8 ms·

I think people are outraged not because it's illegal, but because it's unconscionable. I think the general understanding is people shouldn't have outside-work a

I think people are outraged not because it's illegal, but because it's unconscionable. I think the general understanding is people shouldn't have outside-work activities be held against them, maybe it's time for the law to catch up. It's pretty easy to come up with a lot of absurd and "legal" at-will policies (e.g. we'll fire anybody who watches porn)

Noughmad 6y ago
In that case, people should make it illegal. Like they did in most other countries. The US is full of outrage about companies doing unethical things but nobody wants to make unethical things illegal.
- qppo 6y ago
  Without getting into all of the hazards about legislating morality it's impractical in our current climate. I don't think this should be illegal, personally. I do think that it would be helpful to make the decision making public though. Limited legal liability isn't limited moral liability. Rather than saying "amazon fired" someone they should tell us "Jane Doe a manager at Amazon made the decision to fire." People shouldn't hide behind the company logo when they do shitty things to other people. And if you want to rationalize it, cool, do it with your name attached so your pastor, spouse, friends, and kids know the things you'll do for a paycheck and you can justify it all you want to your community.
  - mcherm 6y ago
    I would immediately implement a special role for the head of HR: official decider of all firing decisions. No one will blame the head of HR because they'll know that they were only carrying out someone else's decision, while no one would blame the original decider because no one knows who it was.
    - qppo 6y ago
      Why would you want to create a workplace without personal responsibility for decision making? All I'm saying is to make that personal responsibility public. It's pretty telling to me that I'm being downvoted for saying that I think people should own up to their decisions in the workplace that impact other people and are questionable ethically. Removing any kind of moral liability for those decisions is how we wind up with businesses that employ good people that do shitty things to other good people.
      - freejazz 6y ago
        Because that would just require corporations to have a "fall guy", which is basically what a lot of executives are already. Vessels into which the corporation can dump it's moral debt.
        A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
        I just had a minor epiphany. This is exactly what compliance officer is supposed to be.
      - SaxonRobber 6y ago
        The corporate structure institutionalizes immorality, it cannot be avoided. By law shareholder profits come first, everything else is secondary to that goal.
      - Zanni 6y ago
        But it sounds like your recipe for responsibility is mob justice. What other possible result could come from publicizing the name of "the person responsible" for the firing?
  - brewdad 6y ago
    In a company the size of Amazon, the decision to fire probably didn't come from Jane Doe. She gets stuck delivering the message though. Should we just say Jeff Bezos fired these employees? We don't know if he played a role here but surely he could have prevented their firing if he so desired.
    - qppo 6y ago
      In a company the size of Amazon, no one gets fired without paperwork, and termination has a process. Someone initiated that process and made the decision to follow a policy. I don't know what the policy is explicitly or if it's justified, but there should be visibility into that kind of decision making from the outside. It's in the lack of visibility that we see bad shit happen with hiring and firing.
      - SaxonRobber 6y ago
        The person filing the paperwork still isn’t necessarily the one who made the call. In fact, it usually isn’t; they are just the ones whose responsibility it is to carry it out, or else their head is on the block.
      - filoleg 6y ago
        It is a bit more tricky than that. Here is a simple hypothetical situation I just thought of. Imagine you are an engineering manager running a team of 10. You got an email from your boss that the project revenue is way lower than projected, so the funding is getting cut and you need to get rid of one of your worst performers, but you have to pick who it is yourself, as your boss probably doesn't even know the actual people on your team. You have to fire them, even though you personally don't want to, because they are performing fine, just worse than all your other engineers. Whose fault is this? Is it your boss' fault? They don't even pick the person and neither do they know any of them. Is it your fault? You've made the decision to fire that person, even though you don't want to fire them.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > The US is full of outrage about companies doing unethical things but nobody wants to make unethical things illegal. That's patently false. Plenty of people want to make those unethical things illegal, it's just that the people who engage in those unethical things have had the political power to thwart many of those efforts so far.
atomi 6y ago
> Uhh, I don't want to be Amazon defender, This should give you a hint about this person's intention. Their argument is a classic appeal to authority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  Could you elaborate? I think I either misunderstand this type of argument or you meant to use a different link. If you look at my history, I am hardly a proponent of all things Amazon. I recognize their strengths and their weaknesses. It is important to clear eyes about all this.
  - atomi 6y ago
    When you appeal an argument to a higher authority, in your case the law, it's an attempt to shutdown further discussion. In other words, it's not an argument as to the merits of the points being made. You're just not addressing the points at all and appealing to "a higher authority."
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
      Ok. I think understand your point now. I believe you have your argument type mixed up. You are probably looking for appeal to the law ( though it is still a stretch ). I am not dura lex sed lex guy, but I think it is necessary to point out current condition before we get too wound up over what the reality ought to be. edit: corrected fallacy to argument
- Tainnor 6y ago
  I don't agree with the parent comment at all, but this is not an argument from authority. If anything, it's an instance of the is-ought fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
- jshevek 6y ago
  It looks to me like you may be poisoning the well. Separately, there is no "appeal to authority fallacy" in the post.
burrows 6y ago
The employee should negotiate “fireable offenses” into his contract. There’s no reason to increase state involvement with new laws.
- katmannthree 6y ago
  >There’s no reason to increase state involvement with new laws. Well, not unless you consider the significant disparity in negotiating power between the employer and prospective employee when forming that contract. Very few people are in a position to negotiate something like that, and the ones that are aren't likely to be explicitly fired for speaking their mind.
  - burrows 6y ago
    Is the labor market free from cartels? If so, then employees can negotiate. Obviously they won’t get everything they want, but that’s the nature of negotiation.
    - katmannthree 6y ago
      You can indeed attempt to negotiate, and the prospective employer can (and likely will) just pass you up in favor of someone less troublesome. This really only works for a handful of people applying for high level jobs where they are significantly more desirable than anyone else who applied for the position.
      - burrows 6y ago
        That’s exactly what should happen in a free market. Company makes offer, laborer counters, then company counters or holds. If the company holds, the laborer should seek work at a different company. Just because the “value” of a man’s labor is low (in some sense), doesn’t mean the government should intervene.
        katmannthree 6y ago
A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
I can't honestly say I disagree with you. There must be a line between you and work and a question where that line is is a valid question. As an employer, do you want to have an employee that in a very public manner ( and these days it is oh so easy to be public ) trashes your business? Is that line crossed? I would argue, as usual, that it depends. If the employee's life is threatened by horrific business practices, then talking to the media is almost their civic duty. That said, I do not think they should be surprised they are fired after the fact though.. So where is the line for you?
- skywhopper 6y ago
  A company as big as Amazon is very different than a small firm with a few employees. There's also a big difference between criticizing the company's products and criticizing their business practices. Where "the line" is depends on the specific circumstances, but it's pretty clear to me that Amazon overdid it in this case. If they found these employees' statements embarrassing enough to fire them, then it sounds like they know they are doing something wrong.
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    So at what headcount does a firm just have to put up with any and all negative remarks made by their employees? Clearly you think a small business should have different rules than Amazon.
    - jshevek 6y ago
      I also think that small firms should have different rules than companies like Amazon or Walmart, in many domains. Most people agree, and the law reflects this common opinion. I'm not saying you are necessarily doing the following, but raising the question "at what headcount" is sometimes done to suggest that this is absurd or unfair position. Why should a company with 119 employees be subject to different rules than a company with 120 employees? But this problem exists everywhere we have laws to regulate behavior. What really is the difference between 65 and 66 miles an hour? Is a hot dog really different if it has 86% organ meat vs 85%? To answer the question, assuming we want to force 'large' companies to play by different rules specifically in the case of tolerating employee criticism, we shouldn't even use headcount as a metric. Some other measure of size should be used.
mcherm 6y ago
> It's pretty easy to come up with a lot of absurd and "legal" at-will policies (e.g. we'll fire anybody who watches porn) My favorite which would work in much of the US is "We'll fire anybody who registers with the Republican party." (Or Democratic, if you prefer.) Especially in a state where registration is required in order to participate in the primary. It is legal, but, I believe, completely unacceptable to just about everyone.
- jshevek 6y ago
  >It is legal, but, I believe, completely unacceptable to just about everyone. This is not true in my experience. Many people on the left, particularly under 35, earnestly believe that their political opponents are by definition racist and evil. In a manner similar to how I would not want a literal neo-nazi on my company's payroll, they do not want a registered Republican on the company's payroll. Edit: In other words, this kind of bigotry is actually acceptable to a disturbingly large number of people.
  - SaxonRobber 6y ago
    It is my experience that everyone who self identifies as a republican or democrat is brainwashed at this point. The worst offenders are those who are so delusional that they mock anyone who avoids political discourse or abstains from voting. They are so high on political fumes that they can’t imagine that there are things more important than our cancerous political process.
    - jshevek 6y ago
      I agree there are serious problems with brainwashing on both sides. My criticism was directed leftward only because it seemed most relevant to my disagreement with the GP.
    - filoleg 6y ago
      From my observations (total anecdata, I am aware), those pro-specific-party people also usually don't tend to participate in politics on more local levels at all (county, state, etc.), despite the fact that those are imo way more impactful and can lead to changes "trickling up" all the way to the national level. Most of the people I personally know who vote in county/state elections can be best described as independents.
syshum 6y ago
I 100% agree with you, however this seems to be only an outrage because these people happen to have Left leaning political views Right leaning people are fired all the time for their views on social issues, and no one seems to have a problem with that normally. Further if these employees would have been fired to taking a counter view I bet there would have been cheers for their firing no the outrage here is not really because " people shouldn't have outside-work activities be held against them" no it is more "I agree with these employee opinions and am outraged they were fired for an opinion I share"
bsder 6y ago
> we'll fire anybody who watches porn That's not particularly non-sensical, at all. That's a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. "We'll fire anybody who plays a game" would qualify as "absurd".

Noughmad 6y ago

In that case, people should make it illegal. Like they did in most other countries. The US is full of outrage about companies doing unethical things but nobody wants to make unethical things illegal.

qppo 6y ago
Without getting into all of the hazards about legislating morality it's impractical in our current climate. I don't think this should be illegal, personally. I do think that it would be helpful to make the decision making public though. Limited legal liability isn't limited moral liability. Rather than saying "amazon fired" someone they should tell us "Jane Doe a manager at Amazon made the decision to fire." People shouldn't hide behind the company logo when they do shitty things to other people. And if you want to rationalize it, cool, do it with your name attached so your pastor, spouse, friends, and kids know the things you'll do for a paycheck and you can justify it all you want to your community.
- mcherm 6y ago
  I would immediately implement a special role for the head of HR: official decider of all firing decisions. No one will blame the head of HR because they'll know that they were only carrying out someone else's decision, while no one would blame the original decider because no one knows who it was.
  - qppo 6y ago
    Why would you want to create a workplace without personal responsibility for decision making? All I'm saying is to make that personal responsibility public. It's pretty telling to me that I'm being downvoted for saying that I think people should own up to their decisions in the workplace that impact other people and are questionable ethically. Removing any kind of moral liability for those decisions is how we wind up with businesses that employ good people that do shitty things to other good people.
    - freejazz 6y ago
      Because that would just require corporations to have a "fall guy", which is basically what a lot of executives are already. Vessels into which the corporation can dump it's moral debt.
      - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
        I just had a minor epiphany. This is exactly what compliance officer is supposed to be.
    - SaxonRobber 6y ago
      The corporate structure institutionalizes immorality, it cannot be avoided. By law shareholder profits come first, everything else is secondary to that goal.
    - Zanni 6y ago
      But it sounds like your recipe for responsibility is mob justice. What other possible result could come from publicizing the name of "the person responsible" for the firing?
- brewdad 6y ago
  In a company the size of Amazon, the decision to fire probably didn't come from Jane Doe. She gets stuck delivering the message though. Should we just say Jeff Bezos fired these employees? We don't know if he played a role here but surely he could have prevented their firing if he so desired.
  - qppo 6y ago
    In a company the size of Amazon, no one gets fired without paperwork, and termination has a process. Someone initiated that process and made the decision to follow a policy. I don't know what the policy is explicitly or if it's justified, but there should be visibility into that kind of decision making from the outside. It's in the lack of visibility that we see bad shit happen with hiring and firing.
    - SaxonRobber 6y ago
      The person filing the paperwork still isn’t necessarily the one who made the call. In fact, it usually isn’t; they are just the ones whose responsibility it is to carry it out, or else their head is on the block.
    - filoleg 6y ago
      It is a bit more tricky than that. Here is a simple hypothetical situation I just thought of. Imagine you are an engineering manager running a team of 10. You got an email from your boss that the project revenue is way lower than projected, so the funding is getting cut and you need to get rid of one of your worst performers, but you have to pick who it is yourself, as your boss probably doesn't even know the actual people on your team. You have to fire them, even though you personally don't want to, because they are performing fine, just worse than all your other engineers. Whose fault is this? Is it your boss' fault? They don't even pick the person and neither do they know any of them. Is it your fault? You've made the decision to fire that person, even though you don't want to fire them.
ardy42 6y ago
> The US is full of outrage about companies doing unethical things but nobody wants to make unethical things illegal. That's patently false. Plenty of people want to make those unethical things illegal, it's just that the people who engage in those unethical things have had the political power to thwart many of those efforts so far.

atomi 6y ago

> Uhh, I don't want to be Amazon defender, This should give you a hint about this person's intention. Their argument is a classic appeal to authority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
Could you elaborate? I think I either misunderstand this type of argument or you meant to use a different link. If you look at my history, I am hardly a proponent of all things Amazon. I recognize their strengths and their weaknesses. It is important to clear eyes about all this.
- atomi 6y ago
  When you appeal an argument to a higher authority, in your case the law, it's an attempt to shutdown further discussion. In other words, it's not an argument as to the merits of the points being made. You're just not addressing the points at all and appealing to "a higher authority."
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    Ok. I think understand your point now. I believe you have your argument type mixed up. You are probably looking for appeal to the law ( though it is still a stretch ). I am not dura lex sed lex guy, but I think it is necessary to point out current condition before we get too wound up over what the reality ought to be. edit: corrected fallacy to argument
Tainnor 6y ago
I don't agree with the parent comment at all, but this is not an argument from authority. If anything, it's an instance of the is-ought fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
jshevek 6y ago
It looks to me like you may be poisoning the well. Separately, there is no "appeal to authority fallacy" in the post.

burrows 6y ago

The employee should negotiate “fireable offenses” into his contract. There’s no reason to increase state involvement with new laws.

katmannthree 6y ago
>There’s no reason to increase state involvement with new laws. Well, not unless you consider the significant disparity in negotiating power between the employer and prospective employee when forming that contract. Very few people are in a position to negotiate something like that, and the ones that are aren't likely to be explicitly fired for speaking their mind.
- burrows 6y ago
  Is the labor market free from cartels? If so, then employees can negotiate. Obviously they won’t get everything they want, but that’s the nature of negotiation.
  - katmannthree 6y ago
    You can indeed attempt to negotiate, and the prospective employer can (and likely will) just pass you up in favor of someone less troublesome. This really only works for a handful of people applying for high level jobs where they are significantly more desirable than anyone else who applied for the position.
    - burrows 6y ago
      That’s exactly what should happen in a free market. Company makes offer, laborer counters, then company counters or holds. If the company holds, the laborer should seek work at a different company. Just because the “value” of a man’s labor is low (in some sense), doesn’t mean the government should intervene.
      - katmannthree 6y ago

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago

I can't honestly say I disagree with you. There must be a line between you and work and a question where that line is is a valid question. As an employer, do you want to have an employee that in a very public manner ( and these days it is oh so easy to be public ) trashes your business? Is that line crossed? I would argue, as usual, that it depends. If the employee's life is threatened by horrific business practices, then talking to the media is almost their civic duty. That said, I do not think they should be surprised they are fired after the fact though.. So where is the line for you?

skywhopper 6y ago
A company as big as Amazon is very different than a small firm with a few employees. There's also a big difference between criticizing the company's products and criticizing their business practices. Where "the line" is depends on the specific circumstances, but it's pretty clear to me that Amazon overdid it in this case. If they found these employees' statements embarrassing enough to fire them, then it sounds like they know they are doing something wrong.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  So at what headcount does a firm just have to put up with any and all negative remarks made by their employees? Clearly you think a small business should have different rules than Amazon.
  - jshevek 6y ago
    I also think that small firms should have different rules than companies like Amazon or Walmart, in many domains. Most people agree, and the law reflects this common opinion. I'm not saying you are necessarily doing the following, but raising the question "at what headcount" is sometimes done to suggest that this is absurd or unfair position. Why should a company with 119 employees be subject to different rules than a company with 120 employees? But this problem exists everywhere we have laws to regulate behavior. What really is the difference between 65 and 66 miles an hour? Is a hot dog really different if it has 86% organ meat vs 85%? To answer the question, assuming we want to force 'large' companies to play by different rules specifically in the case of tolerating employee criticism, we shouldn't even use headcount as a metric. Some other measure of size should be used.

mcherm 6y ago

> It's pretty easy to come up with a lot of absurd and "legal" at-will policies (e.g. we'll fire anybody who watches porn) My favorite which would work in much of the US is "We'll fire anybody who registers with the Republican party." (Or Democratic, if you prefer.) Especially in a state where registration is required in order to participate in the primary. It is legal, but, I believe, completely unacceptable to just about everyone.

jshevek 6y ago
>It is legal, but, I believe, completely unacceptable to just about everyone. This is not true in my experience. Many people on the left, particularly under 35, earnestly believe that their political opponents are by definition racist and evil. In a manner similar to how I would not want a literal neo-nazi on my company's payroll, they do not want a registered Republican on the company's payroll. Edit: In other words, this kind of bigotry is actually acceptable to a disturbingly large number of people.
- SaxonRobber 6y ago
  It is my experience that everyone who self identifies as a republican or democrat is brainwashed at this point. The worst offenders are those who are so delusional that they mock anyone who avoids political discourse or abstains from voting. They are so high on political fumes that they can’t imagine that there are things more important than our cancerous political process.
  - jshevek 6y ago
    I agree there are serious problems with brainwashing on both sides. My criticism was directed leftward only because it seemed most relevant to my disagreement with the GP.
  - filoleg 6y ago
    From my observations (total anecdata, I am aware), those pro-specific-party people also usually don't tend to participate in politics on more local levels at all (county, state, etc.), despite the fact that those are imo way more impactful and can lead to changes "trickling up" all the way to the national level. Most of the people I personally know who vote in county/state elections can be best described as independents.

syshum 6y ago

I 100% agree with you, however this seems to be only an outrage because these people happen to have Left leaning political views Right leaning people are fired all the time for their views on social issues, and no one seems to have a problem with that normally. Further if these employees would have been fired to taking a counter view I bet there would have been cheers for their firing no the outrage here is not really because " people shouldn't have outside-work activities be held against them" no it is more "I agree with these employee opinions and am outraged they were fired for an opinion I share"

bsder 6y ago

> we'll fire anybody who watches porn That's not particularly non-sensical, at all. That's a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. "We'll fire anybody who plays a game" would qualify as "absurd".