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Comment by dfxm12 | Hacker News Reader

The default for the US is "at-will employment", which means that your employer can fire you at any time, no reason needed. The definition of "just cause" would be collectively bargained, so both management and the union will understand and agree on what constitutes just cause or not.

FWIW, layoffs are regulated differently from firings.

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>The default for the US is "at-will employment", which means that your employer can fire you at any time, no reason needed.

That seems... fine? In most transaction neither party needs to give "just cause" to terminate a contract. Imagine having to give documentation to move out of your current apartment, for instance. Getting fired is disruptive to someone's finances that some notice/severance would be justified, but "you have to give just cause" (which in practice, means multiple formal write-ups and several months of PIP, even in places without a union contract) seems excessive.

>>The default for the US is "at-will employment", which means that your employer can fire you at any time, no reason needed.

>> That seems... fine? In most transaction neither party needs to give "just cause" to terminate a contract.

You like having a sword over your neck at all times that an employer can just swing and take away your salary and your health insurance for any reason at all?

Did you stop reading there and not the subsequent sentence?

>Getting fired is disruptive to someone's finances that some notice/severance would be justified

Did you stop reading there and not the subsequent independent clause?

> but "you have to give just cause" (which in practice, means multiple formal write-ups and several months of PIP, even in places without a union contract) seems excessive.

You still said requiring "just cause" is excessive. So you still want an "at-will" sword over your head.

>So you still want an "at-will" sword over your head.

That sword is still going to be over your head regardless of at will employment. You could be laid off (no cause needed), the company goes bankrupt, or you become disabled. Where do you draw the line? If you don't want to accept "sword over your head" for firings, why would you accept it for layoffs?

But whatabout being laid off, whatabout company bankruptcy, and whatabout becoming disabled? MY god, we're talking about at-will employment being a threat to a human's life insurance and salary, and you bring up NON at-will issues? Those are fundamentally different swords than an at-will employment one.

Is your manager going to disable your body? How is this even remotely close to a manager being able to fire you for whatever? You're just ignoring the whole "at-will".

I'm not talking about a "sword" of any possible negative thing happening to you. Why not bring up asteroids? Or another plague? Or just suddenly a REAL sword beheads me? THe "sword" is solely the at-will. Learn how metaphors work.

It's the same sword: loss of income and healthcare. Semantic games aside, if the premise is that we shouldn't accept the risk of losing income/healthcare due to poor performance/internal politics, why would you accept losing income/healthcare due to layoffs (which also involve poor performance/internal politics)? It's fine to argue "people should be shielded from the risk of losing their income/healthcare", but you can't arbitrarily decide when it's fine to apply that principle.

THAT'S LITERALLY NOT THE PREMISE. AND IT'S NOT THE SAME SWORD. So much whataboutism and changing definitions to fit your needs. And also, you keep forgetting the more important thing: SOMEONE IS SWINGING THE SWORD AND WHY.

> It's fine to argue "people should be shielded from the risk of losing their income/healthcare", but you can't arbitrarily decide when it's fine to apply that principle.

You keep deleting key parts, like "people should be shielded from the risk of losing their income/healthcare from manager's whims". It's not arbitrary.

>You keep deleting key parts, like "people should be shielded from the risk of losing their income/healthcare from manager's whims". It's not arbitrary.

And a layoff aren't caused by "manager's whims"?

1. Layoffs are usually not "you manager fires you on the spot for whatever reason and with no severance/compensation"

2. Layoffs are usually a less common occurrence than firing people. While the US sucks at labor laws in general, there's at least the WARN act for mass layoffs

3. Layoffs are when multiple people are let go at the same time, which is a distinct category from firing a single person

4. Hence there are often separate negotiations and separate clauses in the union contracts regarding firing a single person (one category) and laying off multiple people (a separate category)

Why the hell you're arguing (in extremely bad faith) against labor protections is beyond anyone's understanding

>1. Layoffs are usually not "you manager fires you on the spot for whatever reason and with no severance/compensation"

>Why the hell you're arguing (in extremely bad faith) against labor protections is beyond anyone's understanding

I'm not sure why you're focusing so hard on the "no severance/compensation" part, when from the start I said that "some notice/severance would be justified". Is it because I said that at-will employment "seems... fine?", and you can't get over that, despite my subsequent statements?

Until we get to the bottom of this, I don't think it's worth it for me to engage with any of your other points.

Dying by lightning is like dying of cancer only a tad more unlikely.

Your argument sucks at base level.

Layoffs are negotiated separately, and in normal countries (with collective bargaining and healthcare) layoffs, while impactful, won't cripple your life

>layoffs, while impactful, won't cripple your life

You lose your income in both cases, and I said I'd support severance/notice period for firings. I don't see how the two are materially different.

Severance is one of the many things unions negotiate.

Yet you keep insisting that somehow at-will employment with immediate termination is somehow good.

>Yet you keep insisting that somehow at-will employment with immediate termination is somehow good.

I'm not sure how you got that impression. My original comment:

>Getting fired is disruptive to someone's finances that some notice/severance would be justified,

Some of us are capable of maintaining the context of conversation.

Edit: removed my reply in favor of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42046204

It doesn't work like that. I worked for a tech company in Germany and it went brankrupt. By contract I have 3 months notice period, and I got them. That's plenty of time to find another job (which I did). It goes both ways too (whenever I want to quit, I give my 3 months notice period).

I would hate it to have an "at-will" contract. Just thinking that my manager or his manager or whoever can just fire me the very same day because of who knows what is just awful.

Yeah I don't want to give 3 months notice to quit, that sounds terrible. I'll take at will any day of the week if it means that I can quit immediately if needed.

You can simply negotiate the remaining time with your employer after you quit.

It is not mandatory to sit on your old job for 3 months.

To be honest, yeah. I want to reduce the fixed costs of job transfer so that I can be efficiently allocated in the economy because that usually means I can make a lot of money. But I can see how someone who is at a lower skill level would want to raise the friction for hiring - less job mobility is good for them.

If someone wants to fire me, I hope they find it easy.

> If someone wants to fire me, I hope they find it easy.

Wut?

The point is that he wants to be employed at a company because the company values him, not because they're forced to keep him around. This shouldn't be an alien concept. In personal relationships, you want your friends/partner to stay around because they like you, not because they're forced to. In other business relationships, you want to get paid because you're delivering value, not because you'd be a pain to get rid of.

What stops them from quitting and finding employment elsewhere?

The point isn't keeping a job, it's being well liked by others. While it's unlikely to be anyone's overriding objective (I too would rather be employed but hated, than well-liked but starving), it's still something that people care about. More importantly, it shows that he cares about the other side of the transaction, rather than being some sociopath that only cares about what he gets.

What prevents them from working at a job where they are liked by others?

How does "you cannot be fired on the spot for no reason" prevent them?

>How does "you cannot be fired on the spot for no reason" prevent them?

At the very least, getting fired is a sign of no confidence from your boss.

It's a sign of many things, that is still not an answer to my questions.

I would hate to work for an employer that didn't want me there. I'd rather they just fire me so I can get a job somewhere else.

You know you can quit yourself, right? That labor protections that protect you from bad employers do not preclude you from, you know, quitting your job and finding employment elsewhere?

Sure but those same protections might discourage other employers from hiring me in the first place.

It's not such an issue for me now that I have a fair bit of experience, but if I was fresh out of university it would be harder to convince an employer to take a risk.

Also severance is a thing.

Never knew people are unemployable in countries with strong labor protections. I must be lucky to have landed a job counts on fingers multiple times now.

> Also severance is a thing.

Indeed it is. Not in the US though

---

The absolute delusion Americans live in never ceases to amaze me. I'm surprised China came up with 996, not the US, and that the US didn't immediately adopt it with the masses cheering it on.

Look at the average wage (especially for tech workers) in the US and compare it to basically any country with strong labour protections and maybe you will reach enlightenment.

Let's see: health insurance not tied to employer, no bankruptcies due to loss of job (or loss of health insurance), no fear of on-the-spot firing with impactful consequences (loss of medical insurance, loss of income), more than a few weeks of maternity leave (and significantly more than just a few days of paid maternity leave) etc. etc.

Not every delusion that Americans have is enlightenment.

Higher wages make up for all that, especially in big tech where people do get basically the same benefits as Europeans but at 4x the wage lol: unlimited or at least several weeks of vacation, excellent healthcare, etc. Sure, your point stands for regular workers, but not for tech workers. There's a reason people clamor to come to the US for tech jobs, and it's not because Europe is better for benefits.

It's not fine. It sucks for just about everyone involved except the business owner.

This fails to consider second order effects. Adding more friction to firings also makes teams less performant (as they fail to get rid of underperforming employees), as makes finding a job more difficult (because companies are more reluctant to hire on the off chance they get a bad employee they can't get rid of). This isn't theoretical. Returns suck for retailers, but they still voluntarily offer it because it entices consumers to buy things they wouldn't otherwise buy.

There's no evidence that "adding more friction to firings also makes teams less performant". Your statement relies on two assumptions: (1) employers are reliable at determining "underperforming", (2) employers are making choices based of performance. There's no evidence that it makes "finding a job more difficult". There are entire swaths of this earth that have the framework that we're talking about and their job markets are just fine.

I know that an online form makes it easy to just position yourself as correct, but you're arguing against reality.

>Your statement relies on two assumptions: (1) employers are reliable at determining "underperforming", (2) employers are making choices based of performance.

1. You could make similar arguments about consumers being qualified to determine product quality. Are retailers dumbasses for wasting money accepting returns?

2. When it comes to hiring/firing decisions, perception of competence is as important (if not more so), as actual competence (if you can even define that). No manager is going to be assuaged by "well actually, you're pretty bad at determining competence, so you should be glad that we're requiring you to file a bunch of paperwork before you can fire someone".

>There's no evidence that it makes "finding a job more difficult". There are entire swaths of this earth that have the framework that we're talking about and their job markets are just fine.

New hires rate in Europe (with famously stronger labor protections) is around 10% per year in 2022. US meanwhile is more than 4% per month.

https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/skills-intelligence/r...

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/JTS000000000000000HIR

> There's no evidence that it makes "finding a job more difficult".

The unemployment rate in Europe is 6% vs. 4% in the US. I find that some evidence that it's at least a little more difficult.

I'm sure the paper feels it's excessive too. The union doesn't. They've already failed to work this out without a strike, so the question now is who can suffer the longest before the other breaks, or is willing to give some other concession in return for getting their way on this issue.

In other words, one side will win, or both will compromise. It's just another contract negotiation, like any other between two parties. Unions are allowed to do it with businesses, just like businesses are allowed to do it among themselves. This is literally the ruling ideology of the West and has been for generations, but somehow when a union takes advantage of it, that's radical marxism.

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