I’m not. Hers was.
And it wasn’t lies, hearsay, or rumors (nice red herring), it was her own words on a public website. I’d fully expect to be fired if I ever did something that stupid.
Maybe that’s really what Evil Captor is arguing for…protection for the stupid people.
It’s the next battleground for the socially conscious.
This is what we demand!
Adding stupid as a protected class
Quota’s for MIT and Harvard to allow in stupid people
Recognition by society that stupid people aren’t responsible for thier blogs
You have to fucking kidding me. You are arguing freedom of speech and you are referring to it as a Second Amendment issue? I am beyond boggled how anyone with an IQ above that of a turnip would mix up those to critical rights.
Here, you might want to read them and fix them in your mind.
Here are all of them in case you want read up and prevent embarrassment in your next thread.
That battle has been being fought for decades. The problem is that the stupid people will win because all it takes is one of them on the jury.
One member of a jury has little power, except in jurisdictions requiring unaminious verdicts, where they can cause a hung jury.
As for termination at will, the solution for on-air talent is to get a contract that lays out your rights. Termination only for cause is pretty standard. No contract, either party can end it in a whim. I’m not troubled by that.
I think the same libertarian-ish principle that people who are often on the side of business like to call “let the buyer beware” applies in this situation. The station hired her and, barring any major reasons (and I don’t consider what she did to be major), has a responsibility to uphold their end of the bargain. Realize that to me, the alternative of letting employers fire people for little to no reason is much much worse, so much so that I would absolutely support an employer employing someone against their will because the only recourse is people being fired for nothing and I don’t consider it extortion because they hired them in the first place.
I would agree with you only if the employee did it on work time. To me, casing someone’s private blogs (and I realize the irony of a public blog being called a private one) is out of bounds for the employer. Again, what your boss misheard some hearsay or rumors that he feels, by his own opinion, may damage the company? I wouldn’t want anyone to be fired for something like that. I think to be consistent, and to prevent such abuse, employers need to be held to some standard that, at the very least, the charges they are leveling against the employee must be provably true. I don’t think that’s a bad standard to have, firing someone for something they actually did rather than what the boss thinks they did
Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t he a volunteer neighborhood watchman? I don’t think he had an official employer, a boss he answers to, and gets paid for it. If Zimmerman was found guilty, then of course he wouldn’t get to keep his job. I think in his case, a good argument can be made that he was attempting to represent himself as the neighborhood watchman if that was his job, and that his disobeying of the 911 operator and trying to take matters into his own hands in the neighborhood he patrols makes this an on-the-job issue.
But because I want to answer your question fully, suppose he was a paid security guard for a different neighborhood than the one he found Martin in. Had things gone down the same way, I would say that his own actions in private should be irrelevant to his employers. If he broke no laws or rules, and did not carry himself as a security guard but a private citizen, then his employers shouldn’t use that against him. I will grant you that it complicates the matter severely, however.
Yes, I would. Ask yourself if he was a member of the NRA, wouldn’t there be a huge call to boycott NBC if he was fired, or a boycott if he wasn’t? Or he was an outspoken Democrat, wouldn’t the other side have problems with him and tell their people not to trust/watch NBC? Its easy to use a hated group as an example, but to imagine it was something either political (so you’d get hyperpartisans from both sides), or banal.
Here’s a question I have for you: I’m sure the real Brian Williams has a very active social life and belongs to and enjoys many different things. If NBC bosses wanted to fire him, and use his membership in a local YMCA as fodder, would you be supportive of that? Nevermind why NBC has a fanatical hatred of the YMCA
Well, we strongly disagree on two points here. First, the station has no obligation to continue employing her. I don’t accept that any bargain has been entered into (unless of course there is an employment contract).
Second, in her line of work what she did was indeed major. People in the public eye cannot afford to alienate their public and expect continued employment. But that’s pretty secondary considering our disagreement on the first point.
Sorry, but that’s an unsupportable position to take. You have effectively given a single employee the power to destroy an organization with no way for the company to take appropriate action. It fails the common sense test.
I think that I’ve always maintained that some harm to a certain degree should be tolerable. That’s why we have insurance, because its better to pay some smaller amount so that it can prevent a larger catastrophe that may never happen
NAMBLA Brian Williams, in this case, would be given at least some leeway into how he conducts his business. Less leeway if he mentions to people he’s in NAMBLA, given their reputation, and more leeway if his bosses snoop on something he obviously doesn’t want found. So there’s that nuance.
Secondly, as it is his own private business with whom he associates, the FIRST step, and I mean the first, should be to defend him or allow himself a defense, and definitely NOT to fire him and hope it doesn’t result in bad publicity. How it would work in this case then would be that once it came to light that Mr. Williams was part of that nefarious organization, and people start boycotting or protesting, either NBC or Williams himself should be able to defend themselves. NBC would say, in my fictional universe, that they can’t fire him because he’s done nothing wrong, and hope the firestorm dies down. Brian Williams, in his own defense, should be given time to pursue a defense in private (writing to publications, speaking out in the media as a private citizen) or NBC may elect to give him some time on air to speak on his own behalf
Third, NBC can choose to fire him anyway and be sued for a reasonable amount given the protections I want to give to workers. They may decide that paying off Williams for the firing or offering him money to resign is less damaging than keeping him on air. So fired or resignation, Williams gets the money he’s due for his job and any damages. I think that would be a reasonable alternative to your support of allowing employers unfettered power to fire employees at will; fire them, but they have to pay up.
Lastly, and I think they probably already is in effect in some occupations, NBC can better word their hiring contract to their employees to weed out those they deem might be a problem. Granted, such contracts might be book length, and I would still find basis to dispute firings if it was overly broad or violates the spirit of employee protection (none of this “and by signing this contract you agree with can fire you for no reason” shit), but at least it would be helpful in stopping all but the most egregious cases. I’m perfectly fine if an employer wants to have a list of organizations you can or cannot belong to as a condition of employment, with few exceptions.
I realize that the whole Brian Williams/NAMBLA situation is purely hypothetical, but you’d protect a member of a group that advocates pedophilia? Seriously? Seriously? You don’t think that such a prominent reporter’s membership in such an organization wouldn’t severly undermine the public’s confidence and trust in NBC? It would only make sense for an employer to distance themselves as far as possible from such an employee. Williams might be able to defend himself, but NBC would have no defense for keeping him on. Out on his ass, I say.
And NBC has the same right - to not be associated with someone who belongs to NAMBLA. The right of association is good for both sides of the equation.
Are you asking more how I can protect NAMBLA or how I can protect an employee who has associated himself with a hated group?
The first is, I suppose, 1st Amendment rights. The second is the point of my whole debate here. Ideally, in this example, NBC would make a statement saying that what Williams does in his own time is his own business, and they treat all employees the same as long as they don’t carry their personal lives into their jobs.
Can you answer my question now? Would you be as incredulous if a company fired an employee for being, let’s say, an NRA member (if you’re conservative) or a member of the Sierra Club (if you’re liberal)? Would you express any disgust for NBC’s “stupid” decision and defend Brian Williams for being part of a wholesome American organization? And if you were fired for a similar reason, wouldn’t you be mad and wish things didn’t allow your company to fire you like that? Or would you take it in stride and say “Oh well, it was right for me to be fired, I shouldn’t have been a member of <insert organization here> and I should have known better than to let the secret out”
But the point is, they made a commitment to Mr. Williams and have no right to unilaterally terminate that contract.
Suppose I ask you this: should an employee unilaterally decide he has the right to be employed by a company of his choosing? Your response might be “Hey, isn’t that what we’re talking about? You want the employee to be employed against the employer’s will!” Well no, that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about an existing agreement between and employer and employee on a job both have agreed on, and that one side wants to terminate without proper justification.
Understand that I’m not against employers having the power to fire and hire who they choose. But once hired, an employee should have guarantees about his stability and security, something that should be spelled out in the employment contract. That you favor one side being able to void that contract for no reason is what I disagree with. If there is a good reason, some aspect of the job the employee cannot meet, a goal he cannot reach, or his performance is in contrary to what his hired duties are, then I consider the employee to have violated his contract and thus deserves to be fired. But the point of all that is: there is a GOOD REASON he is to be fired. Simply being a part of an organization, or doing something silly in your own spare time is not a good reason to me
Lets try another example. Given the powers of the employer to fire people for no reason like you want, how about we give the employee that power to fire managers? The employee has just as much stake in the business as the employer, possibly even more so as they are poorer and cannot as easily switch jobs as a rich business owner. Would you favor an employee union using any reason at all (or none) to vote and be able to fire any manager up to the CEO of a company? If unions had that power, I think management would be willing to work a lot harder to not screw them over. We can make the threshold whatever the company itself uses to make executive decisions. Majority rules, so if half the union represented employees decide to fire a manager, out he goes, and to give them even more power, management requires union support to hire other managers and the union gets to vote on what goes into their contracts as well. I’m certain that a union laborer will never vote for an executive to have a golden parachute if he gets fired. I think that will cut down on a lot of corruption in corporations, don’t you think?
Just out of curiosity, have you ever been involved in the hiring of someone in a place with these laws? From experience (London, which has stronger laws than the U.S. and Amsterdam, which has very strong laws) it becomes very hard to hire anyone. Most “employees” are contractors - because you don’t hire contractors, you can let contractors go. When you do hire someone, you spend MONTHS interviewing them to be sure - and you only hire them if you can’t get the job done in a more employer friendly country (we’d rather put the job in London than Amsterdam, in the U.S. than in London, and in China over the U.S.). I don’t think you’d like the consequences of the system you are proposing. Perhaps someone can chime in who is in Europe, I’ve only been involved from the U.S. side, but from this side, as a hiring manager, I wouldn’t want to be on the other side as an employee. And as a manager, it wasn’t really a lot of fun either.
I’m not sure you understand what the First Amendment means. It means Congress may not pass laws restricting freedom of speech. It has nothing to do with private dealings between an employer and employee.
Second, NAMBLA promotes sexual relations between adult men and underage boys. Pedophilia is not only morally reprehensible, it is also illegal almost anywhere. Participation in illegal activities is not and should not be protected.
I would give Williams (or other hypothetical person) a pass for belonging to the NRA. Although it is a controversial organization, it does not promote the illegal use of firearms and I have no moral opposition to it. Membership in NAMBLA is a polar opposite, though. Membership in NAMBLA is not a guarantee that a person is a pedophile, nor is it illegal, but such a person would be very tainted by association with others who advocate and perform despicable and illegal sexual acts. No matter if membership in NAMBLA isn’t specifically prohibited in Mr. Williams’ contract, it does not make him a member of a protected class and I would personally support NBC immediately terminating his contract and Mr. Williams forfeiting any owed pay or benefits.
TL,DR version: membership in an organization which advocates illegal assault on other persons should not protect people from suffering consequences as a result of that membership.
Most folks in the US don’t have employment contracts. They are at will, and can be let go at any time. There’s no commitment, nothing to terminate. I have no problem with employers dropping any employee at any time for pretty much any reason, with the noted exceptions for protected classes. I could make the case for expanding those protected classes in a limited and targeted way, but no general protection for employees. On this we will simply have to agree to disagree, I don’t see any chance of you changing my mind with your current line of reasoning.
People like Brian Williams probably have contracts that include morals clauses, and it would be trivially easy to terminate him based on membership in NAMBLA. Anyone in the public eye must carefully maintain their public image - it’s part of the job description. If you think NBC has a commitment to Brian Williams, you have to think he broke that commitment by violating his morals clause.
I’ve made this point before in a previous post, looks like it was ignored but here goes again: public sector union workers are, rightly or wrongly, stereotyped as being difficult to fire. I would favor all employees in every job and every industry having that power to challenge their firing such as public sector union works can, with few exceptions. So yes, I have been a part of a system where this happens and no, I don’t see it as a problem. Republicans have spent the last 30 years and more demonizing unions but they protect employees from unfair management and they are necessary and they are good. Its a travesty that not everyone is a represented employee
I don’t think the consequences are that dire, I think its severely overstating it
Yeah I suppose I misspoke. Kind of embarrassing, as I made it a point to state that it wasn’t a 1st Amendment issue earlier. But that was describing what happened. The hypothetical tripped me up
Yeah you know, let’s get off the NAMBLA example, it seems to be the only thing people are focused on. Use the other examples I gave
Your morals, not everyone else’s. That’s the difference
Full stop right there.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem. That and the fact that people think that should be normal. It should not. All employment needs to be a give and take from both the employer and employee. No one side should get to terminate that unless there is pressing need and again, me doing something you don’t like or only THINK it can hurt you doesn’t, to me, meet that need
I would be somewhat in favor of these, as long as they are negotiated beforehand and they are not overly vague and broad and used as a loophole around the “you can’t fire people for any random reason you want” rule
As I’ve said in this thread, we disagree on this and it’s not going to change. What you think of as a negative, I think of as a positive. I get your point, I just disagree with it completely.
So you’re saying that employees can’t quit unless the employer approves?
One of the reasons hiring in London was such a pain in the butt was that it was fairly normal for people to have two and three month exit clauses in their contracts. So you would have to be very careful in hiring them because they were hard to get rid of - maybe a four or five month interview process - and then once they took the job, they couldn’t start for another two or three months - assuming they didn’t take holiday. It was completely normal to take three months to get the posting approved in the first place, another two to collect and scan through resumes, another two in preliminary interviews to get the candidates narrowed down, then the four to make sure you were making the right decision, then three before they could start once the job was offered - ten months between “we need a developer” and “hey, Nigel, welcome aboard.” Then another two or three before they were useful, with all their access set up and an understanding of our processes and the project.
Two issues - one from the employers side - that is a lot of lag - you don’t exactly turn a project around on a dime when its that hard to hire people. The other, from the employee’s perspective, there are a lot of jobs out there that are in the process of being filled that no one will get paid for for ten months.
If the option to be unilaterally fired was taken away from employers and the trade off is that employees find it harder to quit, then I would favor some regulations on quitting. To give you an idea, at some government jobs that I know about firsthand, a manager can block an employee’s transfer if the job is of the same tier in pay. They cannot block it, but can delay it for like a month, if the employee leaves for a promotion. I see nothing wrong with that kind of restriction but I do see your point that employees not being able to quit would be a problem. However, I must say again, that allowing employers to be able to unilaterally fire an employee for little to no cause is WORSE than not allowing them to quit. Hell, the employee could just start doing a shitty job and not show up to work, there are ways to get out of a bad job, not that I’d advocate it. It would depend on the details
That’s inefficient, but I don’t see it as a huge burden. My current job took 8 months, and after I got it, I didn’t start for about another month and a half. I see no reasons why hiring and firing should be so easy if employees are given more protections. Ideally, employers would better vet candidates that fit their criteria more, and turnover would be less. Yes, maybe there will be unintended consequences, but an entire workforce of protected and union-represented employees makes up for it.
At will employment would be fine if we had an adequate social safety net to tide people over between jobs. But we don’t, so basically, you are an advocate for human misery.