5 ms·

> If you own a company, why shouldn't you be able to fire someone at any time? Because that is bad for the individual worker. We live in a society, and society

> If you own a company, why shouldn't you be able to fire someone at any time? Because that is bad for the individual worker. We live in a society, and society should look out for humans before corporations.

IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
I recommend you travel to LATAM or EMEA, where worker protections are much higher. No one gets fired because protections are so high. At-will is unheard of [1]. In some countries, there's a mandatory X months of salary for Y months worked. The regulation of the labor market, however, is strict and inflexible [2], and all LATAM jurisdictions impose mandatory severance pay for wrongful terminations.[2] What are the results of worker protections mentioned above ? Literally no jobs with protections. See for yourself. LATAM has an average of ~65% informal employment. Take Argentina for example. Close to 50% of the labor market are under-the-table "jobs" for this reason.[3]. Even more developed countries suffer the consequences , such as UK having 24% informal sector [4] All those governments intended to look out for humans before corporations. It didn't work out that way. The road to poverty is paved with good intentions. US dynamism actually creates more jobs as more are willing to try new things and experiment. Yes, you can protect workers, very very well. But only if you are OK with a tiny amount of protected workers, and let everyone else toil in the informal sector where zero protections exist [1] https://goglobal.com/blog/from-legal-protocols-to-cultural-norms-navigating-employee-terminations-in-latam/ https://goglobal.com/blog/from-legal-protocols-to-cultural-n... [2] https://www.acc.com/sites/default/files/resources/vl/public/ACCDocketArticle/1373467_1.pdf https://www.acc.com/sites/default/files/resources/vl/public/... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037216/informal-employment-share-latin-america-caribbean-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037216/informal-employm... [4] https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/informality/ https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/informality/
- jorvi 2y ago
  I work in the EU, and I'd rather see the American "at-will" system, but with a basic income + additional financial distress protections. It is IMO ridiculous that in a lot of EU countries, chronic low performance is not just cause for firing. It makes economical sense to reduce the friction of allocating workers where they'll be most productive. It just shouldn't destroy those workers' financial security.
  - rgblambda 2y ago
    I'd argue the main reason low performance employees don't get fired is because managers either don't know who the low performers are, or don't want to have an unpleasant conversation and can choose to put it off indefinitely.
- miltonlost 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Nimitz14 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - asdasdsddd 2y ago
    > You think LATAM is in poverty because of their worker protections? Not the decades of western exploitation of their natural resources? Not the decades of American interference in their political systems to destabilize their government? Sure. No, countries regularly go from poverty to wealth quickly. It's purely cultural which is upstream from policy.
- albumen 2y ago
  From your own source: UK's informal employment rate? 6.5%, not 24%. Ireland? 1.8%. Germany: 2.5%. Norway: 2%. Many EU countries have strong labor protections alongside low informality and high employment. While labor protections pose challenges, they do not inherently lead to high informality or low job creation. Effective policy design and enforcement are key to achieving economic stability with strong worker rights. I'm not surprised, on a startup-angled site, that there'd be dissatisfaction with not being able to hire and fire at will. COVID had employees re-assess what was important for them. Tangentially, now we're seeing that shorter working weeks results in higher employee productivity and satisfaction.[1] Having job security, when you've taken on long-term commitments like a mortgage and raising kids, is considered important in many parts of the world. The EU isn't SV; for employees that's probably a good thing. [1]: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/10/surprising-benefits-four-day-week/ https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/10/surprising-benefits-...
  - IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
    >>>I'm not surprised, on a startup-angled site, that there'd be dissatisfaction with not being able to hire and fire at will Its not just startups. The chickens always come home to roost. Lets go into COVID since it is a wonderful example. Employers in Ecuador dealt with minimum wage protections well outpacing productivity growth precovid, doubling the cost of protections relative to Colombia and 75 percent higher than in Peru [1] . Then COVID hit. The central government had no choice but to temporarily rescind the rules of strict protections under "force majeure". This eliminated all severance payments to employees under 'force majeure'. [2] What happened? A bunch of low performers who had built a decade or more in 1 job, got unexpectedly laid off, despite working in perfectly operating businesses with no risk of bankruptcy (AG, export adjacent etc) Then, with zero marketable skills from a decade of non-work, these workers are chronically unemployable now. [3] PS - Regarding the UK number cited, which some people felt very strongly about.. I made a mistake and quoted the wrong year. I can't edit my comment any longer [4] [1] https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002/2021/229/article-A002-en.xml https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002/2021/2... see page 11, section 1. [2] https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2020-09-21/ecuador-humanitarian-support-law-enacted-to-address-covid-19-economic-emergency/ https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2020-09-21/ecu... [3] https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002/2021/229/article-A002-en.xml https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002/2021/2... , see page 13, section 6 ("the recovery has been very partially among the less educated (persons with basic education or less) ....'they exited' the labor force in larger numbers from the crisis onset") [4] The number is available in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_share_of_informal_employment_in_total_employment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_share_of_...
School-Cotton 2y ago
> Because that is bad for the individual worker. Not necessarily. Sure it is better if every other factor is held equal, but it's not: everyone benefits from living in a more highly economically developed society where industry is more successful. So you have to weigh pro-worker concerns against these other benefits. If your argument were valid then its logical conclusion would be that all profit from the business has to distributed to the employees (as in most traditional strains of far-left thought). In practice systems like that have major flaws.
csallen 2y ago
It's not black and white. It's a sliding scale. Society already does a ton to look out for the individual worker. It's more a question of where things should fall on that scale. Coddling workers by expecting corporations to basically act as their family, their parents, their financial planners, their healthcare providers, etc., is terrible. We should not be telling people to expect any particular corporation to provide them a livelihood indefinitely, when it's a simple fact that corporations cannot do that. They can afford to pay you when it's profitable for them to do so, and that's it. That's the deal. Period. I'm all for taking care of people. That's what our government should do itself. We should not be placing that role on corporations. And we should not be telling people to expect that their jobs will last forever and they can't be fired. We should instead tell people to maintain their skillsets, maintain their savings, and live within their means, so they can weather inevitable job changes. That's what caring for people actually looks like.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago

I recommend you travel to LATAM or EMEA, where worker protections are much higher. No one gets fired because protections are so high. At-will is unheard of [1]. In some countries, there's a mandatory X months of salary for Y months worked. The regulation of the labor market, however, is strict and inflexible [2], and all LATAM jurisdictions impose mandatory severance pay for wrongful terminations.[2] What are the results of worker protections mentioned above ? Literally no jobs with protections. See for yourself. LATAM has an average of ~65% informal employment. Take Argentina for example. Close to 50% of the labor market are under-the-table "jobs" for this reason.[3]. Even more developed countries suffer the consequences , such as UK having 24% informal sector [4] All those governments intended to look out for humans before corporations. It didn't work out that way. The road to poverty is paved with good intentions. US dynamism actually creates more jobs as more are willing to try new things and experiment. Yes, you can protect workers, very very well. But only if you are OK with a tiny amount of protected workers, and let everyone else toil in the informal sector where zero protections exist [1] https://goglobal.com/blog/from-legal-protocols-to-cultural-norms-navigating-employee-terminations-in-latam/ https://goglobal.com/blog/from-legal-protocols-to-cultural-n... [2] https://www.acc.com/sites/default/files/resources/vl/public/ACCDocketArticle/1373467_1.pdf https://www.acc.com/sites/default/files/resources/vl/public/... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037216/informal-employment-share-latin-america-caribbean-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037216/informal-employm... [4] https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/informality/ https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/informality/

jorvi 2y ago
I work in the EU, and I'd rather see the American "at-will" system, but with a basic income + additional financial distress protections. It is IMO ridiculous that in a lot of EU countries, chronic low performance is not just cause for firing. It makes economical sense to reduce the friction of allocating workers where they'll be most productive. It just shouldn't destroy those workers' financial security.
- rgblambda 2y ago
  I'd argue the main reason low performance employees don't get fired is because managers either don't know who the low performers are, or don't want to have an unpleasant conversation and can choose to put it off indefinitely.
miltonlost 2y ago
[flagged]
- Nimitz14 2y ago
  [flagged]
- asdasdsddd 2y ago
  > You think LATAM is in poverty because of their worker protections? Not the decades of western exploitation of their natural resources? Not the decades of American interference in their political systems to destabilize their government? Sure. No, countries regularly go from poverty to wealth quickly. It's purely cultural which is upstream from policy.
albumen 2y ago
From your own source: UK's informal employment rate? 6.5%, not 24%. Ireland? 1.8%. Germany: 2.5%. Norway: 2%. Many EU countries have strong labor protections alongside low informality and high employment. While labor protections pose challenges, they do not inherently lead to high informality or low job creation. Effective policy design and enforcement are key to achieving economic stability with strong worker rights. I'm not surprised, on a startup-angled site, that there'd be dissatisfaction with not being able to hire and fire at will. COVID had employees re-assess what was important for them. Tangentially, now we're seeing that shorter working weeks results in higher employee productivity and satisfaction.[1] Having job security, when you've taken on long-term commitments like a mortgage and raising kids, is considered important in many parts of the world. The EU isn't SV; for employees that's probably a good thing. [1]: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/10/surprising-benefits-four-day-week/ https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/10/surprising-benefits-...
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
  >>>I'm not surprised, on a startup-angled site, that there'd be dissatisfaction with not being able to hire and fire at will Its not just startups. The chickens always come home to roost. Lets go into COVID since it is a wonderful example. Employers in Ecuador dealt with minimum wage protections well outpacing productivity growth precovid, doubling the cost of protections relative to Colombia and 75 percent higher than in Peru [1] . Then COVID hit. The central government had no choice but to temporarily rescind the rules of strict protections under "force majeure". This eliminated all severance payments to employees under 'force majeure'. [2] What happened? A bunch of low performers who had built a decade or more in 1 job, got unexpectedly laid off, despite working in perfectly operating businesses with no risk of bankruptcy (AG, export adjacent etc) Then, with zero marketable skills from a decade of non-work, these workers are chronically unemployable now. [3] PS - Regarding the UK number cited, which some people felt very strongly about.. I made a mistake and quoted the wrong year. I can't edit my comment any longer [4] [1] https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002/2021/229/article-A002-en.xml https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002/2021/2... see page 11, section 1. [2] https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2020-09-21/ecuador-humanitarian-support-law-enacted-to-address-covid-19-economic-emergency/ https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2020-09-21/ecu... [3] https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002/2021/229/article-A002-en.xml https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002/2021/2... , see page 13, section 6 ("the recovery has been very partially among the less educated (persons with basic education or less) ....'they exited' the labor force in larger numbers from the crisis onset") [4] The number is available in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_share_of_informal_employment_in_total_employment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_share_of_...

School-Cotton 2y ago

> Because that is bad for the individual worker. Not necessarily. Sure it is better if every other factor is held equal, but it's not: everyone benefits from living in a more highly economically developed society where industry is more successful. So you have to weigh pro-worker concerns against these other benefits. If your argument were valid then its logical conclusion would be that all profit from the business has to distributed to the employees (as in most traditional strains of far-left thought). In practice systems like that have major flaws.

csallen 2y ago

It's not black and white. It's a sliding scale. Society already does a ton to look out for the individual worker. It's more a question of where things should fall on that scale. Coddling workers by expecting corporations to basically act as their family, their parents, their financial planners, their healthcare providers, etc., is terrible. We should not be telling people to expect any particular corporation to provide them a livelihood indefinitely, when it's a simple fact that corporations cannot do that. They can afford to pay you when it's profitable for them to do so, and that's it. That's the deal. Period. I'm all for taking care of people. That's what our government should do itself. We should not be placing that role on corporations. And we should not be telling people to expect that their jobs will last forever and they can't be fired. We should instead tell people to maintain their skillsets, maintain their savings, and live within their means, so they can weather inevitable job changes. That's what caring for people actually looks like.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]