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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

To play devil's advocate -- you have to think about bad actors though.

What if that makes someone think, I can do zero work at my job and I'll get paid regardless? Or they do a super bare minimum, being incredibly unhelpful to everyone and their whole team hates them?

Now you're going to have courts deciding what constitutes grounds for firing and what doesn't, if performance was above or below a super bare minimum, how that's defined for a programming job, etc.

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The Netherlands have a system in place to handle these sort of problems. When hiring anyone a contract is signed stating a minimum length of employment. If an employee is to be fired before that minimum length is up, a meeting with a mediator (typically an employment judge) is held. The company has to prove they've tried everything to get the employee to work at their expectations (re-training, moving departments, etc). If the judge determines the employee is doing more harm than good at the company, then they are let go before their contract ends.

Granted, I don't think a judge needs to be the deciding factor on letting an employee stay or go. But I do believe a contract stating expectations, a minimum employment contract (if employee meets those expectations) is necessary and should be enforced in today's business world. Even apply it to salaried, or "skilled workers". A busboy at a restaurant doesn't need a contract, but an accountant with 5 years experience should at least have that safety net.

Speaking as someone who has had two employment contracts in the Netherlands: what? Both of mine had 30-day probation, termination with immediate effect servable by either party, zero recourse. Is this something new since 2019?

A NL company can let someone go without notice during a trial period, gross negligence, or when the employee resigns due to breach of contract on the employers part.

By default, the notice period depends on the length of the contract (statutory minimum is 1 month notice, longest is 6 months). But it does allow companies to establish their own notice periods (or no notice period) as long as both parties agree.

There is no point in playing devil's advocate when the practice in dispute is evil to begin with.

Laying people off after coercing them to abandon stable means of sustenance is indefensible. The devil doesn't need sympathy.

The points against Devil's Advocacy are actually entirely antithetical to the practice. The reason there is such an Advocate is to make arguments more substantive so it's not this circular reasoning of "it's Evil, therefore it's Bad".

I don't otherwise disagree with what you say but the point is actually to require people to think and come up with strong reasons to disagree (or agree, as it might go).

There absolutely is when solutions might have unintended consequences.

And the practice isn't usually evil, just horrible planning. Companies aren't usually hiring people knowing they'll fire them. Rather it's company-wide layoffs or something, and the manager is as surprised as the employee.

So it's important to look at tradeoffs rather than just declare that one side is evil.

But what if executives could just pressure workers to do more and more for less because they know about the fundamental difference between how hard it is for workers to relocate compared to companies finding new workers? strokes chin Oh wait that’s already the reality.

> Now you’re going to have courts deciding what constitutes grounds for firing and what doesn’t

You mean, like they already do (ultimately, with administrative agencies as a first line) because of public unemployment insurance?

> I can do zero work at my job and I'll get paid regardless? Or they do a super bare minimum, being incredibly unhelpful to everyone and their whole team hates them?

Lots of people already do this.

what's the problem with bare minimum? i get paid the bare minimum my company is willing to give me. it cuts both ways.

It works in plenty of countries all around the world. Not sure why it couldn't work in the USA.

I guess the clause in the contract would mean a leap of faith by the company that they have vetted the candidate and trust the outcome. They just have to evaluate the risk of bad actors against the gain from good actors. Actually I like this as it makes the hiring company put some skin in the game.

There would obviously be fine print.

> Now you're going to have courts deciding what constitutes grounds for firing and what doesn't

Courts are slow and cumbersome, but also mostly designed for this purpose. Any notion of a bad actor would be a legal one eventually.

Then the company is out a year's worth of one employee's salary and has hopefully learned to put a little more effort into vetting their potential hires. Investments have risk, including investments in human resources.

As an employee, I face exactly the same risks - psycho boss, unproductive team members, stupid leadership, fraudulent CFO, company about to die, market crash... a lot of these are impossible to know before starting the job.

The difference is, of course, the company can afford the risk. The have hundreds/thousands of employees. You have one job.

Firing becomes dismissal with generous severance. Europe seems to do just fine.

Would you destroy your professional reputation and make yourself unemployable for one year's worth of salary?

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