Hacker News Reader

Comment by Findeton | Hacker News Reader

Unless employees save up money, then you are always prepared.

Still harms the employee.

Preparation isn’t free, and even if you’re prepared, you’re still harmed. This isn’t some moral lesson on independence and discipline. Companies don’t need any single employee as much as that employee needs their job.

You think you are harmed but if you recognized the alternative you wouldn’t be saying that. Countries with higher protections for employees have WAY lower salaries for everyone.

What if I told you salaries could go up if shareholder profits and management pay packages went down? You're operating from the idea that people with outsized pay packages are exceptional, when more often then not, they are lucky people benefiting from a dysfunctional system. Certainly, skill is involved, but you are weighing it too much from an outcome perspective.

I am a lucky person, but I see it for what it is, not that I am special or exceptional. A lottery ticket is not something you can base broad policy on, most especially considering the aggregate harm being incurred.

If you are not interested in a union, that is fine, it only takes a majority to win a union and 30% to hold a vote. Do you think 51% are making outsized comp and vote no? I'm interested to find out too as someone very curious.

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/what-we-do/conduct-elections

https://newrepublic.com/post/175274/gallup-poll-two-thirds-a...

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-closing-gender-...

Sorry I don’t like the current concept of unions that use coercion either through the state law or demonstrations. I’d rather they used private agreements instead of state law.

You might have to find a jurisdiction more to your liking then. Conversely, I don't like the current brutalist labor environment and do like these government and regulatory levers that can be pulled. Private agreements are worthless based on available evidence. If you have evidence to the contrary, please share. Consider non competes (private agreements) being invalidated, and the evidence they are a detriment to workers and innovation.

@toomuchtodo I would say that salaries don’t depend on shareholders at all but on the demand/offer balance of workers for a given job.

This is true, but at least you get what you pay for. I moved out of the US for a lower salary, but a waaaay higher total package. I have actual high speed trains that get me to my destination measurably faster than driving, my employer and I each have to give at least a 6 week notice for either of us to be dismissed, I have actual paid vacation that I can trade for cash (instead of magical “unlimited” vacation), affordable housing right on the water, an actual pension instead of playing a risky, slow moving, stock market game, nobody calls me on the weekends, ever. And so many other things.

So yeah, my bank account might be lower, but I don’t need nearly as much as I did in the US so it feels like I actually have more.

At some point I'm going to need a surgery that costs maybe $50K (and maybe a lot more if there are complications). How many people have that saved up plus living expenses?

I'd like to have "fuck you" (or even "screw you") money, but the healthcare system makes it pretty tough.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com