12 ms·

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

by 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.
      - greglindahl 9y ago
        Hey, I'm all in favor of you working on new ideas, but only within an existing corporate environment. But there's plenty of proof that that's a terrible way to advance society at large.
        John_KZ 9y ago
        If a number of people(experienced/experts in a field) are willing to volunteer their time and/or capital in exchange for equity/patents/stock, then it's all good. My problem lies with externalizing the cost and risk to employees. If they need something done and they can't guarantee long-term employment, they can buy commercial services for what they need. Engineering firms and temp offices will be happy to send you a secretary, a software solution or a CAD file with what you asked.
- 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.

by JPKab 9y ago

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.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      Hey, I'm all in favor of you working on new ideas, but only within an existing corporate environment. But there's plenty of proof that that's a terrible way to advance society at large.
      - John_KZ 9y ago
        If a number of people(experienced/experts in a field) are willing to volunteer their time and/or capital in exchange for equity/patents/stock, then it's all good. My problem lies with externalizing the cost and risk to employees. If they need something done and they can't guarantee long-term employment, they can buy commercial services for what they need. Engineering firms and temp offices will be happy to send you a secretary, a software solution or a CAD file with what you asked.
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.