Hacker News Reader

Comment by tokai | Hacker News Reader

My union representative is currently working with my boss to get rid of an employee that isn't pulling their weight. It is harming both the company and colleagues when someone doesn't fulfill their duties. In the Nordic countries it is quite easy to get rid of workers, as the welfare state is supposed care for people til they find other work. It makes for a quite flexible labor market.

View on HN

This is the missing link that I've rarely if ever seen in the USA - the Union needs to "police itself" so that they are guaranteeing a certain "value of labor".

In the US the biggest group complaining about lazy union employees are the other union employees.

"According to the Economic Policy Institute, wage theft costs U.S. workers as much as $50 billion per year — a number far higher than all robberies, burglaries and motor vehicle thefts combined"

Privileged Americans will do anything to steal labour and instead make the hard working people seem like the criminal. But the managers who steal money are completely safe and never accused by the privileged.

Only one of the reasons why unions are essential in US.

>In the Nordic countries it is quite easy to get rid of workers

What, where? In Sweden it's definitely not easy to get rid of workers. If you're doing layoffs rather than firing an individual you can't even pick and choose who to fire, you need to follow LIFO.

You're allowed to have a "trial period" for new employees though, during which it's easy to fire them.

Depends on the field, in institutions it can be extremely hard to get fired.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com