4 ms·

I would not trust a $31B company who fired me when times temporarily got slightly tough. They'll do it again at the drop of a hat.

sneak 3y ago
Why would you trust any company at all, ever? No job this week guarantees a job next week, unless you have a termination clause and a defined monetary penalty. Anything else is wishful thinking. Where does the idea that either party to the transaction has some implicit future commitment to the other come from? It seems to me like an anachronism from a hundred years ago. People regularly switch jobs annually to make sure their compensation is in line with the market. Should we expect companies not to do the same when market conditions change?
- mawadev 3y ago
  That is true, but some companies are more trigger happy and even more unstable than others. So just switching jobs, even if the pay is better, may not be a better deal overall or long term.
- runarberg 3y ago
  Trading of a worker’s labor to a company is not a fair deal between two equal parties. The power imbalance between a company and a worker is massive. Which is why many labor contracts have an end clause and mass layoffs are banned or heavily penalized in the same contracts (sometimes even directly by the state in some jurisdictions). This is where the idea that either party to the transaction has some implicit future commitment to the other come[s] from. In many (most?) labor contracts this commitment by the company to keep their workers after they’ve been hired—unless a termination is justified by a good and demonstrable reason—is codified in a contract between the company and a labor union. It is not “an anachronism from a hundred years ago” it is very much a reality of today (at least for unionized workers). The idea that companies and workers are equal parties and we should expect similar behavior between them is a flawed logic that assumes idealism only asserted by free market capitalism and has never been demonstrated in the real world. Unlike layoff protections, which have been in used continuously for over a century, and has very much proven its worth.
  - sneak 3y ago
    > Trading of a worker’s labor to a company is not a fair deal between two equal parties. The power imbalance between a company and a worker is massive. I think this only holds true in certain limited cases. Certainly it was a lot more common a hundred years ago and especially in manufacturing jobs in locations with few employers; today many information workers have an extremely liquid market into which they can sell their time. For the majority of the people here (ie working hackers), I don't think this is true at all. Big Tech is more dependent on its staff than the staff are dependent on Big Tech. This is one reason Google and Apple and others engaged in that illegal wage-fixing scheme: their staff were often availing themselves of their options to hop jobs for big raises. Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs (and others!) had to engage in an actual criminal conspiracy in order to tip the power balance back into the employer's favor.
P_I_Staker 3y ago
Yeah, but the checks start clearing again, right now.

sneak 3y ago

Why would you trust any company at all, ever? No job this week guarantees a job next week, unless you have a termination clause and a defined monetary penalty. Anything else is wishful thinking. Where does the idea that either party to the transaction has some implicit future commitment to the other come from? It seems to me like an anachronism from a hundred years ago. People regularly switch jobs annually to make sure their compensation is in line with the market. Should we expect companies not to do the same when market conditions change?

mawadev 3y ago
That is true, but some companies are more trigger happy and even more unstable than others. So just switching jobs, even if the pay is better, may not be a better deal overall or long term.
runarberg 3y ago
Trading of a worker’s labor to a company is not a fair deal between two equal parties. The power imbalance between a company and a worker is massive. Which is why many labor contracts have an end clause and mass layoffs are banned or heavily penalized in the same contracts (sometimes even directly by the state in some jurisdictions). This is where the idea that either party to the transaction has some implicit future commitment to the other come[s] from. In many (most?) labor contracts this commitment by the company to keep their workers after they’ve been hired—unless a termination is justified by a good and demonstrable reason—is codified in a contract between the company and a labor union. It is not “an anachronism from a hundred years ago” it is very much a reality of today (at least for unionized workers). The idea that companies and workers are equal parties and we should expect similar behavior between them is a flawed logic that assumes idealism only asserted by free market capitalism and has never been demonstrated in the real world. Unlike layoff protections, which have been in used continuously for over a century, and has very much proven its worth.
- sneak 3y ago
  > Trading of a worker’s labor to a company is not a fair deal between two equal parties. The power imbalance between a company and a worker is massive. I think this only holds true in certain limited cases. Certainly it was a lot more common a hundred years ago and especially in manufacturing jobs in locations with few employers; today many information workers have an extremely liquid market into which they can sell their time. For the majority of the people here (ie working hackers), I don't think this is true at all. Big Tech is more dependent on its staff than the staff are dependent on Big Tech. This is one reason Google and Apple and others engaged in that illegal wage-fixing scheme: their staff were often availing themselves of their options to hop jobs for big raises. Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs (and others!) had to engage in an actual criminal conspiracy in order to tip the power balance back into the employer's favor.

P_I_Staker 3y ago

Yeah, but the checks start clearing again, right now.