4 ms·

Employment relationships are fundamentally exploitative though. While it's absolutely true that smaller companies can do a lot better in treating their employee

Employment relationships are fundamentally exploitative though. While it's absolutely true that smaller companies can do a lot better in treating their employees right, the fact of the matter is that there is an asymmetrical relationship between an employee and the company due to a large power gap between the two. And the issue can be worse with people that are working doubly hard to escape poverty or just to survive. Those are the people that cannot afford to lose the single opportunity they've received, which means they are often further exploited through lower wages, fewer benefits and so forth. Considering I've been in that position myself, there were times when I had a deep fear of losing absolutely everything.

madhadron 8y ago
> Employment relationships are fundamentally exploitative though. Not necessarily. There's a whole world of employee owned companies, partnerships, and the like which are not fundamentally exploitative.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  That's a whole 'nother can of worms though; employee-owned companies can still treat new employees badly depending on how their system is set up. Plus they're an incredibly small fraction of the overall working world we participate in and at most would be an exception to the rule and not the norm. Though I would say that non-profits and things like you mentioned are generally more inclined to treat their employees fair.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  There are no free lunches. None of those examples work as well as pure employer employee relationship companies, otherwise there would be many, many more of them. A works with more cöops and partnerships would be poorer because they’re just less efficient.
clairity 8y ago
> “Employment relationships are fundamentally exploitative though.” that you a priori assume this makes me sad. a company has no fundamental right to a power differential over an employee. an employment agreement is between two equal parties looking for a fair value exchange. with that said, of course power differentials often exist in those situations (unfortunately), but it doesn’t always have to. that’s one of the reasons everyone should always apply to multiple jobs at once, and hopefully get multiple offers, so you have leverage in the employment negotiations. and the best managed organizations consider managers to be support staff with decision-coalescing responsibilities rather than overlords.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  A great example of the power vacuum however is non-competes and how prevalent they are in our industry. It's not just one person negotiating with another, it's one person negotiating with a company and an entire industry. An entire system designed to swing the balance in the favor of the company. With my work experience the balance shifted a bit to me, giving me options to find companies without non-competes. When I first got started however, I didn't have an option to negotiate nor did I have the financial backing to challenge a non-compete if it ever became an issue. Ultimately this is where unions should come into play, but I highly doubt we'll ever see the tech industry unionize.
- jodrellblank 8y ago
  an employment agreement is between two equal parties looking for a fair value exchange. That you can believe and type that with a straight face, makes me boggle. Ideally, maybe. Employee-owned cooperatives, maybe. One side is a non-human entity, a multi-multi-millionaire with on-tap access to an economy full of high spec legal, financial, and any other kind of consultant. Working on decades of procedures and organizational habits buit from the experiences of hundreds of humans, with many human brains and many years of time-horizon to research any given topic, fronted by the humans selected for being good at "playing the selction game" - convincing, manipulating, looking the part, extracting as much as possible from employees. The other side is a person, who can spare a small fraction of one human brain, with very limited money and access to resources, who has a Hobson's choice of "work or die of starvation". It isn't two equal parties. It's barely even two /comparable/ parties. and when was the last time you talked to someone who felt their employement was "fair value exchange"? Someone at the pub who felt their employer paid them enough, didn't ask too much of them - and wasn't boasting about having an unusually good situation? In fact, when was the last time you talked to someone who /didn't/ dream of getting enough money to never work again? Would that be such a popular meme if people generally felt fairly treated, equal partners, in value-creating systems they participated in by choice?
Wowfunhappy 8y ago
> Employment relationships are fundamentally exploitative though. While it's absolutely true that smaller companies can do a lot better in treating their employees right, the fact of the matter is that there is an asymmetrical relationship between an employee and the company due to a large power gap between the two. Yes and no. I don't think our society does enough to protect and help the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, for the reasons you state. But, I also think if it weren't for our capitalist system, these same people likely wouldn't have any jobs at all, and that a lousy job is usually better than none. I'm absolutely not in favor of tearing down the entire capitalist system, as your parent comment implies. And I certainly don't think it's immoral to look at diversity hiring as a competitive advantage—quite the contrary, in fact.

madhadron 8y ago

> Employment relationships are fundamentally exploitative though. Not necessarily. There's a whole world of employee owned companies, partnerships, and the like which are not fundamentally exploitative.

fzeroracer 8y ago
That's a whole 'nother can of worms though; employee-owned companies can still treat new employees badly depending on how their system is set up. Plus they're an incredibly small fraction of the overall working world we participate in and at most would be an exception to the rule and not the norm. Though I would say that non-profits and things like you mentioned are generally more inclined to treat their employees fair.
barry-cotter 8y ago
There are no free lunches. None of those examples work as well as pure employer employee relationship companies, otherwise there would be many, many more of them. A works with more cöops and partnerships would be poorer because they’re just less efficient.

clairity 8y ago

> “Employment relationships are fundamentally exploitative though.” that you a priori assume this makes me sad. a company has no fundamental right to a power differential over an employee. an employment agreement is between two equal parties looking for a fair value exchange. with that said, of course power differentials often exist in those situations (unfortunately), but it doesn’t always have to. that’s one of the reasons everyone should always apply to multiple jobs at once, and hopefully get multiple offers, so you have leverage in the employment negotiations. and the best managed organizations consider managers to be support staff with decision-coalescing responsibilities rather than overlords.

fzeroracer 8y ago
A great example of the power vacuum however is non-competes and how prevalent they are in our industry. It's not just one person negotiating with another, it's one person negotiating with a company and an entire industry. An entire system designed to swing the balance in the favor of the company. With my work experience the balance shifted a bit to me, giving me options to find companies without non-competes. When I first got started however, I didn't have an option to negotiate nor did I have the financial backing to challenge a non-compete if it ever became an issue. Ultimately this is where unions should come into play, but I highly doubt we'll ever see the tech industry unionize.
jodrellblank 8y ago
an employment agreement is between two equal parties looking for a fair value exchange. That you can believe and type that with a straight face, makes me boggle. Ideally, maybe. Employee-owned cooperatives, maybe. One side is a non-human entity, a multi-multi-millionaire with on-tap access to an economy full of high spec legal, financial, and any other kind of consultant. Working on decades of procedures and organizational habits buit from the experiences of hundreds of humans, with many human brains and many years of time-horizon to research any given topic, fronted by the humans selected for being good at "playing the selction game" - convincing, manipulating, looking the part, extracting as much as possible from employees. The other side is a person, who can spare a small fraction of one human brain, with very limited money and access to resources, who has a Hobson's choice of "work or die of starvation". It isn't two equal parties. It's barely even two /comparable/ parties. and when was the last time you talked to someone who felt their employement was "fair value exchange"? Someone at the pub who felt their employer paid them enough, didn't ask too much of them - and wasn't boasting about having an unusually good situation? In fact, when was the last time you talked to someone who /didn't/ dream of getting enough money to never work again? Would that be such a popular meme if people generally felt fairly treated, equal partners, in value-creating systems they participated in by choice?

Wowfunhappy 8y ago

> Employment relationships are fundamentally exploitative though. While it's absolutely true that smaller companies can do a lot better in treating their employees right, the fact of the matter is that there is an asymmetrical relationship between an employee and the company due to a large power gap between the two. Yes and no. I don't think our society does enough to protect and help the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, for the reasons you state. But, I also think if it weren't for our capitalist system, these same people likely wouldn't have any jobs at all, and that a lousy job is usually better than none. I'm absolutely not in favor of tearing down the entire capitalist system, as your parent comment implies. And I certainly don't think it's immoral to look at diversity hiring as a competitive advantage—quite the contrary, in fact.