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Comment by yulaow | Hacker News Reader

In general in the big part of WE countries (except UK) there were, luckily, everywhere protective laws towards employees.

It is a matter of preference, you have to decide if is better to protect the employer the most or the employees the most. Considering employees are the bigger part of the population, for me that I grown in this area, it seems most logic to protect them first.

Also consider in the last 3-4 years almost all countries had weakened them in part, hoping it would change the work crisis situation (short answer, it changed nothing at all... except now workers are even more in danger to lose their jobs).

I mean, luckily we have no madness like the "Fire at will" I heard a lot talking about in US, but the situation right now is starting to get unbalanced in favor of the employer, and I don't like that.

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I am an employer (manufacturing) in Arizona USA, a "Fire-at-will" state. If I did not have this privilege, I would not take the risk hiring job candidates who interview poorly. I would be compelled to take the obvious best choice every time, and to never take a risk. Risks are too costly.

With Fire-at-Will I can take a chance on anyone. This is especially useful with lower lever, entry positions where they learn on the job. I have tried hiring all types; the results have been surprising. The sure thing employees aren't always, and the WTF employees sometimes surprise you.

The woman in charge of my accounting, was an 18 year old goth cosplayer, moved from the warehouse to the office as helper during a layoff. She is now 22 (still goth/cosplayer) and does her job like she has 20 years experience. I would never ever have hired her for that job if I could not fire her easily. But she is great.

This is the positive side of Fire-at-will. In practice, you never fire anyone on a whim because it destabilizes the rest of the employees. I only fire the people who need it, and by then most of the staff probably wants them gone anyway.

You wouldn't hire someone solely because of a nerdy hobby?

I would, I am in a "fire-at-will" state in the USA.

If the laws were written so that I could not fire that person, then I would be forced to hire the person that interviewed the best. The woman I mentioned above would have interviewed terribly, she is very shy. It turns out that this is her first job too, so she has almost zero interview experience.

I would do what any other rational person would do - look at all the candidates and pick the one I thought would be best. As for her nerdy hobbies, I included the description to paint a mental picture. I am fairly nerdy myself, cosplay would be a plus to me.

In Portugal you get 6 months where you can fire at will.

What happens later if the company is doing poorly and they need to reduce the workforce?

That will depend on how long the game has been rolling, workforce-wise.

For permanent employees, there's severance payment when firing someone. The amount depends on how long the employee has been in the company, as well as when the contract was signed (the legislation has changed and doesn't apply retroactively). This means paying the dismissed employee something between 12 to 30 days wages per each full year of service. Bear in mind that the value is capped via multiple factors, e.g. it can't be bigger than X times the minimum wage, it can't be bigger than Y times the monthly wage.

However, most contracts are fixed-term: for those, the company simply has to inform the employee that they don't intend to renew. There are also many, many people illegally hired as independent contractors, but working full-time on company premises; those are "fire at will".

There are alternatives [1], however:

* A collective dismissal procedure;

* Dismissal due to the termination of a job position;

* Dismissal due to the employee's incapability to adapt.

[1] http://us.practicallaw.com/6-503-4030?source=relatedcontent#...

Still possible but much harder.

For the first six months of a permanent contract you can for anyone at any time for no reason.

It's not a matter of protecting employers or employees "more" (and how would you directly compare? you would need to convert all policies to some sort of "protection unit").

It's a matter of protecting people who currently have a job or those who don't (including those who recently did). If you make it impossible to get rid of problematic employees, you make hiring new employees too risky. That in turn makes it so you can't get hired unless you have a perfect resume, with proper education and grades, and no gaps in employment, as that could indicate a risk, and the employer just can't take any chances, they need to reduce risk to the greatest extent possible.

The net result is less employment, and more workers who would do a fine job but just can't get hired anywhere.

I don't like extremes, both in protecting the employers or the employees.

It is not only ok but also fundamental, for me, to have the right to fire someone for low output or for bad behaviors (Except if it is right after a illness, a childbirth, put here any major stressful event in the life of someone) and it is also ok to give a period (in my state is now 6/12 months depending on the position) in which you can hire someone and evaluate him, deciding then to fire him if he is no good enough for you.

But to have a "fire at will" policy lasting forever? No way.

If you want to provide support for people during a "major stressful event in life", have the government provide that support (paid for by taxes of course). If you try to force private businesses to do that on their own, they will find ways not to, you'll have lots of expensive lawsuits, you'll be adding lots of crazy laws.

It's worse to force companies to employ someone for forever. That's a great reason to hire as little as possible, and fire within the trial period even if the employee did well, so you're not on the hook forever. Best case you end up "too big to just fail" like GM, worst case you die in just a year or two because you got unlucky with one turned-useless employee which your small business just can't afford. Those people will end up unemployed anyway when the business fails.

If you want to give people money because you feel bad for them, just (have the government) give it to them, that's the least adverse-incentive-prone way to do it.

I agree with you on most counts; I believe in employee protection but again not without limits. If you have a video of an employee sleeping or watching porn or facebooking most of the time for a month you should be able to fire without benefits if you have a dossier. In that case the state should pick up the bill to takw care of the person not the company. In general I think the state should pick up the tab from our tax money anyway, not the company as it does prevent people from hiring. It did not actually help much weakening the laws because they are still way too strong. If the state would just pick up the tab it is solved on all counts. But then again I am for basic income.

Edit: and I just do not buy it... I would hire in Spain right now if the laws were more like the US. I cannot afford to risk hiring and getting a bad apple or not being able to afford her later on. I know many startups in PT/ES with that attitude. So maybe the NL system were a dossier will allow you to fire or just have the state pay from the taxes the company pays per employee anyway.

"It is a matter of preference"

As the previous comment points out, too much employee protection means no employee, not protected employee. You're suggesting the choice is secure employee vs insecure employee, whereas it seems it's actually insecure employee vs unemployed. If you make conditions unfavourable for employers, there won't be employers. I'm an employee, so I'd like protection, but it seems that's only possible to a degree, and when competing with other countries I guess it's a race to the bottom, until employees start leaving the country instead of the employers.

So you're not concerned about the possibility that more companies could afford to hire right now but won't for fear they will not be able to afford the employee in the future?

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