Hacker News Reader

Comment by sparrish | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Should an employer be free to enter into a contract with a union where they agree to waive some of their firing rights?

In my country, we have decided that there are some reasons that employers can't fire people for any reason, and that we have protected groups. For example, my employer can't fire me because of my religion or my skin color and I approve of that. I tend to think the other protected categories are good too. I'm pretty okay with making discrimination illegal.

We've decided, collectively, that since work is a basic requirement in the US in order to fill the basic needs of housing and food, that we don't want employers to be able to arbitrarily damage people's lives. Employers already have a massive power imbalance with employees, so laws protecting employees from being fired for stupid personal reasons have been put in place. Company owners and CEOs still have all the same freedoms the employees have; they can rollerblade while eating ice cream, go fishing, or quit, so I'm not sure what you're on about with your freedom comment...

Not when they have a contract saying otherwise, which they do in this case according to the article.

Ok, so you leave your current job, work for a couple of years fulfilling your side of the contract and then - on a whim - maybe:

They don't like your political views? The color of your hair? The way you walk? Or they want to hire one of their relatives/friends

They fire you.

That's completely fine in your world?

yes

If I don't like your political views, am I free to come to your nice neighbourhood and spray paint slogans on your garage door?

Even if it is a breach of contract? Should we be free to ignore contract law?

No freedom was lost. The company broke union due process rules that they agreed to.

I don't really understand. You have never been free to do whatever you like. If I walk in to the head office of some libertarian company and take a computer, would I be free to leave? Would I be free to enter?

There is an asymmetry between leaving and getting fired. If an employee leaving seriously damages a company it is kind of on the company. If an employee gets fired it can seriously affect their life, and that of their family.

Should according to what? Genuinely curious what your foundational reasoning is?

Depends on what kind of freedom you are talking about, is it "freedom of" or "freedom from"?

How about the basic freedom of and from not having your life arbitrarily ruined by a company that has very specific incentives that often involve the destruction of the environment, social health, individual health, the economy, etc.

We've already put a straightjacket on corporations because everybody has accepted that their incentives lead them to cause untold damage when unleashed.

Simply allowing them to harm individuals is the worst kind of "compromise".

I'm totally with you, I do want freedom from corporations deciding to disrupt lives as powerless employees simply because they don't want to hurt shareholders after taking bad decisions (usually without input from said employees).

I'm absolutely against this phase of neoliberal capitalism (nothing new nor liberal) shoving down our throats that finance knows best and markets should control every economic interaction in society.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com