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Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

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Re: Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

#441

Post by black_puppydog »

curun1r wrote: post #268
cylinder wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real story is he has no employment rights because he's in America and he's "at will." They can dismiss him because they don't like his lunch selection that day and he has no rights. That's at will employment. This type of situation plays out all over the country everyday.

Or the real story is how much businesses kowtow to the Chinese government and enable their human rights abuses. I would be quite happy to see Marriott face blowback in the US and other parts of the world over this as people show their support for a free Tibet. Letting China browbeat businesses into submission for the privilege of operating in that market isn't a good thing and more businesses need to be made to decid…

No, I disagree. that may be a story, too, but it's not this story. This story is about horrible situation of workers' rights in the US. It's pretty much a house made problem.

Re: Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

#442

Post by your-nanny »

djrogers wrote: post #24
your-nanny wrote: post #12

Firing the employee seems counterproductive. It hurts morale, and doesn't actually solve the problem.

I’m not sure Tiebtan independence is a problem that Marriott can solve.

The problem is that a low level employee can single handedly (and even inadvertently) cause such damage to a company. This is obviously a management and process problem, not a some-hourly-guy-in-Omaha problem.

Re: Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

#443

Post by wcunning »

michaelmrose wrote: post #387
exolymph wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Letting China browbeat businesses into submission for the privilege of operating in that market isn't a good thing I don't think "letting" is a very accurate word in this case — Marriott could pull out of China (likely at a loss) but the company doesn't want to because it would be financially stupid. In fact, as a public company Marriott is mandated to act in its shareholders' best financial interests.

"as a public company Marriott is mandated to act in its shareholders' best financial interests" The reality: You can't take shareholder money out on the front lawn and set it on fire What the internet thinks: Company not only can do insert shitty thing here but MUST do insert shitty thing here because they have a fiduciary duty. The problem is that the internet perception of reality is semi fictional. They damn well…

The recourses available in court are few and far between against officers of the company as a shareholder. That's not how this gets resolved or what the officers are concerned with. The shareholder power is to vote in a different board of directors that will do what you as a shareholder want done -- virtue signaling against China included. The best example of that, and the amount of power it actually takes is probably Carl Icahn.

Re: Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

#444

Post by emodendroket »

mistermann wrote: post #256
emodendroket wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we really expecting social media employees to be familiar with and adept at geopolitics?

Not kissing China's feet in this case could have cost Marriot many millions of dollars, so yes. Welcome to the future of humanity, I guess we'll see if everyone is so casual about this type of thing when it's them who crossed the petulant monster child the West has created.

Well, if it'll cost Marriott so much money that they're concerned about it, perhaps they should be hiring someone with more such knowledge at a higher salary.

Re: Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

#445

Post by sah2ed »

Lazare wrote: post #106

I find stories like this very frustrating. It seems pretty clear that: 1) Roy Jones did nothing wrong, but lost his job through no fault of his own. 2) Marriott did something morally wrong because it was easy, and will suffer zero consequences. 3) China doesn't really care about the underlying issue, but is engaging in a cynical power play to exert dominance. In a better world, Marriott would have refused to buckle,…

The article clearly mentions that they had to punish someone. Also, China imposed harsh consequences in the form of lost revenue for Marriott due to the liked tweet:

"China forced Marriott to suspend all online booking for a week at its nearly 300 Chinese hotels. A Chinese leader also demanded the company publicly apologize and “seriously deal with the people responsible,” the Journal reported."

Re: Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

#446

Post by ptaipale »

stephen_g wrote: post #350
ptaipale wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you mean by "more humane" but U.S. has lower unemployment than OECD average, and European countries mostly have higher. In particular, France and Italy, known for how difficult it is to dismiss employees both individually and in masses, have high unemployment. North European countries, where individual dismissal is difficult but mass dismissal (restructuring) is easy, fare better. Germany, also with q…

It’s difficult to compare though, because of other factors. I believe the main one between countries like France and Italy and Germany is actually the Euro currency. It’s generally considered to be overvalued compared to France and Italy’s economies and undervalued compared to Germany’s. This makes Germany’s exports extremely competitive (at the expense of costlier imports) which has spurred on their ability to build…

I wonder why you get downvoted, because your comment is reasonable and in good tone even if one were to disagree. I happen to agree: of course the ease of dismissing employees is far from the only factor impacting employment in a country, and the euro structure of fiscal union without transfer union is clearly having problems.

Re: Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

#447

Post by ptaipale »

beagle3 wrote: post #330
greglindahl wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denmark is famous for having a social safety net that makes sure laid-off employees have the skills to get a new job. It's a happy medium between excessive employee protections and lack of employee protections.

Safety net is definitely there, but my Dane friends actually told me it’s really bad for small businesses to the point that small businesses won’t hire for desperately needed work because it is impossibly expensive to let anyone go.

I wonder if you have misunderstood your friends. The Danish system is different from other Nordic countries in that dismissal is quite easy from legal point of view (even if for someone running a small company, it may still be psychologically very difficult).

The unemployment benefits are good, although the officials monitoring it also force the unemployed to be quite active to find a new job.

Re: Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

#448

Post by Lazare »

sah2ed wrote: post #445
Lazare wrote: post #106

I find stories like this very frustrating. It seems pretty clear that: 1) Roy Jones did nothing wrong, but lost his job through no fault of his own. 2) Marriott did something morally wrong because it was easy, and will suffer zero consequences. 3) China doesn't really care about the underlying issue, but is engaging in a cynical power play to exert dominance. In a better world, Marriott would have refused to buckle,…

The article clearly mentions that they had to punish someone. Also, China imposed harsh consequences in the form of lost revenue for Marriott due to the liked tweet: "China forced Marriott to suspend all online booking for a week at its nearly 300 Chinese hotels. A Chinese leader also demanded the company publicly apologize and “seriously deal with the people responsible,” the Journal reported."

> The article clearly mentions that they had to punish someone.

...well, no. They had a choice. They didn't have to fire the guy.

> Also, China imposed harsh consequences in the form of lost revenue for Marriott

True. But no one is imposing any consequences on Marriott for firing the guy, harsh or not. For Marriott, that makes the decision easy I suppose. It does not, however, change what's right.

Re: Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

#449

Post by MiguelHudnandez »

black_puppydog wrote: post #441
curun1r wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the real story is how much businesses kowtow to the Chinese government and enable their human rights abuses. I would be quite happy to see Marriott face blowback in the US and other parts of the world over this as people show their support for a free Tibet. Letting China browbeat businesses into submission for the privilege of operating in that market isn't a good thing and more businesses need to be made to decid…

No, I disagree. that may be a story, too, but it's not this story. This story is about horrible situation of workers' rights in the US. It's pretty much a house made problem.

It seems strange to me to think unfavorably about US workers’ rights, then about China in the same minute.

About your point, if an international incident isn’t a legitimate reason to fire someone, I don’t know what is. And by extension, what kind of rights you are advocating.

It might be more appropriate to take action against the system that let the error happen. But there are two ways to reduce errors. 1) improve the system, and 2) raise standards for the employees using the system. Cost/benefit analysis ensues.

Re: Omaha man ‘liked’ a tweet, then lost his job

#450

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

ghostcluster wrote: post #227

And thus the Chinese Communist Party's cold authoritarian censorship extends overseas to strike at the job of a US citizen. It was just a few months ago that I wrote this here on HN: > I even feel a personal dampening on what I will say publicly about China on social media, just because of hypothetical tech/travel opportunities, and I don't even live there. Obviously, those fears were founded. Part of me is happy abo…

> I even feel a personal dampening on what I will say publicly about China on social media, just because of hypothetical tech/travel opportunities, and I don't even live there.

I feel the same, but not only about China.

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