Hacker News Reader

Comment by bradleyjg | Hacker News Reader

On the flip side I wonder how many of the pro union voices I see on Facebook or elsewhere, especially millennials & gen z, have ever worked a union job and seen what a seniority system or non-at-will employment actually looks like in practice.

Of the people I know that have direct experience with US unions, even those that ultimately come down on the side of supporting them have lots of stories to illustrate the warts. That’s a kind of nuance I’m not seeing from the “eat the rich” crowd which makes me think they don’t have direct experience.

View on HN

With the shrinking fraction of jobs which are unionized, is it really surprising that a younger crowd has no experience with it?

Wouldn’t it behoove people to learning about subject before forming such strong opinions about it? Perhaps by talking to people with direct experience?

I've seen what non at-will employment leads to in Europe, and it's pretty good.

I’ve heard similar things from others (though less so in Southern Europe). However, I don’t think you get there from here by just expanding existing US unions. It would take a bigger culture shift.

You don't need unions for that, just legislation. In Ireland, you are essentially at-will for the first six months of any role, and after that you are "permanent".

This essentially means that there needs to be a process to fire you. You need to supply at least one verbal warning on stated grounds (backed up as a written), then another one and then you can fire someone.

It works reasonably well (not always, obviously) and it's super bizarre to me that you don't have that in the US. To be honest, when my previous employer wanted to move me to the US, this was one of my concerns, especially when you're dependent on the job for a visa.

It just seems that its a bad trade-off for US people in general, and it's odd to me that it appears to be mostly unquestioned.

US companies fear lawsuits and firing employees includes a lot of data to back it up, from what I’ve observed. There are so many protected classes and reasons why firing is illegal, and people are so litigious, that months of documentation, warnings, improvement plan, etc. is required to fire someone with HR’s approval. And even then usually you give some severance to ensure lawsuit isn’t filed.

So removing at-will employment wouldn't be a big deal then?

Sounds like it might be a good idea.

The paperwork that nervous HR makes American managers go through is an entirely different world then the process, say, a police officer or teacher is entitled to be a combination of civil service laws and their collective bargaining agreements. I do not exaggerate when I say it is in practice easier to put someone in prison than fire a police officer.

So partly whether or not it would be a good idea would depend on the details of the proposed law, and how they would end up being interpreted by judges.

I'm not actually talking about public service unions here, just at-will employment. I personally think that lots of people in this conversation seem to believe that it's either at-will, or the public sector process when in fact the European experience demonstrates that there's a lot of space between these two opposite poles.

My position is that given all this HR dance to prevent lawsuits, at-will doesn't really exist in professional jobs, so it might be worth ensuring that this is standard across all roles rather than just those where the fired employee might sue.

If I felt confident that the law as written and applied would end up putting in place more or less what I’ve seen in corporate America:

- Do something egregious like steal or curse out a customer and you’ll be escorted off the premises

- For poor performance you can get a write up and a meaningful chance to improve before being fired

- You can be laid off just because your department / function / office isn’t needed anymore but they do something for you severance-wise

I’d support a legal change.

Like your smartest citizens leaving to start companies in the US? Restrictive labor laws and high payroll taxes make EU countries an unappealing option for small companies.

Does that actually happen?

And it's worth noting that the EU is very, very different from country to country, so it's a bad idea to generalise.

None of them have at-will employment though, so it's an appropriate comparison to make.

I think the real difference here is what people value. Personally, I value having some advance notice that the boss hates me and wants me gone. This reduces my stress, and allows me to find another job before I stop earning money.

Perhaps other people value the efficiency that comes from being able to change staffing on a whim. I don't think either of these is wrong, they're just different statements of values.

And note that if we're talking about tech people founding US companies, it's driven predominantly by access to capital rather than anything else.

> Like your smartest citizens leaving to start companies in the US?

Do you have any examples of this?

Yeah honestly I'm pretty shocked at the number of people that think being able to be fired on the spot anytime for practically any reason is a good thing.

That's probably the most absurd thing I've read in these comments.

Since we're trading anecdotes: I'm European and I disagree.

Great, can you tell me more about your position and why you feel that way?

(Maybe look at my reply which gives more details).

I think European unions work a little differently in practise than American ones. American unions seem exclusively a tool for collective bargaining. European unions seem more directly an outgrowth of the guild system, which was also concerned with preserving standards and best practises.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com