Wisconsin Judge Rules 7 Health Care Workers Cannot Switch Jobs
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mishtalk.com
The actual article being cribbed from: https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2022/01/21/what-we-k...
(Note: I have no knowledge of or opinion about the law itself, I don't know WI labor law, and the filings aren't linked from the article; so I can't evaluate the legal merits of the case.)
If you have bills to pay and a family to support, you can't just quit a job without another income stream set up.
It may cover it for a month. Where they have to hope that they can one day work for this new company (if the judge allows it, and judges will often dig their heels in and drag things out if they get caught out like this). Or they can keep doing what they are doing now. What do normal people with kids and mortgages choose?
My guess is the money they'll get will actually outlive the order anyways though, but there is no risk if it doesn't.
I can't even remember the last time a judge was actually impeached.
There's a ton of other issues that are like this, from marriage equality to drug de-criminalization to "intellectual property" to regressive taxing that would be legislatively impossible (Republicans losing power) but will almost certainly be accomplished judicially.
It's more complicated than that. You certainly have states where the majority of the population doesn't favor abortion access or doesn't care that much, and all any conceivable Supreme Court decision will do is allow the state legislators in those areas to legislate in ways the local population accepts, which won't be political suicide for them. That much is a fact, because restricting abortion access (regardless if it stands or not) has been a winning issue for those legislators for a decade or more.
> There's a ton of other issues that are like this, from marriage equality to drug de-criminalization to "intellectual property" to regressive taxing that would be legislatively impossible (Republicans losing power) but will almost certainly be accomplished judicially.
What you say would be true if the US was a "unitary" government, with non-geographic elections (e.g. by party list), but that's just not how it's structured.
Sure, the US has built-in geographic divisions, and the states do voting very differently. Yes, a few states (southern, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama) will outlaw abortion given half a chance, but the rest of the issues I noted are hot-button for some small fraction of some states, but are pretty popular in the rest of the states. If Republicans somehow got national legislation to repress marijuana again, for example, they would lose a lot of regions leading to loss of national dominance.
https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-aborti...
Please don’t assert false facts, especially when the truth is a Google query away.
https://news.yahoo.com/poll-most-americans-support-abortion-...
> In fact, a majority of pro-choice respondents said they would limit abortion to the first three months of pregnancy, the so-called hard cases, or not at all
How can a worker be "unlawfully poached" again? Non competes are illegal in the vast majority of cases without consideration involved.
This make me angry, why is there a law that prevents individuals from going to work for a competitor offering what is probably better pay and advantages? They are not slaves, they should be able to just leave and not look back.
Why do you need a law against poaching employees? Maybe try paying them more so they won't be interested in jumping ship? The level of mental gymnastics used here is offensive.
My next reaction is curiosity, a desire to know how such a strange ruling could make sense in the mind of the judge. Judges, of course, don't think they are making an obviously incorrect ruling, otherwise they would rule a different way.
However, this article makes no attempt unwrap the situation and present the judge's reasons and rationale, and doesn't link to the court documents.
I don't think this article benefits from not presenting the rationale. In fact, I think it fails to address the glaringly obvious followup question "that sounds so weird, why did the judge rule that way?"
Its my understanding that as a doctor or nurse, you decide that after working 60 hours that week you want to just quit on the spot and try to find a different job due to being overworked you effectively cannot without severe legal consequences ( I dont THINK they can get jail time but they could lose their medical license for sure) unless someone is present to relieve you.
I dont AGREE with any of that, but there is some thread of rationale there.
Imagine a sufficiently funded company (like google) wants to buy you or put you out of business. They could intentionally hire your staff and pay them to twiddle their thumbs, and hire your new staff when you replace them until you fold.
This strategy of specifically targeting their workforce to put them out of business would be unethical, but I don't know if it runs afoul of business law.
I was reading this: https://www.boardmanclark.com/publications/hr-heads-up/emplo...
Wisconsin seems to be restrictive even if there was a non-compete. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a non-compete. Therefore "poaching" is legal and offensive term here.
When it comes to calculated risks, its sadly a good bet that a judge wont be held accountable. This particular case got national attention, but judges do questionable judgements all the time that flagrantly ignore the law and nothing ever happens to them. This judge didnt really make a bad bet based on the information he had about what he could get away with. And the odds that he will face any kind of adverse action are small.
What is very interesting though, is that both left and right wing sources are lambasting this judge. (albeit for ideologically very different reasons) So he may actually receive some kind of adverse consequence if noise about it continues to ramp up.
These are health care workers, not retail clerks at a GameStop. If they did that it would likely mean a patient doesn't get adequate care.
>> These are health care workers, not retail clerks at a GameStop. If they did that it would likely mean a patient doesn't get adequate care.
> And? If you're going to basically force someone to work for you, you get what you get.
My point is: it would be unethical to "stick to the man" in that way, because there could literally be an innocent man down the hall who's suffering because of your immediate actions. That's not a man you should stick it to. It's not OK to stop your analysis where the original comment did, before you consider scenarios like that.
Imagine these scenarios:
A nurse "turn[s] up with a camp chair and a good book, then sit[s] around all day" across from some patient who's laying in his own piss and shit, because that nurse refused to do her job to give him a bedpan.
or
A nurse "turn[s] up with a camp chair and a good book, then sit[s] around all day" across from some who dies because he didn't get his medication, because that nurse refused to do her job to give him his medication.
vs.
A GameStop clerk "turn[s] up with a camp chair and a good book, then sit[s] around all day" across from a customer who wants to buy a videogame but can't.
If the law says that you can't change employer, you owe every other citizen your best attempt to show up and find a comfy place to sit until they fire you. Bring a book.
> Nope. If you are a slave, you owe your owner nothing except escape attempts.
> If the law says that you can't change employer, you owe every other citizen your best attempt to show up and find a comfy place to sit until they fire you. Bring a book.
This is exactly the kind of premature analysis stoppage I was talking about (i.e. thinking like the only thing that matters is your relationship to your employer, and everything else can be ignored). It's not a recipe for doing the right thing, it's a recipe for being a self-righteous asshole who could do a lot of harm.
Slave? Good? Evil? The rhetoric in this thread is over the top and way too melodramatic. "Valiant nurse Skywalker struck a blow against the EVIL Empire by letting the sick ewok Wicket wallow in his own shit. He could help Wicket, but that would be SLAVERY, so he BECAME THE BEARER OF GOOD by watching Wicket suffer and reading a magazine instead of helping him."
Let me put it this way: It's more evil to sit there and watch some patient suffer without helping them than whatever evil you're so concerned with here.
However, I totally get that it may be difficult for some software engineers (whose jobs typically have no more moral significance or responsibility than a GameStop clerk's), to understand that not every situation is like their own.
The relevant relationship is citizen to country.
tablespoon, your analysis is that a person who can help another one has a duty to do so even if it hurts the helper. That's not right. We don't require people to donate kidneys, we praise them when they volunteer, and we condemn regimes that take organs involuntarily.
Forcing people to work is immoral, even if the work saves millions.
> The relevant relationship is citizen to country.
> tablespoon, your analysis is that a person who can help another one has a duty to do so even if it hurts the helper. That's not right.
I'm actually focusing on the idea that you expressed approval of, where the person goes to work, but then deliberately neglects their duties. The proximity is morally relevant there. It's one thing to quit, it's quite another to go in and basically taunt an innocent person who's in need while you stick it to the man, and that's a distinct possibility if (say) a nurse accepts a shift with the intention of slacking until she's fired.
There's more at play with health care workers than just their "relationship to the employer."
> Forcing people to work is immoral, even if the work saves millions.
Refusing to do work that would save millions is also immoral, by the way. Don't forget that.
I'm not sure if it has a name, but there an error in reasoning at play here, where someone has choices A and B but they're analyzed in a characteristically incomplete way. Only the pros of A and the cons of B are actually weighed, and the conclusion is that A is the right choice. If you're going to be honest, analyze the thing holistically.
A person who is being ordered to work against their will has no legal or ethical duty to do so, and you haven't offered an argument in favor of it.
Legally, the 13th Amendment:
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Conviction is necessary. You can't be forced to work while in jail waiting around to be tried, even if you've been indicted.
Any legal argument that you want to offer needs to meet that.
Now, ethics. You countered my
> Forcing people to work is immoral, even if the work saves millions.
with
Refusing to do work that would save millions is also immoral
and completely ignored my analogy of organ donors.
I'd be happy to hear your arguments, if they aren't just contradictions. This isn't Argument Clinic. What does "analyze the thing holistically" mean if you have neither legality nor morality on your side?
I absolutely would rock up with a chair and sit watching. Hell, I'd bring popcorn.
Healthcare workers in the US were largely done thinking this way before the pandemic, unfortunately.
The hospital can ensure patients get adequate care by attracting additional workers with sufficient compensation, retaining sufficient workers by offering them adequate compensation, and punish inadequate workers by firing them. The hospital in question seems to be willing to do none of these things.
They can just not show up, but then the hospital will fire them (with a strong position to deny them unemployment when they do).
Hold on. They've quit. The hospital has taken them to court and obtained a legal injunction preventing them from quitting. Now you're suggesting that the hospital threaten to fire them? That's the point of quitting.
It's like if a six year old is throwing a tantrum because they want a cookie and you threaten to give them a cookie unless they stop throwing a tantrum.
You will never ever find a Supreme Court that will rule that judges can be held accountable for what they do though. No matter how you rig/pack/arrange the Court. No Justice will ever vote to make themselves more personally vulnerable.
Furthermore the other branches of government could step in when things like this happen too.
The answer might be that judicial oversight is handled by non judicial actors.
Civilian oversight panels are commonly looked at as a solution for police and judges need it as well. Judicial oversight is currently in the hands of other judges who have incentives not to create precedent on cracking down on corrupt judges.
what seems silly about electing these officials, is that it shouldn't be a popularity contest. It should be a matter of competence, and compliance with rules. What good are laws whose effects depends on the mood of voters or the whims of the enforcer?
It's not great to have lawyers appoint other lawyers. You end up with an in-group. But that kind of system does seem to give you law whose effects are fairly predictable, at least. But you have to explain how the topmost lawyers get appointed, the ones who appoint other lawyers.
The US Supreme Court seems to be nominated by the Pres, and then confirmed by the Senate, which is full of lawyers. So the USSC seems to be appointed, by their juniors.
Hmmm. I wondered how UKSC justices are appointed; it's rather good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Ki...
A commission is formed, consisting of the president of the court, another senior judge who is not on the UKSC, and a member of the Judicial Appointments Commission. At least one of them must not be a lawyer. The commission is set up by the Minister of Justice, who apparently can overrule them. The PM and the Queen both have a final veto.