7 ms·

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

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.
  - jakeogh 9y ago
    Nah, the better outcome is Marriott showing it's hand. Better to know who is running the show, the consumers do just fine sorting it out. PR is extremely powerful and at least in the US many of us are very conscious about voting with our money. The alternative, where influence by people that are antithetical to our core values stays under the radar is much more damaging. My whole family will soon know this story, and they _love_ voting with their money. How's the NFL doing?
    - fyi1183 9y ago
      This can work sometimes and may even sound wise, until you realize that a lot of people's character and behaviour is determined by their environment. So I prefer the direct approach that is known to work by directly helping people do the right thing, over the indirect approach that may or may not work, depending on circumstances.
      - jakeogh 9y ago
        "direct approach" Which is? Decide for them?
- ktta 9y ago
  The parent replied to a comment as a rebuttal against the claim that France's employment laws are what you get when you give employees rights. They specially stated the false dichotomy, and made a strong argument. No one here knows if the other option has to be Marriott losing business, so you putting that out there is wrong, and ironically, again a false dichotomy.
  - hueving 9y ago
    Maybe you didn't read the full parent comment? I was responding to this point, which is specifically about the Marriott case. >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.
    - ktta 9y ago
      I did, and GP said that firing to save face is unacceptable. While you said >Not if the other option was China shutting down a bunch of Marriott hotels and hundreds of employees losing their jobs instead. to which I said we don't know, and you saying so is a false dichotomy because there are often other options.
- timv 9y ago
  But that wasn't the other option. They could have fired the executive who was responsible for managing and training the staff (who clearly failed to do so) or the executive that implemented a customer support system that allowed staff to like tweets that could cause significant damage to the company. Or they didn't have to fire anyone - it's not like China actually gets to see employment records for random staff in Omaha.
cylinder 9y ago
I'm the GP who brought up this topic. I actually am American and now working at a managerial level in Australia. When I ran into trouble with someone on my team performing at a poor level, I was a bit exasperated with these regulations and how they required me to put him on a performance improvement plan rather than immediately dismiss. I was frustrated, but it forced me to talk it out with him. We did a bit of a reset and had a smoother period. Ultimately issues arose again, but he was able to find a new job in the meantime which is a much better fit for him and moved on amicably. It was a positive result for both parties, definitely not without some stress, but it was achieved because I was forced to have patience -- and we should have patience, because people aren't disposable.
- ad_hominem 9y ago
  Plenty of white collar businesses in the US use performance improvement plans. But that would be a ridiculous remedy in a business with thin margins like a restaurant - some businesses need the freedom to hire and fire quicker.
  - thanksgiving 9y ago
    Sorry but why should the law have to cater to someone's business model?
    - gbacon 9y ago
      Employees are sellers of labor, so proponents of less regulation could ask the same question of you regarding an employee whose business model is doing as little as possible or even damaging the employer but expecting compensation to continue.
  - cylinder 9y ago
    They use those plans to avoid discrimination lawsuits, that is really the only reason behind it. HR in the US is totally different too, it's basically "just protect the business from being sued by employees."
  - 9y ago
jliptzin 9y ago
Can you terminate employees because you need to save money (i.e. laying them off)?
- yur83838 9y ago
  yup, redundancies can be used to dismiss employees. The caveat is that you can't rehire for that role for a certain period of time. This is simply to avoid the problem of companies claiming random employees are no longer needed. It is not uncommon for smaller employers to fire a manager, and hire a new supervisor though. Same job - different title. I'm unsure if it's been challenged at the FWC - I doubt it would stand.
  - timv 9y ago
    You also need to offer other options within the company if they exist. So if you're reducing the number of staff employed to support "system A", but you have vacant positions supporting "system B", then you you need to offer those positions to any affected staff, or show why those employees would not capable of doing the new job.
banned1 9y ago
You don't have to empathize with a business owners. It's their resources at play. So they simply will do business elsewhere. I don't have to open an office in France. I just don't. It's too much hassle. I open it wherever I want. So if an employee loses out by not being hired by me (or I lose out by not hiring some French awesome person), then so be it. But the point is that the US environment is more friendly for businesses, and as a result we have a lot of them. Maybe other places also have a lot of them too, but if you did a poll all over the world of what country they would want to emigrate to, it would be the US who will lead the worldwide poll.
- jeena 9y ago
  I would like to see that poll because nobody I know would ever want to emigrate to the US, especially now with that idiot president you have. On the other hand I see a lot of refugees trying to get to Germany and Sweden which have at least the same if not stricter labour laws. Reading your comment I feel that you live in a really strange bubble which allows you to think like you do.
  - banned1 9y ago
    I googled it for you https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_immigrant_population https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and... http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/index.shtml http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/d... America has historically been the country most people go to.
  - skookumchuck 9y ago
    > nobody I know would ever want to emigrate to the US And yet people want to get here so bad they illegally stream over the border by the millions. > I see a lot of refugees trying to get to Germany and Sweden It's a lot harder to walk from Europe to the US.
  - gbacon 9y ago
    Different people are attracted to different potential outcomes. Compensation is a vector, after all. It’s the usual question of risk versus reward. Some will find the perceived safety of generous government protection and benefits desirable, even at the cost of lower remuneration. Others prefer to swing for the fence.
brownbat 9y ago
Agreed we shouldn't cherry pick countries. One interesting thing about France and Australia is that by the Ease of Doing Business Index over the last decade, France is gaining on but still behind Australia. (FRA: 44 -> 31; AUS: 6 -> 14). So suppose we agreed France was performing worse economically than Australia over the last decade. Then we might conclude that absolute position matters and liberalization is important. Or we might as likely conclude the complete opposite, that gains on the index don't matter and liberalization isn't important. And that's not even bringing the Economic Freedom Index into things, which has a radically different ranking based on similar criteria. It's almost as if a lot of of what people believe about economics on both sides is under-determined by the available evidence. But eh, maybe that's too cynical. That's just two countries. I'd really like to see some data analysis on how much "ease of doing business" (or some similar metric) matters to GDP--and maybe also to surveys of feelings of job security / satisfaction as well. Looking across most countries, maybe hard patterns would emerge. Or maybe economics is all noise unless you're at Weimar levels of malfeasance, who knows. South Korea, Georgia, and Macedonia have skyrocketed up the EoDB chart, so I guess for any of us who suspect there's a sufficiently strong link, we have an opportunity to put our money down.
- tajen 9y ago
  Another relationship to study is between the quasi job-for-life laws we have in France and being the country with the most population under antidepressants in the world.
  - Steve44 9y ago
    > France and being the country with the most population under antidepressants in the world. I was intrigued by this and decided to have a look at the figures and I can't find anything to support your statement. Where do you get your information from? From Business Insider graphing OECD figures for the number of people per 1000 who take antidepressants shows France to be 50/1000 which is 16th from the top. http://static3.uk.businessinsider.com/image/56b381f7dd0895c4558b46b0-1200-1183/ti_graphics_antidepressants-chart.png http://static3.uk.businessinsider.com/image/56b381f7dd0895c4... Directly from the OECD site is a page showing the dose consumed per 1000 people. It's very similar to the above, possibly the same data source but they are supposedly measured in different ways. https://asset.keepeek-cache.com/medias/domain21/_pdf/media2317/359829-ngn8xxdpav/large/186.jpg https://asset.keepeek-cache.com/medias/domain21/_pdf/media23... They both show France uses a lot less than many other countries,less than half Iceland and bout 2/3rds of the UK, Sweden, Canada and Australia.

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.
- jakeogh 9y ago
  Nah, the better outcome is Marriott showing it's hand. Better to know who is running the show, the consumers do just fine sorting it out. PR is extremely powerful and at least in the US many of us are very conscious about voting with our money. The alternative, where influence by people that are antithetical to our core values stays under the radar is much more damaging. My whole family will soon know this story, and they _love_ voting with their money. How's the NFL doing?
  - fyi1183 9y ago
    This can work sometimes and may even sound wise, until you realize that a lot of people's character and behaviour is determined by their environment. So I prefer the direct approach that is known to work by directly helping people do the right thing, over the indirect approach that may or may not work, depending on circumstances.
    - jakeogh 9y ago
      "direct approach" Which is? Decide for them?
ktta 9y ago
The parent replied to a comment as a rebuttal against the claim that France's employment laws are what you get when you give employees rights. They specially stated the false dichotomy, and made a strong argument. No one here knows if the other option has to be Marriott losing business, so you putting that out there is wrong, and ironically, again a false dichotomy.
- hueving 9y ago
  Maybe you didn't read the full parent comment? I was responding to this point, which is specifically about the Marriott case. >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.
  - ktta 9y ago
    I did, and GP said that firing to save face is unacceptable. While you said >Not if the other option was China shutting down a bunch of Marriott hotels and hundreds of employees losing their jobs instead. to which I said we don't know, and you saying so is a false dichotomy because there are often other options.
timv 9y ago
But that wasn't the other option. They could have fired the executive who was responsible for managing and training the staff (who clearly failed to do so) or the executive that implemented a customer support system that allowed staff to like tweets that could cause significant damage to the company. Or they didn't have to fire anyone - it's not like China actually gets to see employment records for random staff in Omaha.

cylinder 9y ago

I'm the GP who brought up this topic. I actually am American and now working at a managerial level in Australia. When I ran into trouble with someone on my team performing at a poor level, I was a bit exasperated with these regulations and how they required me to put him on a performance improvement plan rather than immediately dismiss. I was frustrated, but it forced me to talk it out with him. We did a bit of a reset and had a smoother period. Ultimately issues arose again, but he was able to find a new job in the meantime which is a much better fit for him and moved on amicably. It was a positive result for both parties, definitely not without some stress, but it was achieved because I was forced to have patience -- and we should have patience, because people aren't disposable.

ad_hominem 9y ago
Plenty of white collar businesses in the US use performance improvement plans. But that would be a ridiculous remedy in a business with thin margins like a restaurant - some businesses need the freedom to hire and fire quicker.
- thanksgiving 9y ago
  Sorry but why should the law have to cater to someone's business model?
  - gbacon 9y ago
    Employees are sellers of labor, so proponents of less regulation could ask the same question of you regarding an employee whose business model is doing as little as possible or even damaging the employer but expecting compensation to continue.
- cylinder 9y ago
  They use those plans to avoid discrimination lawsuits, that is really the only reason behind it. HR in the US is totally different too, it's basically "just protect the business from being sued by employees."
- 9y ago

jliptzin 9y ago

Can you terminate employees because you need to save money (i.e. laying them off)?

yur83838 9y ago
yup, redundancies can be used to dismiss employees. The caveat is that you can't rehire for that role for a certain period of time. This is simply to avoid the problem of companies claiming random employees are no longer needed. It is not uncommon for smaller employers to fire a manager, and hire a new supervisor though. Same job - different title. I'm unsure if it's been challenged at the FWC - I doubt it would stand.
- timv 9y ago
  You also need to offer other options within the company if they exist. So if you're reducing the number of staff employed to support "system A", but you have vacant positions supporting "system B", then you you need to offer those positions to any affected staff, or show why those employees would not capable of doing the new job.

banned1 9y ago

You don't have to empathize with a business owners. It's their resources at play. So they simply will do business elsewhere. I don't have to open an office in France. I just don't. It's too much hassle. I open it wherever I want. So if an employee loses out by not being hired by me (or I lose out by not hiring some French awesome person), then so be it. But the point is that the US environment is more friendly for businesses, and as a result we have a lot of them. Maybe other places also have a lot of them too, but if you did a poll all over the world of what country they would want to emigrate to, it would be the US who will lead the worldwide poll.

jeena 9y ago
I would like to see that poll because nobody I know would ever want to emigrate to the US, especially now with that idiot president you have. On the other hand I see a lot of refugees trying to get to Germany and Sweden which have at least the same if not stricter labour laws. Reading your comment I feel that you live in a really strange bubble which allows you to think like you do.
- banned1 9y ago
  I googled it for you https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_immigrant_population https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and... http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/index.shtml http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/d... America has historically been the country most people go to.
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  > nobody I know would ever want to emigrate to the US And yet people want to get here so bad they illegally stream over the border by the millions. > I see a lot of refugees trying to get to Germany and Sweden It's a lot harder to walk from Europe to the US.
- gbacon 9y ago
  Different people are attracted to different potential outcomes. Compensation is a vector, after all. It’s the usual question of risk versus reward. Some will find the perceived safety of generous government protection and benefits desirable, even at the cost of lower remuneration. Others prefer to swing for the fence.

brownbat 9y ago

Agreed we shouldn't cherry pick countries. One interesting thing about France and Australia is that by the Ease of Doing Business Index over the last decade, France is gaining on but still behind Australia. (FRA: 44 -> 31; AUS: 6 -> 14). So suppose we agreed France was performing worse economically than Australia over the last decade. Then we might conclude that absolute position matters and liberalization is important. Or we might as likely conclude the complete opposite, that gains on the index don't matter and liberalization isn't important. And that's not even bringing the Economic Freedom Index into things, which has a radically different ranking based on similar criteria. It's almost as if a lot of of what people believe about economics on both sides is under-determined by the available evidence. But eh, maybe that's too cynical. That's just two countries. I'd really like to see some data analysis on how much "ease of doing business" (or some similar metric) matters to GDP--and maybe also to surveys of feelings of job security / satisfaction as well. Looking across most countries, maybe hard patterns would emerge. Or maybe economics is all noise unless you're at Weimar levels of malfeasance, who knows. South Korea, Georgia, and Macedonia have skyrocketed up the EoDB chart, so I guess for any of us who suspect there's a sufficiently strong link, we have an opportunity to put our money down.

tajen 9y ago
Another relationship to study is between the quasi job-for-life laws we have in France and being the country with the most population under antidepressants in the world.
- Steve44 9y ago
  > France and being the country with the most population under antidepressants in the world. I was intrigued by this and decided to have a look at the figures and I can't find anything to support your statement. Where do you get your information from? From Business Insider graphing OECD figures for the number of people per 1000 who take antidepressants shows France to be 50/1000 which is 16th from the top. http://static3.uk.businessinsider.com/image/56b381f7dd0895c4558b46b0-1200-1183/ti_graphics_antidepressants-chart.png http://static3.uk.businessinsider.com/image/56b381f7dd0895c4... Directly from the OECD site is a page showing the dose consumed per 1000 people. It's very similar to the above, possibly the same data source but they are supposedly measured in different ways. https://asset.keepeek-cache.com/medias/domain21/_pdf/media2317/359829-ngn8xxdpav/large/186.jpg https://asset.keepeek-cache.com/medias/domain21/_pdf/media23... They both show France uses a lot less than many other countries,less than half Iceland and bout 2/3rds of the UK, Sweden, Canada and Australia.