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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

#411

Post by vidarh »

zkomp wrote: post #390
Tehnix wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>simply won't hire them in the first place Except that is simply not true, and very easily proven false simply by showing countries with actual employee protection and unions like e.g. Denmark.

It is not black and white though, I'm in sweden. Companies will of course hire out of necessity, but strive as much as possible to not do it - outsource, consultants, temp workers, move abroad etc etc

But they do that too everywhere. I'm Norwegian. I've been a co-founder of companies both in Norway and the UK. I see little evidence that it makes all that much difference. On one hand you do take a somewhat greater risk in terms of hiring in Norway, but conversely the ability to fire much more easily does not get exercised much. Of course that's no help for those who end up being affected.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, in Norway not only is it harder to fire someone, but terminating an employment contract is normally with 3 months mutual notice. So you risk bad hires, but you also don't risk essential staff members disappearing overnight very often, as serving out the 3 months notice is normal and expected. That makes companies with small teams less vulnerable in that respect.

Overall I don't really know if it makes much difference to employers. I hasn't seemed like that for me. But it makes a big difference for employees.

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

#412

Post by gambiting »

darawk wrote: post #358
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every company tries to minimize the number of employees. But the fact remains that the employee always takes on more risk, as being fired at the wrong time, say during the crisis we just had, might end up in homelessness. Yet companies love to pretend they are the ones taking the risk and need the right to abuse employees, fire then at will, don't oay a living wage and all that.

That's because they are taking a risk. If you make it harder to fire people, companies simply won't hire them in the first place. The harder it is to fire someone, the more dangerous it is to hire them . The more cautious employers will be about hiring in the first place. This is a real problem in countries that have strict firing laws.

The entire issue is solved by probation periods - in UK my probation period was 6 months(during which I could be let go almost instantly for any reason) and after that it's a 3-month notice period - if the company wanted to let me go they would need to tell me at least 3 months in advance.

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

#413

Post by LaGrange »

azernik wrote: post #275
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…

Sometimes a story captures lots of little elements of the world we live in all at once.

That's crazy talk, every story is about one thing, everything has one clear reason, and there's only one flavour of ice cream, and it's raspberry.

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

#414

Post by gbacon »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #334
skookumchuck wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply put, the harder it is to fire someone, the harder it will be to get a job.

No - because job availability depends on other considerations too. Strangely, European countries with more humane employment laws don’t have correspondingly higher unemployment.

At higher cost, less is demanded, and we tend to be loss averse. Driving up the perceived risk and thus the cost of firing bad employees unavoidably reduces the supply of jobs.

No good or service is perfectly inelastic — certainly not employees.

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

#416

Post by Tade0 »

factsaresacred wrote: post #328
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,…

> China doesn't really care about the underlying issue, but is engaging in a cynical power play to exert dominance. Boy, I wish that was true. China is petulant beyond belief. A thousands years old civilization that rallies their netizens any time anybody dare "insult the feelings of the Chinese people". That's how illegitimate and insecure powers behave.

This makes me think: How fragile must this power be if a "like" on social media is enough to elicit such a response?

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

#418

Post by brann0 »

cylinder wrote: post #54
corobo wrote: post #21

The meat of the story is that Omaha man worked for Marriott hotels on customer support. Their support system allows their agents to like tweets. The man appears to have inadvertently clicked like on a tweet while dealing with a large influx of support messages (due to a promo going on) thanking Marriott for listing Tibet as its own country which was a huge no-no due to Mariott's presence in China. Execs fire him as a…

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.

And that's why unions are so important.

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

#419

Post by gbacon »

thanksgiving wrote: post #271
ad_hominem wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of white collar businesses in the US use performance improvement plans. But that would be a ridiculous remedy in a business with thin margins like a restaurant - some businesses need the freedom to hire and fire quicker.

Sorry but why should the law have to cater to someone's business model?

Employees are sellers of labor, so proponents of less regulation could ask the same question of you regarding an employee whose business model is doing as little as possible or even damaging the employer but expecting compensation to continue.

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

#420

Post by your-nanny »

LaGrange wrote: post #413
azernik wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes a story captures lots of little elements of the world we live in all at once.

That's crazy talk, every story is about one thing, everything has one clear reason, and there's only one flavour of ice cream, and it's raspberry.

Raspberry chocolate.
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