"At-will"?! I had no idea that in California you could just terminate employment for no reason.
Coming from Australia where you can't fire anybody without good reason (even demoting people can be considered unfair dismissal) this just sounds insane.
Coming from Australia where you can't fire anybody without good reason (even demoting people can be considered unfair dismissal) this just sounds insane.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
Pretty much the only significant reason you can't get terminated in the US is as a direct result of being in a protected class (so you can't fire someone for being black but you can fire a black person for any other reason including no reason at all)
Corporate personhood is a funny artifact of English Common Law, and its present state in the US is almost unique. Much of the world views corporations rather differently than our (I'm assuming you're American) legal system does.
When you start from the premise that a corporation is an artificial construct that exists at the whim of, for the purposes intended by, and for the general good of, society as expressed through laws, including a corporation in words like "everyone", and speaking of its "freedom", becomes nonsensical.
If an employee can give 2 weeks notice to say they are quiting at any time for any reason, why shouldn't an employer be allowed to do the same.
However, losing your job as an employee is devastating. It's financially difficult and job hunting (particularly in this economic climate) is difficult. I suppose that Australian employment laws are an attempt to make things more equal and force employers to really think before hiring/firing – it makes employees people again rather than just entries in a payroll system.
Ah, this is a very good point!
This stricter regulation does make starting businesses very difficult, and a definite advantage the US has over Europe.
I think the answer is combination of the two where there is some kind of threshold where new/small companies have more freedom to dismiss, but forces larger businesses to treat their employees fairly.
Requiring cause to fire someone is business-hostile at best. Business can not improve efficiency, pivot, or generally adapt to changing markets if they are not free to hire and fire at will.
The one major point most "liberals" (in the American sense) miss regarding employment security is that employers are far less likely to take risks on hiring - whether in quantity, salary, or experience - when they can not fire at-will. This leads to less employment overall, not more.
The arguments are similar to other well intentioned, but seriously deleterious policies, such as rent control and Calfornia's "Prop 13."
That said, ethics and treating people well are very important. I find Zynga's actions unethical and think there is a good chance they should be held civilly liable.
Generally, in countries which require reasons for dismissal, there is a distinction between a redundancy and a dismissal. A redundancy means that the position someone is working in is declared not to exist (and so no one will be hired to replace the redundant employee), while a dismissal means the position continues but the employment of the employee filling that position is ended by the company.
Changing the size of a workforce to "improve efficiency, pivot, or generally adapt to changing markets" is done through redundancies, not through dismissals, and redundancies can generally happen on whatever terms are agreed to in the employment agreement.
If an employee genuinely isn't working out in a no-fire-at-will country, the employee generally has to be treated fairly and given an opportunity to correct the problems, but they can still be dismissed if they are unable to rectify the problems.
The cost of a dismissal might be slightly higher in a non-fire-at-will company, due to the time period when the employee is given a chance to correct the problems, but not significantly, and businesses can still adapt to changing conditions through redundancies. Non-fire-at-will is therefore not a significant barrier to business.
However, it protects employees against abusive practices like those of Zynga in this instance - employees who do not have anything like the same bargaining power as the companies they are working for.