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Comment by kumarvvr | Hacker News Reader

Fired without any notice. Simply told his position doesn't exist anymore.

Since corporations are people, this one is a cold hearted bitch.

That's not what the article says. It says there were no warning signs they were going to fire him. You don't know if security just walked him from his desk to the exit one day or he was sent home with a goodbye lunch and a fat severance check.

> In October of 2016, he was let go from Apple after a nearly > twenty-year stint at the company. No warning, no early > signs. Apple just said his position didn't exist anymore.

Corporations expect unwavering loyalty from employees to the point of sacrificing their personal lives, only to be cut off from the company, with perhaps a 'fat severance' check.

To me that seems unfair. If the company has the right to abruptly cut off the worker, the worker should have the right to abruptly cut off his work at the end of the workday.

Somehow, in the US, such workers demanding fairness from companies are ostracized.

Perhaps, but you have no idea whether anything of the sort happened with this guy at his particular job. You're just taking this one sentence and using it to recite a generic indictment of US labour practices which isn't really related to anything in the article.

My point is that a 'fat severance cheque' does not right a fundamental wrong, erosion of worker rights.

I understand you want to talk about fundamental wrongs and the erosion of worker rights. It's just that there's nothing in the article that's really about that.

The US needs some law standarding a minimum notice/vacation/sick day policy across the board.

I’m sure he got his contracted notice. Suppose Sal had got another job offer, or just decided to move on, handed in his notice and left after his contracted notice period. Would you be just as appalled at the way he treated Apple?

...No? Why would I? Corporations exist to be leashed so society can derive benefit from them; people do not. To compare the two is to commit a category error.

So it would be ok to enslave a group of people, as long as you call that group a corporation first? A corporation is a group of people, and people can certainly be rude to a group that they are in just as much as a group can be rude to its members.

> A corporation is a group of people

No, it is not. Not any more than a person is a group of cells.

Corporation is a completely different creature than a person, even though it's composed of many people (though note that only partially, as corporation is also composed of procedures and processes, and probably some other elements).

The procedures and processes don't come from the outside of the group; they're decided on by the members of the group. This is true for all groups, even book clubs and people standing around on the sidewalk outside of a restaurant waiting for their reservation.

Workers do have the right to abruptly cut off work, don't they?

That’s at-will employment. Never happen in France.

What I am alarmed at, is the apparent casual nature of conversation we have about people 'positions not existing anymore'.

It no longer alarms anyone, no longer seems wrong to anyone that worker rights, which are the bedrock of a fair and just society, are being eroded right before our own eyes.

I don't advocate for socialism, but unchecked capitalism will lead to a fragile society, rife with periodic revolutions and collapses.

Lack of empathy for workers and the masses is the true cancer of democracy.

Despite this sounding like some kind of demagogic propaganda, I kinda was with you until

> Lack of empathy for workers and the masses is the true cancer of democracy.

...what? This is such a incredible weird statement - like, dictators are more empathetic for the workers? You kinda propose socialism (while sounding like nobody should touch it with a ten foot pole) but not in a democratic manner? Might I point towards the EU, where the problem we're talking about is non-existent and also it's a democracy with socialist elements...?

Not the original poster but I don't think he is decrying democracy. When he says cancer, it is not democracy he is talking about, he is talking about lack of worker rights which should be rectified in the context of democracy. I believe he is agreeing with his parent post – democracy with socialist aspect, similar to France and in turn agreeing with you - similar to EU.

I think what he meant was that the lack of empathy is the cancer that can kill democracy in the long run.

In what sense are workers rights being eroded?

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