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Was firing an over-reaction?Was firing an over-reaction?Posted Mar 22, 2013 15:41 UTC (Fri) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642)In reply to: Firing was over-reaction by dskoll Parent article: Blum: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
I've been fired myself before for less, frankly. Specifically, I was once fired (in part) because I regularly made personal statements on my personal blog (and as a commentor on third-party sites) that publicly criticized various for-profit companies that my employer was chummy with. Fact is, I was an at-will employee. At-will employees can be fired for anything at any time, as long as it's not discrimination based on being in a protected class. I think employees have a right exercise their Free Speech rights on the Internet without employer retaliation, and I'd probably insist on that being written into future employment contracts I might sign. But at the moment, I'm an at-will employee again, and I know I can be fired for just about anything at any time. That's what jobs are like in the USA, sadly. Welcome to unbridled capitalism. Meanwhile, IANAL and TINLA, but Adria may have a discrimination claim, arguing that her employer retaliated against her for standing up to sexism in her workplace. (And, yes, a professional conference is a workplace, especially if her company assigned her the job of attending on their behalf). Anyway, I think it's completely reasonable that the guy was fired, but mostly because of my own personal experience: I've been fired for less and I'm fine with it. It's in some sense a lesson that one should get an employment contract rather than be an at-will employee. OTOH, most employment contracts, I suspect, would declare sexist comments in the workplace a firing offense, so admittedly that may not have helped him here.
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Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 15:44 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> That's what jobs are like in the USA, sadly. Welcome to unbridled capitalism.
I prefer it to be that way, actually. It's a good thing.
Plus I don't want to work for somebody who doesn't want me working there in the first place; that sort of thing just makes life miserable for everybody involved.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 15:53 UTC (Fri) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link]
Well, I've worked in union shops (and specifically on the management side and not the Bargaining Unit side) and I felt it was actually really useful to have a process of escalation and documentation for firing, along with a few items spelled out that were just so unacceptable that firing could be immediate. For example, sexist statements in the workplace would be appropriate to be on the "instant firing" list, IMO.
Unchecked and arbitrary power of managers to fire people at will for anything at their own whims is not a good thing generally for society, IMO.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 19:22 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
If you are a valuable employee then the manager firing you for no reason it is also his loss. He just cost his own employers significant profit. Hiring new employees is extremely expensive and time consuming. Also if a business allows some manager to run rampant and fire employees for frivolous or personal matters then that manager is going to be costing them money. Competitors then can pick up the experience and training that was invested in the employees at a bargain price and thus benefit directly from the rival manager's idiocy.
So bad behavior in this manner is it's own punishment.
Also I do like the concept of collective bargaining power. I think it's a valuable tool for employees to make sure that their market value is kept accurate.
I just don't like it when they leverage laws to restrict the ability for non-affiliated people to seek employment, which is the typical approach in modern times. Also I don't like the reverse were businesses try to use legal tactics to prevent ex-employees from seeking employment in competitors. Both approaches damage society, IMO.
is it really? Posted Mar 23, 2013 0:16 UTC (Sat) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
The idea that "bad behaviour is its own punishment" just isn't very realistic over the short term in which we mostly care. The idea that "Something bad was done to you, but those responsible will eventually receive criticism in historical retrospectives so that makes up for it" for example doesn't intuitively feel like /justice/.
The sort of direct consequences you envision are, frankly, unlikely. Manager X fires you, the company lacks your expertise, as a result Manager Y's team runs into a problem, their performance is poor, Manager Y gets fired. How was Manager X punished in this scenario? They weren't. The idea that large corporations somehow "learn" from individual incidents is also pretty laughable. Most lack any mechanism to do that. Whole industries lack such mechanisms. Safety critical industries had to invent, and re-invent means of institutional learning to stop millions of people from dying, they aren't something that just magically appears when you hire your tenth (or ten-thousandth) employee.
The US employment model isn't special in the sense that this problem is distributed throughout US society. Denial of the statistically measurable unfairness of the world, whether its in the form of "name it and claim it" theology, the myth of the undeserving poor, or the continued enthusiasm for "at will" employment is a problem that Americans ought to but most likely won't address as a nation and a culture.
You've alluded to closed shop practices, for what it's worth the EU forbids both "at will" and (almost all) closed shops. You are entitled to work without joining any type of union, political movement, club or society and employers are forbidden from terminating permanent employees for any reason other than redundancy (ie there will no longer exist any job for you to do) misconduct (either "gross" misconduct e.g. fighting in the workplace, or a pattern of misconduct which you were given opportunities to correct and didn't) or clearly inadequate (not just "less than we'd like") performance. Furthermore there are strict laws protecting workers from being classed as "temporary" workers or third party contractors when they are in practice permanent employees. By far the EU's biggest remaining problem is enforcement, the most abused workers tend to be from vulnerable groups that are reluctant to confront their employers or complain to the authorities.
is it really? Posted Mar 25, 2013 23:31 UTC (Mon) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
> The idea that "bad behaviour is its own punishment" just isn't very realistic over the short term in which we mostly care.
Extreme laissez-faire / free trade theories are all failing to see that most feedback loops are imperfect and most importantly: slooow. Yeah sure: there will always be some kind of punishment... in long run. But "in the long run, we're all dead". Can we please get a half-decent life some time before that? Thanks.
No extreme and simplistic theory will ever good enough for the real world (and none is ever actually applied for real if you look closer)
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 23, 2013 14:16 UTC (Sat) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]
> So bad behavior in this manner is it's own punishment.
But not at all in a proportional way.
An employer will risk losing a relatively small amount of productivity and re-recruiting costs that they can most likely afford.
An employee will lose their livelihood. 100% of their income.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 23:52 UTC (Fri) by dwmw2 (subscriber, #2063) [Link] "Unchecked and arbitrary power of managers to fire people at will for anything at their own whims is not a good thing generally for society, IMO."One of the reasons I would never want to work for a US company under US law.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 23, 2013 0:03 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
frankly, if a manager really wants to get rid of you, they can find some reason to do so (or make it so that you really don't want to work for them any longer)
While it's trivial to fire people in theory, in practice most companies don't give lower level managers the power to fire people, and HR orgs are cautious enough (fearing wrongful termination lawsuits) that it's actually pretty hard to fire people.
Constructive dismissal Posted Mar 23, 2013 11:15 UTC (Sat) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
"make it so that you really don't want to work for them any longer"
Constructive dismissal is likewise illegal where I am. It's not common, but it happens often enough that most people will have heard of someone. The employee is entitled to cease work immediately AND receive compensation at tribunal for being illegally terminated. Media reporting of these incidents is usually hugely negative, enough to make avoiding them a priority if your company's reputation is of any importance.
Obviously if both the employer and employee are no longer happy it will usually be possible to agree some mutually acceptable way to end the relationship, and the courts won't interfere with that.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 24, 2013 16:53 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
> while it's trivial to fire people in theory, in practice...
I think it's an important point.
I've worked in countries/companies with very different Labour Laws and found that the difference between theory (= law) and practice can be huge. The culture also comes into play: in some places you are safer even when the law is less protective.
That's for firing ONE person though. When trying to lay off MANY people in tough economic times then Labour Laws do matter (for good or bad - not my point here).
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Apr 4, 2013 18:34 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]
> For example, sexist statements in the workplace would be appropriate to be on the "instant firing" list, IMO.
"Women tend to be smaller, lighter, and less strong than men, and this can negatively impact their ability to pass a firefighter's exam, where the weight of the overcome resident they have to drag out of a burning building will not conveniently change simply because they're female."
That's a sexist statement.
If you fired me for making it, I'd have you in court.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Apr 5, 2013 8:04 UTC (Fri) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] It's entirely factual and therefore not *ist in any way, despite attempts by some idiots to assert otherwise.Now if you had said "women are …", and thereby refused to hire any female firefighters at all, no matter how strong, now that would be sexist (and actionable).
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 16:44 UTC (Fri) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
In what universe is being fired for exercising your freedom of speech a good thing?
freedom Posted Mar 22, 2013 18:56 UTC (Fri) by michich (subscriber, #17902) [Link]
I understand why you may feel it is a bad thing, but please let's try to rethink the general issue more thoroughly. First I would like to say something about two phrases that you used in your comment:
"freedom of speech" - How do you understand the phrase? Does it mean the freedom to say whatever you want to whomever you want and never have to carry any possible consequences? In my view that would be a too wide definition. There is no way to prevent the people who hear me talking from making their own opinions and expectations about myself and consequently adjusting the way they act towards me. Freedom of speech means that I can say what I want to whomever I want and never have to fear the application of organized violence (i.e. the power of the state) for it.
"being fired" - Always both the employer and the employee are acting human beings. They associate because they both expect to gain from their mutual cooperation. They both value what they get more highly than what they give. If at any later time one of them no longer believes so, this voluntary cooperation ends. What right does anybody have to force him to associate with the other person any further?
My conclusion is that although the existence of the possibility of "being fired for exercising your freedom of speech" intuitively sounds bad at first, it is actually necessary for freedom. The alternative "being forced (by violence or threat of it) to associate with people against one's will" is truly bad.
freedom Posted Mar 22, 2013 20:07 UTC (Fri) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
Employers have a social responsibility. Firing someone has the potential to ruin that person's life, it should therefore only be possible in a limited set of cases. This is why many countries have employment protection laws. Expressing an unfavourable opinion about another company isn't one of those cases as long as you don't make stuff up.
> Freedom of speech means that I can say what I want to whomever I want and never have to fear the application of organized violence (i.e. the power of the state) for it.
freedom Posted Mar 23, 2013 5:12 UTC (Sat) by ghane (subscriber, #1805) [Link]
> Employers have a social responsibility. Firing someone has the potential to ruin that person's life, it should therefore only be possible in a limited set of cases.
What about:
Employees have a social responsibility, too. Leaving a job has the potential to ruin a company, it should therefore only be possible in a limited set of cases.
--
freedom Posted Mar 23, 2013 5:35 UTC (Sat) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
> Leaving a job has the potential to ruin a company
If that is the case, you're not running the company right.
freedom Posted Mar 23, 2013 11:27 UTC (Sat) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
Sure, and you'll find most places which don't have "at will" likewise do not permit employees to just arbitrarily down tools and walk away from the job without consequences.
Our systems administrators had to give 90 days notice when they more or less simultaneously quit. That was enough time to identify any important work that hadn't been documented, start hiring replacements, figure out what our plans were for the interim and so on.
But if your business will collapse without just one person you're in trouble anyway due to Bus Factor. That one person might be kidnapped, have a mental breakdown or indeed get hit by an actual bus.
freedom Posted Mar 23, 2013 13:57 UTC (Sat) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942) [Link]
> Firing someone has the potential to ruin that person's life, it should therefore only be possible in a limited set of cases.
If firing can ruin person's life, this is a big problem with society. Laws against management abuses are noneffective when the employees feel that they must work or face a possibility of ruined life. Consider if a social protection would be enough so prospects of finding new work are very OK, then the problem of bad managers would solves itself without any laws. People will simply leave.
freedom Posted Mar 23, 2013 17:05 UTC (Sat) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link] If firing can ruin person's life, this is a big problem with society. I don't think there's much one can do about that. For many people their job is among the things that gives their live a purpose. Therefore even if your material needs are catered for by social security benefits, being unemployed still bores the hell out of people and makes them miserable. And an elderly person in an ailing industry will have a hard time finding a new job in any society. Also, one of the (few) things that I remember from my economics classes is that there's a natural rate of unemployment, so as long as we live in anything vaguely resembling a market economy, full employment simply isn't going to happen.
freedom Posted Mar 23, 2013 19:29 UTC (Sat) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942) [Link]
> I don't think there's much one can do about that. For many people their job is among the things that gives their live a purpose.
From my experience of living in Norway people here much less attached to their jobs. It could be a cultural thing, but a social protection must be playing a role here.
> And an elderly person in an ailing industry will have a hard time finding a new job in any society.
I know a person (as me he was also an immigrant) in Norway who, after loosing his engineering job here, first literally enjoyed few months of doing nothing while getting 75% of his salary, and then became a rather successful art dealer. Such stories of people of any age trying different things after quitting their jobs willingly or unwillingly are common.
I suspect that "alien industries" is a rather artificial notion caused by too much fear of loosing jobs so people stick to theirs even if long-term prospects are not good. Add to that corporate laws that favor executives like in US and the result in excessive number of big companies and industrial mono-culture and ghost towns when the companies finally die.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 19:15 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> In what universe is being fired for exercising your freedom of speech a good thing?
Who ever said that freedom is free and that there should never be any consequences for exercising your freedom? And why do your freedoms matter and not your bosses? Why should his desires and freedoms be suppressed because he agreed to give you money for a while?
Your entire purpose in being employed is to be making your employer money. You are in a market selling your services, skills, and time just like somebody selling a toaster on ebay or somebody selling telephone service. There is really no difference.
No difference at all.
Your labor is just another product and you are just another salesman peddling your wares.
If you destroy your utility and threaten to cost your employer money because your behavior has damaged the relationships important partners then why should he be required to keep you employed?
This is why it's important to have a backbone in life. You just exercise your freedoms not because there is no consequence to your behavior or your actions, you should exercise your freedoms because they are right and just and you have convictions and that you are willing to stand up and be counted when it matters.
Also I think that discretion is the better part of valor. Which is why I am also a firm believer in privacy and against any sort of government encroachment or controls and I avoid disclosing information and using corporate 'cloud' services when practicable. Security matters. Strong and effective forms of encryption and plausible deniability and all that stuff matter, etc etc.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 20:08 UTC (Fri) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
> You are in a market selling your services, skills, and time just like somebody selling a toaster on ebay or somebody selling telephone service. There is really no difference.
There's a huge difference: employees are people. If you don't understand why that makes one heck of a difference, there's no point in even talking to you.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 23, 2013 8:48 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Employers do not, generally, have a problem with their freedoms being suppressed by their employees. There is a huge power gap there, which shows in contract negotiation as well as at other times, ruining the libertarian fantasy of 'if it's in the contract it must have been freely agreed upon without coercion'.
And employers that exploit their employees really *do* exist. At the extreme end they enslave their employees and work them to death. At the less extreme end they merely ignore their employees requests regarding unimportant matters like health and safety until those employees turn to the greater power of the state to force them to do so. This happens frequently, whenever a sufficiently ethically dubious employer thinks it can get away with it and thinks the employee will not jump jobs as a result. (Heck, if you stay in one job for long enough, the employer may consider that it can do this even though you are in a position with normally high mobility. My previous employer did, repeatedly, and if it wasn't for the existence of employment legislation would quite happily have worked me until I was crippled by RSI and forced to resign, rather than pay much less than one month's pay to me on a keyboard that would fix the problem. Heck, they did that to previous employees. Nobody said that employers' abuse of employees is necessarily *rational* -- in that case, it was founded in a pathological fear of any capital expenditure whatsoever. And don't say "employers who think like that will go bust", this is not so if sufficiently many employers think like that, *or* if it's shared by only part of the management chain in a larger company.)
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 23, 2013 15:03 UTC (Sat) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942) [Link]
> you are willing to stand up and be counted when it matters.
...
> Which is why I am also a firm believer in privacy
This sounds like a contradiction. Anonymity allows precisely to escape the need to face the consequences.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 15:49 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] I've been fired myself before for less, frankly. Sure. And as a business owner, I appreciate the freedom that at-will employment gives me (though being in Canada, I'm a bit more constrained than in the USA.) I still think it might not have been right to fire the people in question, even if it was legal.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 29, 2013 6:05 UTC (Fri) by jmorris42 (subscriber, #2203) [Link]
> I still think it might not have been right to fire the
> people in question, even if it was legal.
Firing the guy was a mistake. But once this incident blew up she was toast. She won't ever be employable in any position that involves outside sales or contact with the public, inside the tech industry and likely outside of it. Google never forgets and this story is now everywhere.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 17:19 UTC (Fri) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]
The point is, she didn't "stand up". She took a picture without asking and then posted it, intending to harm the reputation of the guys in question.
"Standing up" would mean to turn around and tell them to stop the sexist offal they've been spouting. (How loudly to do that would be entirely her choice.)
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 17:57 UTC (Fri) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link] "Standing up" would mean to turn around and tell them to stop the sexist offal they've been spouting.There's no proof that they actually said anything sexist. A dirty joke isn't sexist by itself
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 23, 2013 4:02 UTC (Sat) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link]
I'm not sure what linking to your own comment is supposed to prove or demonstrate.
Dirty jokes and sexualized language in general make people uncomfortable in a work environment because they don't belong there. Simple as that. Work is for work stuff. There is no freedom of speech issue at all in not behaving like a dick at work. If your coworkers are not comfortable talking with you, do you think you're going to be productive?
Yeah, people's comfort levels with jokes, "jokes", etc are different. If somebody is offended, there's a good chance it's because they honestly are. A woman who complains about sexist remarks in a male dominated workplace needs to be taken seriously because just the act of complaining is a big step - you're sticking your neck out on a delicate subject.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 23, 2013 5:08 UTC (Sat) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
How does your comment relate to anything you were replying to? I didn't say that telling dirty jokes at work is appropriate. I didn't say that women complaining about sexism should be ignored. I merely said that to date there's no indication that those two guys said anything sexist and linked to my own comment detailing that point further. Actually it's pretty sad I even have to explain this.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 24, 2013 8:05 UTC (Sun) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link]
Sorry I was unclear. What I was trying to get at before going on tangent is that trying to separate "sexism" and "dirty jokes" in this context is meaningless. Both use sexual language that in a professional conference would sound the same.
I cannot change what some guy in the next row *thinks* (if he's sexist, racist, whatever), but I have the right to ask them to keep that shit in their heads without blurting it out for all around to hear in a public space.
Make sense?
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 24, 2013 12:42 UTC (Sun) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
> Sorry I was unclear. What I was trying to get at before going on tangent is that trying to separate "sexism" and "dirty jokes" in this context is meaningless. Both use sexual language that in a professional conference would sound the same.
No, it's not meaningless and no, sexism doesn't necessarily involve sexual language. Which is exactly the point I made in that other comment I had linked to.
Oh, and by the way, I don't consider puns about "big dongles" to be a big deal. It's more like picking one's nose: sure, you don't do it in public, but when it happens, why make a lot of fuss about it?
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 24, 2013 23:05 UTC (Sun) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link]
You are arguing by assertion - why do you think it's a meaningful distiction in this case?
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 0:26 UTC (Mon) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
The culprits are being (probably falsely) accused of sexism, and whether they're guilty of that very much depends on what sexism is. So how is the distinction between sexism and obscenity *not* meaningful here?
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 0:51 UTC (Mon) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link]
They were not accused of sexism, they were accused of behaving in an inappropriate way. Both sexist and obscene talk are inappropriate in that situation, so I still don't see your point.
Hint: they are not being accused of *being* sexist, they are being accused of *behaving in a sexist way*. It's not about what people think, it's about what they do. This matters in a public setting exactly because the two would sound the same. If you don't want people around you to think you're sexist or racist etc, don't say things sound racist or sexist. How are the people in the next row who don't know you supposed to tell the difference and just think "oh he's a nice guy, he didn't mean it, it's just a joke"?
Society/community/organization cannot police what people think, but they can police what they do.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 2:37 UTC (Mon) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link] This matters in a public setting exactly because the two would sound the same.Here's an example: All women are stupidis sexist, but not obscene. I have a really big dongis obscene, but not sexist. So no, they don't sound the same at all. Stop saying that because it's bollocks.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 3:37 UTC (Mon) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link]
Sigh. Yeah, so what? Both are INAPPROPRIATE behavior in this context. So is smoking weed in a presentation and heckling a female presenter: http://term.ie/blog/how-to-get-banned-from-pycon/
Again, inappropriate behavior is the problem. There's no need to lawyer around which exact bin it belongs to.
I'm so out of this thread.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 8:20 UTC (Mon) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
> I'm so out of this thread.
... but apparently only as long as you have the last post in every sub-thread.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 10:30 UTC (Mon) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
By that logic, running a red light is the same as shooting someone because they're both forbidden by law. Of course, someone as unable to make distinctions as you will fail to see why that is a problem.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 0:32 UTC (Mon) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
OK, I think I understand now. You seem to consider obscenity to be just as condemnable as sexism. I don't, so that's probably why we were talking past each other.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 24, 2013 10:12 UTC (Sun) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link]
+1
Very well put.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 20:14 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
> I've been fired myself before for less, frankly.
I haven't, but a coworker of mine was, and the event profoundly changed my behavior. For one thing, I never attend any social events outside of work with any of my coworkers. It seemed Orwellian at first, but after a few years I got used to it.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 22, 2013 21:55 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
> That's what jobs are like in the USA, sadly. Welcome to unbridled capitalism.
Capitalism in the United States is not unbridled -- in fact, it's heavily regulated.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 23, 2013 11:28 UTC (Sat) by deepfire (subscriber, #26138) [Link]
Same planet here?
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 24, 2013 8:29 UTC (Sun) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link]
I'm curious, if you don't consider for example <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_filing">Sec filing requirements</a> heavy regulation, what do you consider heavy regulation?
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 12:44 UTC (Mon) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
Wow. SEC filings are required in order that the people who own the companies involved (these are public companies, so their owners can include just about anyone) have some idea what's happening inside the company they own. Without those regulations the market would be completely opaque and thus non-functional. If these bare basics are your concept of "heavy regulation" then you have no idea.
In more civilised places you can't just fire people on a whim like this. Capitalism is a very fast way to get somewhere, but without stringent controls both the journey and the place you get to may be very unpleasant.
It is no coincidence that the best big companies I've worked for treat their US employees more or less the _same_ as the EU arms of the same companies, even though US regulations don't require that. The EU isn't mandating anything unreasonable it's just prohibiting the worst excesses, so chances are if you (as an employer for this hypothetical) are doing stuff in the US that would be forbidden in the EU, it's because you're a jerk. (e.g. the US has no "transfer of undertakings" rules, but if you use the fact that you've bought a rival company as an opportunity to cut wages and benefits for all the acquired employees yes, you're a jerk).
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 26, 2013 7:32 UTC (Tue) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link]
SEC regulations used to be a much more lightweight than they are these days (post-enron). Also many other countries (such as UK) have much less regulation on public companies than what SEC imposes. And I'm not saying that these regulations are bad - I'm just saying that the are heavy - and that US is certainly not "unregulated capitalism".
Now we have of course deviated far from the original article.
Back to the topic, workers rights - it is correct that the US At-will employment is harsh for workers. But here at the "civilized side of pond", we have seen the rise of temporary employment agencies, and the end result is not any better for worker than being employed at will...
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 28, 2013 18:09 UTC (Thu) by union (subscriber, #36393) [Link]
No offense, but SEC regulations exist to protect owners (stockholders) and potential buyers of Companies. And the reason they exist is, that said owners went and cried for governments help, when ever they were scammed by some mangers.
If you run your own private businesses there is a lot less regulation.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 14:31 UTC (Mon) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] Yes, but I've been the recipient of a better education than some, so my worldview may differ. Hong Kong would be a better example of capitalism.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 15:41 UTC (Mon) by deepfire (subscriber, #26138) [Link]
Well, given that you cite a well-known laissez-faire capitalist mouthpiece to support your laissez-faire worldview, it appears as if a crucial element was missing from your curriculum - critical, independent thinking.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 19:49 UTC (Mon) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] It was critical, independent thinking that led me to the conclusion that capitalism--even with its flaws--is superior to democratic socialism.Critical, independent thinking is something that is almost completely missing in higher education today. Most liberal arts students are intellectual automatons, accepting what they're told without thinking much about it. Diversity is celebrated, but only in areas that don't matter much, such as race and sex. Displaying any sort of diversity of thought is an invitation for ridicule. And ridicule is no substitute for a well-reasoned argument.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 20:24 UTC (Mon) by apoelstra (subscriber, #75205) [Link]
>, independent thinking is something that is almost completely missing in higher education today. Most liberal arts students...
For what it's worth, this problem is not nearly so bad in mathematics. To keep a place in academia, perhaps you are required to suppress independent thinking... but this is a "choice" in the sense that by the end of your degree you will at least be capable of thinking critically.
ISTM that most math majors leave academia for this reason, though much better off for the experience.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 27, 2013 4:19 UTC (Wed) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
> For what it's worth, this problem is not nearly so bad in mathematics.
Part of that is due the nature of mathematics itself -- it is a beautiful thing, a transcendent truth untainted by lesser things. Computer Science is nearly so, but not quite.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 23:59 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Anyone claiming that the effective subjugation and elimination of much of the human race from the pool of equally-treated employees 'does not matter much' is not only an intellectual automaton -- he's a *bad capitalist*.
Hint: doubling your employment pool by hiring people without regard for sex is a good thing for the employer for hopefully obvious reasons. Being forbidden from treating some of your employees like slaves (or, indeed, actually *as* slaves) is a good thing for the employer, because it prevents a race to the bottom where your competitors outcompete you by treating some of their employees like slaves and beating you on price, forcing you to do the same even if you don't want to.
This is the sort of thing regulation (and anti-discrimination legislation) is *for*. It's *why* unbridled capitalism doesn't work: without legislation to suppress perverse incentives like this, it contains the seeds of its own destruction. Legislation like this is a large part of the reason why Marx was wrong (well, that and the fact that some enlightened employers, like Ford, realised that they had to pay their employees enough that they could afford to buy things: that economic slavery was bad).
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 26, 2013 10:28 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Legislation like this is a large part of the reason why Marx was wrong It funny: Marx said many different things yet you somehow talk without ever clarifying what exactly you mean as if everything he said was wrong. Well, that and the fact that some enlightened employers, like Ford, realised that they had to pay their employees enough that they could afford to buy things: that economic slavery was bad Actually it was not Ford's altruism but creation of FED which made it possible to expand markets which, in turn, made continuation of capitalist possible. Ford employees can only buy Fords because someone somewhere digs the ore for the food and shelter. As long as it was possible to expand markets capitalism ruled, when it struggled to do so (Germany and Japan in XX century) it become violent, when nukes made hot resolution impossible it stagnated and surged when new markets become available (it's easy to see things like the opening up of the country to foreign investment and collapse of USSR and other, smaller expansions on a graph), and of course when it finally covered the world it started disintegrating as expected (again on the same graph: extreme efforts by FED, ECB, PBOC and others were just enough to stop this collapse for a time and it's clear that these programs have limited lifetime). Now, if you talk about the next stage (utopia which will be achieved after capitalism collapse) then I agree that here Marx described something based solely on a wishful thinking - but it was well over hundred years ago, it's hard to blame him. P.S. And of course the fact that it's still one of the best available descriptions of the capitalism's collapse is just sad: we had a century to prepare to the event, did nothing and instead gave awards to people who just ten years ago explained how capitalism can go on expanding forever on a finite planet. Gosh. Pathetic.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 26, 2013 15:29 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
That sounds plausible until you actually start digging.
Economic growth in the US was NOT linked to exports. In fact, US exported hardly anything during the first post-war years (hardly anybody in Europe could buy imported stuff).
Ultimately, economic growth is not linked to external expansion - it is also linked to internal expansion. Slashing the cost of a $500 widget to $50 immediately opens up a lot of internal market - and that has been the main engine of US and European economic growth for quite a bit of time.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 27, 2013 15:14 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
My Marxism reference was referring to his fundamental axiom, that capitalism would collapse when the marginal rate of profit was driven to zero and everyone ended up a slave with arbitrarily low wages. This didn't happen because (among other reasons) of the growth of the union movement, which Marx could hardly have predicted.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 27, 2013 15:35 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
I'd say that Marx also overlooked the explosive economic growth that allowed for quite a bit of time for wages to rise in real value.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 28, 2013 0:01 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
No, he expected that -- he was writing a short time after the Industrial Revolution had truly gathered steam. Economic growth wouldn't slow the processes he identified -- it would accelerate them, as they're driven by competition. But of course he didn't foresee the labour movement or the modern welfare state, which has pretty much eliminated the race to the bottom he foresaw. (Other things might well have eliminated it too.)
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 29, 2013 6:46 UTC (Fri) by jmorris42 (subscriber, #2203) [Link]
> Hint: doubling your employment pool by hiring people without
> regard for sex is a good thing for the employer for hopefully > obvious reasons.
All other things being equal your statement is of course quite correct. But they aren't always like your textbook out in the real world.
Lets push an example to an extreme.. kinda like you do in the next one... and see where it might lead to a different conclusion.
We all know programmers tend to be a) a bit wierd, b) overwhelmingly male and c) tend to be socially inept in general and especially in interactions with MOTOS. We also know (heck, I know well enough from direct experience, know several at least as good at IT things as myself) that women can program but they are even less represented at the extreme high end than they are in general. We also know that those few extreme programmers can often produce more output than a dozen or more normal ones. The "A bit wierd" factor seems to correlate with the high output.
Theory holds that women and men are equal, thus adding women to a team shouldn't matter. But the reality above disagrees, adding women to an existing team of males (especially in this industry) always seems to involve drama, sensitivity/diversity training and changing the work environment in general to allow maternity leave, no more death marches, etc., all of which impact productivity. Btw, if you only apply the new kinder and gentler rules to the females, kiss moral goodbye. And if you figure the odds are non-trivial that one or more of your twitchy but highly productive ones will get sacked in an HR incident to boot, perhaps the wise course for a manager IS to exclude half the talent pool, pulling whatever tricks are required to keep the EEOC in the dark.
Discuss. And try to keep it rational. What proposed changes in social conditions would best work to mitigate/eliminate the perverse incentives in that scenario?
> a race to the bottom where your competitors outcompete you
Good grief, that is so epic stupid you must be college educated. That can only happen as a pathological extreme of an imbalance of supply and demand of labor, and guess what; given the condition the result WILL happen. But if labor isn't so abundant that employers can do that labor will always be able to bid up their price with or without unions even. Especially in industries like ours.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 29, 2013 15:21 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] adding women to an existing team of males (especially in this industry) always seems to involve drama, sensitivity/diversity trainingIf it involves 'drama' the people causing the 'drama' need to grow up and realize that half the human race is female. If sensitivity training is even *needed* to interact with women this is even more true (FWIW I have never had any such training at any point, nor have I heard of it existing in the UK outside organizations in recovery mode from situations where actual sexual harrassment has been going on: this may be a US-specific insanity). changing the work environment in general to allow maternity leave, no more death marchesGood! Organizations that do not acknowledge that their employees have families and that those families deserve priority at times do not deserve to exist (and there is such a thing as paternity leave in decent organizations and sane countries, too: men have families as well, and expecting them to ignore a new child in favour of the latest deadline is inhuman). Organizations that are so incompetent at planning that frequent death marches are necessary do not deserve to exist (they're harming their employees by doing that, of whichever gender). That can only happen as a pathological extreme of an imbalance of supply and demand of laborYeah. That is a very frequent case in many industries: after all, there are always more people waiting at the gates. Guess why it doesn't happen? Because of, gasp, regulation preventing it from taking hold.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 29, 2013 17:01 UTC (Fri) by jmorris42 (subscriber, #2203) [Link]
> nor have I heard of it existing in the UK
Here in the US diversity/sensitivity training is a huge industry. Huge.
> there are always more people waiting at the gates.
Why? If wage rates drop people lose interest in training to enter it. There is a bit of a lag but a lot of people entered IT because they heard they pay was good. If pay ever dropped a lot those who came for the money and not because they have a burning desire for it would quickly leave.
Same theory applies in most industries. Here where I live the job most people without a degree lust for is the offshore oil & gas industry. It isn't because they love oil, they love the fact it is the highest paying industry in the area. If they cut the pay back few would line up for a shot at spending weeks at a time on an offshore platform. They pay that good because the job requires a certain sort of person, the sort who won't screw up, blow up a multi-billion dollar oil platform and rack up untold more billions in enviromental and PR damage. In other words, they don't need a degree but they do need clue and stability.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 29, 2013 20:16 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
> Here in the US diversity/sensitivity training is a huge industry. Huge.
Large companies have mandatory training for every employee once a year on diversity/sensitivity training.
A couple of years ago, the web-based training module at my company wouldn't let you complete the training in less than an hour. Even if you read everything (instead of watching the videos), if you finished in less than an hour, it forced you to keep interacting with it until an hour of interaction had completed.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Apr 1, 2013 14:16 UTC (Mon) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
> Anyone claiming that the effective subjugation and elimination of much of the human race from the pool of equally-treated employees 'does not matter much' is not only an intellectual automaton -- he's a *bad capitalist*.
This is projection -- I didn't say anything about subjugating or eliminating anyone from anything.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Apr 1, 2013 22:55 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Claiming that diversity of race and sex "don't matter much" is tantamount to that. But perhaps, just maybe, you didn't realize they were a problem? (If so, you're speaking from a privileged position and should probably talk to people more.)
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 24, 2013 9:57 UTC (Sun) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link]
"I've been fired myself before for less, frankly. Specifically, I was once fired (in part) because I regularly made personal statements on my personal blog"
This is not "less".
Putting something on a blog is public.
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 24, 2013 10:21 UTC (Sun) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link]
I mean, also in Germany you can get fired if you say bad things about your employer in public.
A blog is public, a private conversation between two guys is not.
Alex
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 25, 2013 12:48 UTC (Mon) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link] Yes, unfortunately there are no laws to protect whistleblowers in germany. There's a Bundestag petition to change that, but it didn't succeed so far :(
Was firing an over-reaction? Posted Mar 29, 2013 6:00 UTC (Fri) by jmorris42 (subscriber, #2203) [Link]
Lemme get this right. You think she should be able to sue to keep her job? A job that under no possible circumstance she will EVER be able to perform, for that or any other employer so long as memory (and Google) exists? And that condition exists entirely because of her own bad judgment and actions.
Whether you agree with whether it SHOULD be thus, the reality is what it is. After her little stunt no sane male of the species would be caught dead in the same convention center or sales presentation with her out of pure abject fear even if they were PC enough not to shun her for moral reasons. So how in the heck do you do Developer Evangelism in an industry that is, again we aren't talking about what should be but about what is, very male dominated when you are so radioactive that pretty much every new and legacy media outlet has now run at least one feature on your antics? And remember, Google never forgets.
For such things was the French Foreign Legion created.
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