless they were grossly negligent, malicious, or didn't respond to performance management. - Unfair dismissal claim protection for small businesses provided they can show evidence of following a (very short, fair, and easy to read) code with regards to the employee's termination. It's extremely hard for me to empathise with business owners who openly have issues with these protections. At the very least, it's apparent that this dismissal wouldn't stand in Australia, as it shouldn't. Executives dismissing a support employee—out-of-touch executives who have probably forgotten how important an ongoing income stream is for people on low or even normal incomes—just to save face in a business relationship is in my opinion unjustifiable. Regardless of your view on labour laws I think most people agree on this.
  - hueving 9y ago
    >Regardless of your view on labour laws I think most people agree on this. Not if the other option was China shutting down a bunch of Marriott hotels and hundreds of employees losing their jobs instead.
    - fyi1183 9y ago
      See, this is an interesting thing about labor law: it can actually protect both parties. If Marriott was forbidden by law from firing the employee in this situation, then they could much more easily deflect the pressure from China. Make some token gesture and then say, hey, we'd like to do more, but those pesky laws prevent us from doing that. This is a case where everybody wins when there's stronger employee protection.
- user5994461 9y ago
  A french contract has 1 to 6 months of trial period. New employees can be fired anytime with 24h notice and zero protection.
andrepd 9y ago
More often, you assert. But have you got any evidence to say so?
- um_ya 9y ago
  Can confirm, I run a business. The biggest expense to my company are the employees. All the regulatory requirements and bullshit that comes along with it, not to mention the risk of an employee suing the company for whatever reason. There's a lot of risk hiring employees, that's why I try to minimize the number of employees I have to hire, whenever possible.
  - chillwaves 9y ago
    Your employees are also the profit generators so I would say it just comes with the territory.
    - darawk 9y ago
      Yes, but his point is that the harder the regulatory regime makes it to fire a bad employee, the fewer employees he will be willing to hire in the first place.
    - exolymph 9y ago
      > Your employees are also the profit generators Not universally true.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - FranzFerdiNaN 9y ago
    Every company tries to minimize the number of employees. But the fact remains that the employee always takes on more risk, as being fired at the wrong time, say during the crisis we just had, might end up in homelessness. Yet companies love to pretend they are the ones taking the risk and need the right to abuse employees, fire then at will, don't oay a living wage and all that.

kbenson 9y ago

> The real story is he has no employment rights because he's in America and he's "at will." At-will employment is state level, not nation level, so it's not really a "he's in America" thing. Most states subscribe to some version of at-will employment, but various states have different types of exceptions which make it much less clear to apply as a statement to the entire United States (much less the various other groups "America" could refer to).

analog31 9y ago
Is there another country that has "at will" employment to the extent that the US does?
- tatersolid 9y ago
  Pretty much all of them except a few European nations.
  - zeth___ 9y ago
    Pretty much no other developed country has this. Hell most Eastern European countries don't have this.
  - badosu 9y ago
    I am not sure about that... Not in Brazil at least
    - somethingsimple 9y ago
      One of the few things I miss about Brazil is how much more protection I had there as a worker compared to the US.
      - skookumchuck 9y ago
        I didn't realize Brazil had an affluent economy with a high standard of living.

eagsalazar2 9y ago

Forcing employers to keep employees they don't like, for any reason beyond discrimination, isn't the answer. The better answer is, IMO, better social safety net so people making $14/hr don't end up on the streets just because their job goes away.

rectang 9y ago
But in the USA, we insist that the unemployed suffer to fluff the moral vanity of the wealthy. It is the flip side of "meritocracy" -- wealth is evidence of moral superiority while poverty is evidence of moral inferiority, and more dramatic the comparison the stronger the proof that success is deserved. "There but for my own prodigious talent and relentless drive to succeed go I."
JetSpiegel 9y ago
The Flexi-Security approach to social security. The hard part is making sure companies pay their dues.
- rectang 9y ago
  Having health care tied to the employer-employee relationship has worked out poorly. The less the safety net is subject to the whims of business, the better off we will all be -- including businesses.
- ptaipale 9y ago
  How come? AFAIK there is no big problem in Denmark (which has the flexicurity approach) to collect social security payments. All employees have a person number registered at the civil registration system. Companies pay the social contributions and tax withdrawals with the PAYE system. The only exception is perhaps "shadow economy" of immigrant-dominated areas in some cities where rule of law is weaker and restaurants and other local businesses may use undocumented employees. But these cannot be very big business.
greglindahl 9y ago
Denmark is famous for having a social safety net that makes sure laid-off employees have the skills to get a new job. It's a happy medium between excessive employee protections and lack of employee protections.

throwaway45074 9y ago

And yet all I see on HN is talk about how hiring a single false positive is supposedly so calamitous that it's better to reject (and waste the time of, and insult) tens, hundreds, or even thousands of false negatives.

emiliobumachar 9y ago
There's a lot of "natural" toxicity of bad hires, and it does inspire a lot of fear. Additional state-imposed toxicity makes it even worse.

functioningCog 9y ago

It sucks. I'm in a state with At-Will employment - it affects those with very expendable jobs. I've had plenty of friends get fired from restaurant jobs just for (legitimately) calling in sick.

falcolas 9y ago

In my opinion, there is a bigger problem with at will employment than being able to be fired at any time. If your employer wants to change your contract in almost any fashion, their continued employment of you is considered to be sufficient “consideration” for the change. They want to put you on call? No extra pay required. Change you to the night shift? You still have a job, that’s sufficient. It’s an employee rights disaster.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> They want to put you on call? No extra pay required. Change you to the night shift? You still have a job, that’s sufficient. How is it not? You can always threaten to quit if they don't give you a raise. The only way that doesn't work is if they can easily replace you with someone willing to work harder for less money. And in that case that's what they're supposed to do. You would only be willing to quit if you had a better option that the person willing to do this job for less money apparently doesn't. So then they should get your job and you should go take the better job.
- your-nanny 9y ago
  Oh yeah the $14/hr employee is just gonna quit, because they can afford to go without income for the next few weeks while looking for a new one. Or not.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    > Oh yeah the $14/hr employee is just gonna quit, because they can afford to go without income for the next few weeks while looking for a new one. So spend a few weeks looking for a new job and then quit. More importantly, you don't actually have to quit, you only have to make the credible threat of quitting. Then you get the raise because it's cheaper than finding and training a replacement.
- falcolas 9y ago
  I keep seeing this "supposed to do" tossed around when it comes to companies abusing their employees (and yes, changing an employees contract without more consideration than "keep working" is abusing an employee) like it's some kind of divine directive that drives capitalist corporations. It's not. A company can treat its employees well and still be profitable. There is no law that says the only job of a company is to maximize profits for shareholders; in fact, this has gone to court and judged to not be the case. So, no, a company is not "supposed" to do these kinds of underhanded things. Just because they can - just because it's legal - doesn't mean they should.

nemothekid 9y ago

This seems to imply that had Roy not lived at-will state he would have kept his job and completely misses the real bully in the article. Read the section on the threats Marriott got. China barred Marriot from making online bookings for a week. China would have done everything in their power to make sure someone was going to suffer for Roy’s mishap. At-will employment would have changed little about Roy’s situation vs a huge international political bully.

mercurial 9y ago
> At-will employment would have changed little about Roy’s situation vs a huge international political bully. That entirely depends on the country. There is no "huge international bully" clause in employment law. Not to mention that I'm not sure about "the real bully". If you think that underpaid customer care agents have the responsibility for executing your business strategy in China, maybe you should pay them appropriately. Or maybe you should ensure that someone higher up the food chain takes the fall.

gnicholas 9y ago

I see this pro-worker sentiment on HN pretty regularly. But I also see the "hire slow, fire fast" mantra. Are these views held by different people, or by the same people regarding different situations (like working for big companies versus startups)?

quadrangle 9y ago
different people most likely is my guess
- gt_ 9y ago
  I wouldn’t be surprised by anything. Americans are shameless contortionists in the act of justifying inhumane business practices.

curun1r 9y ago

Or the real story is how much businesses kowtow to the Chinese government and enable their human rights abuses. I would be quite happy to see Marriott face blowback in the US and other parts of the world over this as people show their support for a free Tibet. Letting China browbeat businesses into submission for the privilege of operating in that market isn't a good thing and more businesses need to be made to decide between China and the rest of the world. Otherwise, the Chinese government will continue to get away with this. But it was the Chinese government that blew a single like out of proportion and threatened Marriott with millions of dollars in lost business. Marriott's response to scapegoat and fire the individual to appease China makes complete sense so long as we continue to allow companies to get away with that behavior. It won't stop until we make an example out of one or two companies to show that they at least need to consider the financial ramifications of appeasement too.

azernik 9y ago
Sometimes a story captures lots of little elements of the world we live in all at once.
- LaGrange 9y ago
  That's crazy talk, every story is about one thing, everything has one clear reason, and there's only one flavour of ice cream, and it's raspberry.
  - your-nanny 9y ago
    Raspberry chocolate.
exolymph 9y ago
> Letting China browbeat businesses into submission for the privilege of operating in that market isn't a good thing I don't think "letting" is a very accurate word in this case — Marriott could pull out of China (likely at a loss) but the company doesn't want to because it would be financially stupid. In fact, as a public company Marriott is mandated to act in its shareholders' best financial interests.

sneak 9y ago

Mutual consent is very important in interactions.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

skookumchuck 9y ago

Anyone can also quit at any time. Doesn't matter if they need you or not.

gambiting 9y ago

Yep, once again, the real upsetting thing here is how US companies can just fire employees on the spot. That's just crazy.

gnulinux 9y ago

As an "at will" junior software engineer, if I one day get fired for my lunch selection, is there any legal actions I can take, assuming I'm an honest, skilled, competent worker?

Retra 9y ago
They probably won't tell you why you were fired.
- gnulinux 9y ago
  And I can't legally demand to get more information, right?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

briandear 9y ago

Buyers and sellers of labor are just like the buyers and sellers of any good or service. Why we've elevated selling labor to a company as something more significant than a barber selling haircuts doesn't make much sense when looked at logically. If I get my hair cut at a barber every month for years. Do I owe that barber "rights" when I decide I don't want to cut my hair there anymore? I'm buying the labor. I'm hiring that barber to do a job for me. Is it my requirement that I provide that barber with "benefits?" No. I provide that barber with the cash he demands for his services -- then he can choose to buy whatever "benefits" he deems important. If the barber wants to charge me too much, I can find another barber who can do the same quality of job for less money. Perhaps I can't find a replacement, perhaps that barber is the only one with the unique experience to handle my hair -- in which case, he could demand more money since he has a rare combination of skills and experience that I'm willing to pay for. But, if his work is generic, then I can easily find another barber who has lower prices. If that barber wants to strike because he's mad I won't pay him more, then he can strike all he wants -- I'll go somewhere else or just stop getting my hair cut. Not my problem. The barber's success or failure in the marketplace is due to his ability to control his costs, improve his efficiencies or otherwise differentiate himself within the market. A smart barber will have saved a portion of earnings to mitigate those times when he loses a customer. A even smarter barber will be looking at expanding his skills, increasing innovation and efficiency in order to ensure he's providing a compelling value proposition for his customers. The not-so-smart barder assumes that past performance is an indicator of future results. Why we have this backwards notion that the employer, the "customer" of labor has to provide the seller of labor with "protections" is a mystery. To me, it seems like this whole idea is just a Marxist religious belief. Just as fatalism and "the will of God," is a thing in many many Catholic Latin American societies, it seems like this idea of the "worker" as an "exploited" cog in an evil capitalist wheel is equally flawed. This idea that workers need "protecting" serves to infantilize otherwise grown-up adults. Thanks to vestigies of Marxist/Leninist 20th century propaganda, there's an entire school of thought that has workers as victims, children or otherwise incompetent invalids unable to care for themselves. The French Labor Code was built around that very idea. I've been fired a few times with no-notice. I've also quit a few times with no-notice. I know what it feels like to have the carpet ripped out from under me -- but I don't feel like French style "protections" is the answer because, as quickly as I've been fired, I've been able to find new jobs because when there are fewer restrictions on hiring and firing -- it lowers the cost of hiring and firing. It provides liquidity to the labor market -- which is better for everyone. Restrictive and highly protectionistic labor markets ALWAYS lead to higher unemployement AND lower wages. Since firing employees is expensive in protected labor markets, that means, necessarily, that companies will be far more conservative in hiring employees in the first place. You aren't going to hire someone quickly. You're going to vet, vet and re-vet potential hires. You're going to discriminate aggressively. You're going to ensure that they have absolutely perfect credentials. You're going to hire people recommended by close friends and trusted associates and those within your existing social circles -- because it would be risky to hire someone with a Algerian last name or from a school you've never heard of or from a country with which you aren't familiar. This is exactly how it works in France. [1] If you look at Silicon Valley -- while a some level disrimination, it's one of the most diverse places in the world when it comes to national origin. The demand for labor is so high that a transgendered Nigerian midget with a criminal record will get hired if she happened to be an expert in Swift, Java, Go, AI, ML or Ruby. And said migdget could demand (and get) a salary that's 4 times higher that the same midget in Paris, with taxes 50% less and 18% more in after-tax, after-health disposible income. [2] The "problem" with Silicon Valley diversity isn't an unwillingness to hire, it's a relative undersupply of labor from particular groups. There are far fewer women software engineers than men. So it follows that it's going to be harder to hire women software engineers. Now, the reason for that supply problem is another discussion, but the fact is that a qualified anyone can get a job quickly in Silicon Valley -- specifically because there is a highly liquid labor market! At will employment reduces unemployment and increases market/wage efficiency. > They can dismiss him because they don't like his lunch selection that day and he has no rights. Yes, and he has the right to quit if he doesn't like their lunch selection. He isn't a child. Employment is a two-way transaction. I have labor you want, you pay me for it. If either one of us don't like the arrangement, we can walk away. Why is that such a controversial idea? Any transaction where one side or another is forced to act against his or her own interests is wrong. Forcing a company to justify a reason is just as wrong as forcing an employee to justify why they should be allowed to quit. It's about to be ironic when this post gets the inevitable downvotes -- downvotes from American tech employees and founders that benefit from the very labor liquity that I'm advocating. [1] http://www.strategie.gouv.fr/english-articles/economic-cost-workplace-discrimination-france-billions-euros-lost-potential http://www.strategie.gouv.fr/english-articles/economic-cost-... [2] http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/France/United-States/Cost-of-living http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/France/Unit...

pfortuny 9y ago

For me (Spain) this is unbelievable... That firing would be totally illegal here and the worker would have to be rehired and compensated. Man, what a country.

mantas 9y ago

In Europe he’d be fired for failing to do his job and/or tainting company image. No employee rights can save someone who made a mistake. He might go to court over that and try to claim that it was not his fault or that it’s not such a big mistake. But his chances wouldn’t be good in most countries. Oh, and he wouldn’t even be offered any kind of severance. It’d be seen as employ-fault firing.

brann0 9y ago

And that's why unions are so important.