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Was firing an over-reaction?Was firing an over-reaction?Posted Mar 22, 2013 15:53 UTC (Fri) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642)In reply to: Was firing an over-reaction? by drag Parent article: Blum: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
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.
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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).
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