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One side of the sword makes hiring more difficult, the other side means you become homeless, lose your health insurance, and cannot provide for your family. It

One side of the sword makes hiring more difficult, the other side means you become homeless, lose your health insurance, and cannot provide for your family. It can literally be life threatening to the worker. The power differential favours the employer so much in this situation that it is ridiculous. I agree if there was a social safety net like UBI this would be a non issue, but we’re nowhere near that.

thebean11 5y ago
There is unemployment insurance and COBRA, although I agree unemployment (without the temporary pandemic increase) isn't really enough especially with COBRA premiums. I do think things are slowly going in that direction though.
mc32 5y ago
On a one by one case, this is very sympathetic. However, if a company has eager competitors which can leverage an advantage, then keeping the 10 or 20% of a workforce which is minimally productive or counter productive can jeopardize a whole company and all its employees. Say intel were to not fire low productivity employees but AMD does, then AMD can capitalize on this, intel loses share and then intel folds subsidiaries and so on. On the other hand AMD would be on a hiring spree to meet the added demand.
- relax88 5y ago
  I agree with your logic here, but ideally Intel and AMD have to follow the same rules and find cause to terminate their employees OR pay out severance based on duration of service. You might follow this up by saying that this decreases global competitiveness as well, and you’re absolutely right. When say for example HiSilicon’s employees work 12hrs a day 6 days a week and live in bunks on company property it would certainly be hard for Intel/AMD to compete. We then start getting into issues of worker rights being baked into international trade agreements. When do we collectively agree to stop the race to the bottom ? Or do we just accept that labour has no value and humans are expendable? I think most of the problems with this issue are rooted in the fact that capital is becoming increasingly more profitable than labour. It reminds me of “Capital In the Twenty-first Century” by Thomas Piketty.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    Companies providing welfare is inefficient, worse for workers, and doesn't help the jobless (of which there will be more if companies are responsible for welfare). Welfare is better left to the state.
  - mc32 5y ago
    I agree with your points. The race to the bottom is a problem. Addressing the international aspect via trade agreements is a good step. Better unemployment benefits between jobs would help the domestic aspect.

thebean11 5y ago

There is unemployment insurance and COBRA, although I agree unemployment (without the temporary pandemic increase) isn't really enough especially with COBRA premiums. I do think things are slowly going in that direction though.

mc32 5y ago

On a one by one case, this is very sympathetic. However, if a company has eager competitors which can leverage an advantage, then keeping the 10 or 20% of a workforce which is minimally productive or counter productive can jeopardize a whole company and all its employees. Say intel were to not fire low productivity employees but AMD does, then AMD can capitalize on this, intel loses share and then intel folds subsidiaries and so on. On the other hand AMD would be on a hiring spree to meet the added demand.

relax88 5y ago
I agree with your logic here, but ideally Intel and AMD have to follow the same rules and find cause to terminate their employees OR pay out severance based on duration of service. You might follow this up by saying that this decreases global competitiveness as well, and you’re absolutely right. When say for example HiSilicon’s employees work 12hrs a day 6 days a week and live in bunks on company property it would certainly be hard for Intel/AMD to compete. We then start getting into issues of worker rights being baked into international trade agreements. When do we collectively agree to stop the race to the bottom ? Or do we just accept that labour has no value and humans are expendable? I think most of the problems with this issue are rooted in the fact that capital is becoming increasingly more profitable than labour. It reminds me of “Capital In the Twenty-first Century” by Thomas Piketty.
- thebean11 5y ago
  Companies providing welfare is inefficient, worse for workers, and doesn't help the jobless (of which there will be more if companies are responsible for welfare). Welfare is better left to the state.
- mc32 5y ago
  I agree with your points. The race to the bottom is a problem. Addressing the international aspect via trade agreements is a good step. Better unemployment benefits between jobs would help the domestic aspect.