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Comment by omouse | Hacker News Reader

There are many laws granting unions more power than they would otherwise have if the market worked.

THe employer still has a lot of power. You can be fired at a moment's notice and be forced into poverty. That's waaaaaay more power than a union has!

edit: I forgot to mention that a meritocracy doesn't exist. People come from different backgrounds and some have had more (or less) opportunities to improve their skills. Rewarding very skilled people is great, but you should also be rewarding less skilled people by giving them more training (which many companies skimp on...).

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Make it hard to fire and you make it risky to hire. This is why Europe has structural double digit employment while in the US some employers will still take a chance on a smart guy without formal credentials.

Paul English wrote a while ago that he had to let go about one in three as it wasn't working out. And look at all the hiring threads on HN about how hard it is to find the right person. If you can't fire, you can't take a chance on someone. It just reduces the liquidity of the labor market, and means borderline people don't even get jobs in the first place.

> You can be fired at a moment's notice and be forced into poverty

How the hell does an employer force someone into poverty? What country do you live in where an employer can just take the employee's savings, or prevent them from getting another job? Does your government not provide unemployment benefits? I don't want to move there.

Savings? You must come from a privileged background! Some of us have to build our savings from scratch and take out mass loans just to go to school. We're in debt in our first few years of employment, so yes, the alternative to working for a crappy wage is poverty.

Unemployment benefits only apply once you've put some of your money into it.

Taking another job? Really? So fighting for an 8-hour day was basically a useless fight because wages can be driven so low?

What are you talking about? I got fired once (well, quit before they could fire me) for not joining a union. That's the union, not the employer, speaking.

I'm against that as well. I believe that if you're in a union and the union has stopped working for you, you should stop working for the union and form a new one or go it alone.

The only reason that kind of thing happens is because the unions overreach and abuse their power and have stopped listening to the worker.

Out of curiosity, what state do you live in? That's why right to work states are so great, because it ensures your ability to work regardless of unionizations. It's also why unions spend an incredible money lobbying against states becoming right to work.

California

> THe employer still has a lot of power. You can be fired at a moment's notice and be forced into poverty. That's waaaaaay more power than a union has!

Forgive my lack of knowledge, but is this just a US thing? It seems that you can be let go (from a permanent position; we'll not talk about contractors/casuals) very easily in the US, without much reasoning.

To contrast, here in Australia, a part-time/full-time employee needs to be formally warned (and these need to be documented) three times before being 'fired', and there are many cases where Fair Work (a government body) has helped an employee take an employer to court in cases where the documentation was insufficient.

Of course, that's a very high-level overview, but the message I constantly get is that you can be fired for really simple reasons in the US, without much recourse (lest you want to take it on yourself).

Doesn't cover everyone though. Many Aussie employers use casual contracts for what are essentially full time positions.

This is how it's supposed to work in America, there are certain reasons why I can't fire you; like race. But I can fire you for anything else. But in reality this only holds true at smaller firms. At larger firms, they still need to document, because if I fire you for some random reason (which is legal) you can sue me saying that I really fired you for an illegal reason

This really only happens at larger firms, 'cause you could sue me, but you wouldn't get enough money out of the deal to properly pay your lawyer.

That's not true. A wrongful termination suit can be brought against any employer. Employment law is handled on a state by state basis. In most states, once an employee has worked for someone for 90 days, termination without documentation of attempted intervention or sufficient transgression represents sufficient ground for the terminated employee to be reinstated or compensated for damages. Small businesses tend to be less formal about handling employee termination because employees of small businesses are less likely to seek remuneration for wrongful termination. Also, wrongful termination suits can be rather large and generally require very little legal work on the plaintiff's part so most law firms pick up the case for no fee and instead a percentage cut of the settlement.

He's essentially saying it's less of an issue for smaller companies, because they have less money.

Except, it seems, Woolworths, which just fired a bunch of employees for posting stupid planking photos on facebook.

Unless they were casuals. But even causals can be treated, by courts, as full timers; depending on the circumstances.

> To contrast, here in Australia, a part-time/full-time employee needs to be formally warned (and these need to be documented) three times before being 'fired'

A small Australian business can fire someone immediately without any warnings. I think it's a company of under 50 employees at the moment. The number was increased under WorkChoices then dropped back again.

A larger business can use exceptional circumstances to remove you instantly as well (breach of contract and along those lines).

> meritocracy doesn't exist

Skills aren't everything. Not every valuable attribute can be taught. There's talent, motivation, work ethic. As edw519 said in his book today, the primary differentiator among programmers is passion.

Assuming I'm an above-average employee, I would rather work at a company that rewards me based on merit.

Assuming I'm a business owner, I would rather pay employees based on merit, because if I don't, I'd never attract the best. Paying based on merit improves the chances of success of the business. Profitable companies pay salaries; bankrupt ones do not.

So... if the union strikes and (as the grandparent mentioned) you've literally been forced into the union (and there are other ways of forcing, less legal-based but no less real), you're not actually not working?

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