I wouldn’t call it fair and equitable if others were forced to please me – I’d like it a lot, but I wouldn’t be so stupid and self-iinterested as to think it was fair just because it benefited me.
Do you think I’m advocating any such thing? Where did you get that idea? Maybe if you spelled things out a little, I’d understand.
If an employer has decided he does not want or need your services he should not be forced to continue to pay you. Either he has no need for the services you were giving, in which case I fail to see why he should be forced to continue to employ you, or he has decided someone else can do the job better, in which case I fail to see why you are entitled to keep the job and take it from a person who can do it better.
Or he’s an asshole and he’s threatened by his subordinate’s competence. Been known to happen. Or as is the case in right to work states, he just doesn’t like the way the guy ties his shoes.
There is a huge investment for each job created and the company needs employees producing to make money. An employer does not make money by firing people he needs. There is nobody in the world who knows better than the employer what person he needs for the job.
Have you ever actually worked anywhere? Your comments sound like they come from someone whose experience of work is purely theoretical. I’ve had employers I respected and employers I didn’t respect, and I’ve been in a positon to see what happens to others in the real world of work. And to sum up – shit happens. Shit happens a LOT.
I cannot see why the fact that the employee needs the employer’s money gives him any entitlement to it. The employer needs the job done just as badlly if not more and yet the employee is allowed to quit.
This is simply not true. In most cases, an employee who is let go faces much more dire consequences than the individual who lets the employee go. One is saying, “I need a new job or I lose my house/car/etc.” The other is saying “I need a new widget evaluator or we fall behind in production next quarter.” Which problem would YOU rather be faced with?
Why should some management jerk be free to completely fuck over someone’s life just because he’s one rung up on the ladder? How is that fair? How is that reasonable?
I didn’t mean to infer that the SDMB’er who posted about her labor problems was based here in Georgia. Just that she is a member of this board. Sorry for the confusion.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that an employee can some times be sued if his/her quitting causes great loss to the employer.
Now I shall see if I can find a cite, and read the rest of the replies to see if anyone else has touched on this idea.
Sorry.
Peace,
mangeorge
Nobody in this thread has advocated that a company in dire straits shouldn’t be able to adjust – the whole complaint is against capricious or otherwise unfounded firings. And companies DO fire large numbers of people for reasons that are suspect at best on occasion. Do de name Chainsaw Al Dunlap mean anything to ya?
This is simply factually incorrect. Very many non-wealthy people own shares, including most union members. Retirement plans tend to be built around stocks, for instance. Consider the concept of forcing the retirement fund to go bankrupt in order to prevent laying off workers rendered surplus by changing markets, mergers, or technology.
Ya know, I HAVE heard of regular people with their pension money in stocks who got screwed, but it was in right to work states like California – that Enron deal. Maybe treating employees humanely ins’t the huge danger to commerce that you seem to think it is.
**The alternative is to have the government guarantee/mandate continued employment (or at least, income and benefits), and retirement, even when the company goes under. This is socialism. It’s been tried before and generally does not work as well as hoped. **
No, that’s not the alternative. Who ever said it was? Look, it’s ok with me if you have fantasies like this, but don’t confuse them with my arguments.
Of course it’s unfair that some people have more money than other people. Always has been, hopefully it won’t always be. However your notion that taking any notice of the central fact of capitalist society is somehow socialism is … quite a leap. Apparently, any attempt to ameliorate the suffering caused by capitalism run rampant is socialism. Must be interesting to live in such a binary world.
Well, as you and I have discussed here a few times, I feel that unions are morally wrong, basically to the same degree that anti-competitive behaviour is.
Just like the current discussion, I think the same rights should apply to both parties. I think it’s wrong for multiple companies to get together and collude to hold down wages, and I think it’s wrong for multiple employees to get together and collude to hold up wages.
By the way, noone’s asked, but I’ll tell you why we put the at-will clause in offer letters (although I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise to anyone).
I’ve never fired anyone arbitrarily or capriciously. At least, that’s my stance; obviously you only have one side of things here. I’m a good employer, and I’m proud to have created many jobs (hundreds) over the years. I’ve also had the sad displeasure of firing 12 people over the years. And as a sidenote, to those who’ve never been in management, firing somebody is one of the toughest, most distasteful things you’ll ever do in your life, like dumping a girlfriend times 10. The person is typically someone you’ve known for years, someone you’ve known well, someone you’ve respected (otherwise they never would’ve been hired in the first place). To tell that person they are no longer welcome and you can find no way to make things better, knowing they’ve got to go home and tell their spouse, etc. is just a rotten experience.
But I’ve digressed. The reason the “at-will” thing is in the offer letter: just because I don’t feel it was arbitrary doesn’t mean the former employee will feel that way, and nobody likes to be slighted. Nobody really wants to believe that they did something wrong; it had to be the bosses fault. And I’m just not interested in dealing with discussing it in a court-room. It’s a CYA thing. I do my best to make decent non-arbitrary, non-capricious decisions, and I don’t want legal hassles.
But multiple companies do get together to hold down wages. They send lobbyists to Washington to keep the minimum wage in check. They also support corporation friendly politicians to guard against employee friendly legislation.
Individual employees can’t afford such antics.
These pro-employer arguements would hold more weight with me if employees had truely portable benefits. But we don’t, and most benefits are cumulative. We have a finite resource (40 yrs or so) and have to try to make the most of it.
The employer/employee relationship is a contentious one, and it’s likely to remain so.
Uh… Minimum wage is an artificial floor that goes against the desires of the market. It’s mere existence goes against what’s normal or fair. The only discussion is how unfair it is.
so your saying it’s fair to expect someone to live on less then $5.12 an hour? Have you ever tried to? why is an “artificial floor” unfair? Heck $5.15 won’t even keep you out of the poverty level. I think the fair thing to do is raise it to atleast 7 dollars an hour.
So, it is your right to fire at will but it is morally wrong for employees to exercise their rights under the law. Seems a little “one way” to me.
In any event I believe that it is morally wrong to take away (Or even have the right to take away) the livelihood of a human being in an arbitrary and capricious manner and I further suspect your views would change if you were on the “other end of the stick.”
Bill H.'s point (and my point) is that instructing people what they may do with their property (capital, in this case) is always less fair than not artifically interfering. By the same token, artificially regulating labor is also unfair - an employee’s labor is a resource offered for sale, and they ought to be able to offer it unfettered. (Yes, that’s right, I don’t advocate slavery! Big surprise!) If you insist on a minimum wage per hour, then certain types of labor really do become quite expensive - e.g, the commission salesperson who has to be paid hourly when he doesn’t perform, even though by definition he has added value to neither the product, the company, or the consumer, or the piecework laborer who has to be paid even when his production is low.
As far as “the market being fair” (a paraphrase) the market has somehow managed to generally agree with your estimate of a better wage. Part of my job is to review info on local wages, so that we can offer better than the average for comparable positions (we get better people that way, you see, because we get more and better applicants who want to stay longer); I rarely see wages below $7/hr. being offered, and those below tend to be geared toward the otherwise unemployable.
FTR, county, I have indeed been on the other end of the stick. The first job I had as an adult paid the then minimum wage, which was $4.25. It was pretty tough living on that. Guess what - nobody gave me an entitlement, and I never asked for one; instead I made a point of seeking to improve myself as an employment prospect, as anyone else can do. The result is that I am in greater demand than others, make more money, and have more potential job stability. I also have to do a lot more. I work for every single cent, and I do it because the other way sucked. Any other person could do the same, if they wished.
I’ve never known anyone to “make it” entirely on their own earning minimum wage. Not for long. And I’ve been there. There’s always help from a relative, a friend, mooching meals, couch surfing, or something similar (or possibly illegal) going on. I got help, and I appreciate it.
Minimum wage = about $800/mo, gross. (Your $7/hr zooms it up to 1200/mo).That’s especially bad when the worker is expected to save some money because he/she can lose their job at the employer’s whim.
Now I expect to see someone sit here and show how someone else can survive and thrive on that.
“Fair” is not a moral concept. (neither was my other carefully chosen word, “normal”):
Fair. adj.: showing lack of favoritism
By definition, fair is something without influence from either side. Without an artificial requirement, people would be paid less than minimum wage.
netscape 6 wrote
Don’t get me started about working at minimum wage. My first job was for $2.85/hour, and at the time minimum wage was $3.15. I’ve held plenty of other jobs at minimum wage or very low wage. And it sucked. badly. But I thought then – and I think now – that the best solution wasn’t to pass laws paying me more than I was worth, but rather to work hard and make something of myself.
Most places will fire you if you can’t (or won’t) satisfactorarly do your job, or atleast change your task to something you can do okay. If a company keeps an employee whom does not do their job well at that job despite losing money who’s fault is that?
Maybe else where, here right now the only jobs are only minimum jobs, The facories have slowed down so they are mostly letting people go and little hiring. I know, I’m on unemployment and looking for a job. Next month I’ll be getting certified to repair computers. That should help me find a job quite a bit, but if I did not have that skill I would be stuck at mickeedees or the likes of till the economy picked up. That would not even pay my bills.
Unions exist to create unfair advantage for one party. period. You can make a case that this unfair advantage is morally correct, but you can not argue that they are fair, because by dictionary definition, they are not.
Okay let me restate it’s shifted unfairly in favor of the company without unions. Simply because it’s usually alot easier for a company to find another employee then it is for a worker to find another job.
