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At this company, we are family

pboyd.io

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Re: At this company, we are family

#121

Post by agloe_dreams »

mgaunard wrote: post #85
jraby3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not convinced Americans pay less in taxes. When you include state taxes, social security from the employee and employer, then it starts to look like much less of a difference. When you include health insurance and college education, Americans get much less value. I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring.

If you live in the UK, income tax is 45%, and you still cannot rely on either of public education or public healthcare, at least if you want something of good quality.

US income tax inclusive of state taxes rolls to something like 33%...but then you have health insurance that, for many is FAR greater than 12%. If you include the cost of what your taxes get you, it is far greater than in the US. Keep in mind that even with health insurance people still get multi-hundred dollar medical bills. Broken bones? Min of $1500.

Re: At this company, we are family

#122

Post by bluefishinit »

xyzelement wrote: post #59

This is well written and I agree that family is a very imperfect analogy for a working relationship. At the same time, some work situations are more or less family-like and it still pays to look for the "more." I've been lucky that 4 companies I've worked at in my life so far have been very "employee forward" - creating scenarios of employee growth and engagement (vs putting employees in the seat of powerless cogs).…

> "Family" doesn't mean employing you past the point it makes sense

Actually family does mean that, literally. It makes absolutely no sense to use this term in a business context.

Re: At this company, we are family

#123

Post by jehb »

ddq wrote: post #118
TheRealPomax wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, if you're not unionized companies are 100% allowed to fire you for whatever reason they like, such as talking about your salary, as long as the underlying reason does not run afoul of anti-discrimination law (which discussing salary won't) and they pay you full severance due to it being a "termination without cause".

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-right...

"We're not firing you for discussing your wages, we're firing you for leaking proprietary individual labor budget information with unauthorized employees."

Re: At this company, we are family

#124

Post by Amorymeltzer »

It's coming from a different topic, but I like a relevant quote from (the excellent) Dahlia Lithwick on her podcast Amicus (https://overcast.fm/+Don0hUpKc>):

>Being in a family relationship at work never redounds to the benefit of the children

Re: At this company, we are family

#125

Post by FirmwareBurner »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #106
jraby3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not convinced Americans pay less in taxes. When you include state taxes, social security from the employee and employer, then it starts to look like much less of a difference. When you include health insurance and college education, Americans get much less value. I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring.

> American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring. You can have your cake and eat it too. It's called the Danish model, although Denmark itself has an imperfect implementation of the model. In the Danish model, it's easy to fire people, but the social safety net ensures that the employee doesn't get screwed if it happens. They don't lose their health insurance, EI is gene…

It's exactly the same in Austria, you can always get fired without any reasons and without any severance, you just have to rely on unemployment. It still sucks though compared to other countries where you can't easily get fired, as the unemployment money might not always cover your expenses like mortgage, if you had a high paying job and got into a lot of debt for a house.

And this system of being easy to fire people hasn't exactly resulted in the well paying and plentiful jobs market the way it was promised, most likely due to the bureaucracy and high taxes on businesses, keeping investors away.

So having employees easy to fire is not the key to a good jobs market, but it's having the capital, bureaucracy and tax laws, coupled with the risk taking mentality to convince the rich to invest their wealth in starting new businesses knowing 95% of them will fail and only 5% will succeed, instead of hoarding their wealth away in multi-gernerational real estate thanks to zero inheritance taxes like the wealthy in Austria and Europe in general do.

Re: At this company, we are family

#126

Post by maxerickson »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #107
Twirrim wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can talk about your salary with anyone you want, discuss it with your colleagues For all the other just absurd lack of rights employees have in the US, that at least is one that employees do have. Companies are legally _not allowed_ to stop you from discussing your salary with coworkers, or punish you in any way for you having done so.

Actually, if you're not unionized companies are 100% allowed to fire you for whatever reason they like, such as talking about your salary, as long as the underlying reason does not run afoul of anti-discrimination law (which discussing salary won't) and they pay you full severance due to it being a "termination without cause".

They have to fire you under some other pretext (decided to eliminate the position is fine), if they state that you were fired for discussing wages, it's actionable (well, assuming the NLRB governs that job anyway).

Re: At this company, we are family

#127

Post by wallmountedtv »

aroundtown wrote: post #28
jylam wrote: post #16

I especially like the very American "I ask that you refrain from discussing your termination with any social contacts made through your membership in the family [...] Failure to comply may result in your severance being terminated early or withheld entirely." In (most of ?) Europe, this severance is law and not debatable (as discovered by Musk recently), so this sentence would be outright illegal. You can talk about…

> You should fight for some more rights, sometime I wish we could fight for more rights. We are too spread out for protests to work. The politicians do everything they can to separate themselves from their electorate. And the average person doesn't have enough money to weather a week of no paychecks. Meanwhile half the populace gets angry at the thought of helping out anyone beneath them as they don't want them to ge…

> I wish we could fight for more rights. We are too spread out for protests to work.

One word, Unions.

Its why Europe is doing so well with workers rights in STEM today compared to America.

Re: At this company, we are family

#129

Post by GuB-42 »

I have seen reports of how things go in "old money" families. It doesn't look at all like the idea we make of families.

They have access to vast amounts of resources, but family members don't have free access, far from it. There is council that decides how the funds are allocated, and when family members need some, they need to pitch how they are going to use it, and the expected returns. And if some family members are deemed unworthy, or don't follow some rules they can get expelled and lose access to the familial wealth.

So maybe that's what companies mean by "we are family". Or more likely, it is a combination of the perspectives of the modest families with the warmth of the wealthy ones.

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