Plans change, and so they should be communicated and negotiated with the employees going to be affected by the change. It's the dignified way of doing it, people are people, not fungible commodities, treat them as people and unions won't be an issue at all.
> unions are just corporate blackmailing.
This is such an absurdly ignorant take that is hard to start educating you, it also depends a lot on what society you live in since your view on unions will be tainted by what you see in it.
In places like the Nordics, unions are one of the cornerstones of a free labour market, look up how Sweden has a freer labour market than the USA to learn something at least :)
I don't even disagree with you, but your way of argumenting is terrible and actively deterring people from your point that union are a core component of a healthy free market.
If your point is to score virtue point, keep at it, but if you actually want to change anyone mind, avoid terms like "is hard to start educating you", it just makes you sound like a douche
I was being very honest, it is hard to start educating someone coming from that position since there is so much bullshit wrapped around a statement like "unions are just corporate blackmailing" which is hard to pull apart without knowing how the person came to that conclusion.
I don't even think it's possible to change someone's mind who already think that way, since it's purely from a point of absolute ignorance and I'm not willing to put enough effort to cite literature that could give them good starting points to understand something they are very likely not even willing to start understanding. They have a lazy position, I reply lazily.
They have an ideological position, based on ignorance, and from a single statement it's pretty clear they aren't curious and willing to change their mind.
Hence why I cite to look into how unions work in the Nordics, at least that is a starting point if they want to learn more about labour movements. It takes someone being curious though.
In the end, it was absolutely honest: it is hard to start educating someone who holds that position a priori and based on pure ignorance, and if not ignorance it's maliciousness, there's not much of a spectrum in this case.
I don't believe my office is my family, but I expect to at least be treated with a baseline level of decency, civility, dignity, respect, and kindness, which are non-monetary and (by my reading of your post) unnecessary in your office full of Vulcans.
The fact that these things are seen as optional and unimportant explains a lot of what's happened to public discourse.
It's not a binary between "we are family" and "we are resources", it's a spectrum.
In your case, yes, you were absolutely a resource. This is exactly why companies of that size simply shouldn't exist - because they cannot not treat their employees as resources, with all the inhumanity this implies.
Yes because a small company could deliver a national same day shipping infrastructure and worldwide network of cloud servers including its own undersead cables.
And again, work is a transaction. I’m perfectly fine with being treated as a resource when I was getting a quarter million a year and working remotely…
I'm okay with not having same day shipping if this means that companies don't have to treat their employees like dirt.
But, more importantly, a company that large is simply too much concentrated economic power (which then translates to political power). Even if it was all just robots, I'd still say no. Our political system is in shambles in large part because of these kinds of entities.
So exactly what “power” does Amazon have over your life?
Our politics is in shambles because of religious nutcases, anti science, anti intellectuals, who are afraid of the country becoming majority-minority and straight out racism and bitterness.
It's older than 20 years, but not needing to collect sales tax was definitely a big benefit for Amazon (and other ecommerce providers) and presumably involved lobbying to keep it for as long as possible.
That wasn’t based on lobbying, it was the law at first and Amazon took advantage of it.
Amazon didn’t have any significant lobbying 20 years ago and it definitely was the behemoth it is today. That being said, even today it isn’t as large as Walmart and was definitely not a large retailer back then.
It was seriously in doubt 20 years ago whether Amazon would ever survive and definitely wasn’t consistently profitable.
sure i am being dramatic but my point stands. if my company can’t be fluid and can’t react fast to market due to bs unions and backward laws of some land, that place is what i avoid.
This is a genuine question: do you make these views clear during hiring? Because if you believe in them and think that they make sense, there shouldn't be any harm in sharing them with the candidates upfront, right? Especially since these views directly affect their livelihood. And if you don't, why not?
This doesn't make sense. If you hire them to work in local offices in those countries, they often have even more employee protections than Europe does. And if you bring them over to US, then it's the same law regardless of where they are originally from.
> Also, surely if they were excellent candidates then you'd be doing your absolute best to keep them around?
Well to be fair excellent candidates are excellent on paper. It sometimes happens (not often, but not once in a blue moon either) that the candidate turns out to be completely unsuitable for the job.
I take it that this was posted in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard"?
people are getting quite snippy about this comment, but hating this mindset means you lock yourself away from so much actual wealth. It means you confine and condemn people to significantly worse economic conditions by limiting people's ability to freely associate and disassociate.
just to hammer this point home: Every mandatory employee benefit has a huge cost, and adding enough of them kills your economy. It makes it more expensive to have an employee than X many jobs can justify. That X grows every year, and that's X people who cant do that job and get paid money for it.
Meanwhile, Big tech (pre-2022) went to pretty extreme lengths to keep tenured employees around because of all the knowledge they'd built up which made them valuable to the company.
But whatevs, you do you. I'd advise you to only hire contractors if you want people to stay less than a year.
And it's worth noting that you appear to be responding to people who are in German speaking countries, where 3 months notice is standard. Other parts of Europe are not like this, and in Ireland you can fire as per the US for the first 6 months/year, and only need to pay redundancy if they've been there 2+ years.
Treating people with dignity is “business hostile”… welcome to Hacker News comment section.
It's more like "welcome to US mindset" IMHO
This mindset is what moves us forward. Union of soft nations don’t add much these days.
Define "forward".
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Plans change, and so they should be communicated and negotiated with the employees going to be affected by the change. It's the dignified way of doing it, people are people, not fungible commodities, treat them as people and unions won't be an issue at all.
> unions are just corporate blackmailing.
This is such an absurdly ignorant take that is hard to start educating you, it also depends a lot on what society you live in since your view on unions will be tainted by what you see in it.
In places like the Nordics, unions are one of the cornerstones of a free labour market, look up how Sweden has a freer labour market than the USA to learn something at least :)
I don't even disagree with you, but your way of argumenting is terrible and actively deterring people from your point that union are a core component of a healthy free market.
If your point is to score virtue point, keep at it, but if you actually want to change anyone mind, avoid terms like "is hard to start educating you", it just makes you sound like a douche
I was being very honest, it is hard to start educating someone coming from that position since there is so much bullshit wrapped around a statement like "unions are just corporate blackmailing" which is hard to pull apart without knowing how the person came to that conclusion.
I don't even think it's possible to change someone's mind who already think that way, since it's purely from a point of absolute ignorance and I'm not willing to put enough effort to cite literature that could give them good starting points to understand something they are very likely not even willing to start understanding. They have a lazy position, I reply lazily.
They have an ideological position, based on ignorance, and from a single statement it's pretty clear they aren't curious and willing to change their mind.
Hence why I cite to look into how unions work in the Nordics, at least that is a starting point if they want to learn more about labour movements. It takes someone being curious though.
In the end, it was absolutely honest: it is hard to start educating someone who holds that position a priori and based on pure ignorance, and if not ignorance it's maliciousness, there's not much of a spectrum in this case.
I work for a paycheck. I can’t exchange “dignity” for goods and services. The guy got paid nice compensation for his labor.
Therefore, let's throw everything non-monetary under the bus because work should be purely transactional?
What else should it be? Do you believe that your company is like “your family”? Your coworkers or especially your manager are “your friends”?
Why else do you go to work?
I don't believe my office is my family, but I expect to at least be treated with a baseline level of decency, civility, dignity, respect, and kindness, which are non-monetary and (by my reading of your post) unnecessary in your office full of Vulcans.
The fact that these things are seen as optional and unimportant explains a lot of what's happened to public discourse.
Was it indecent for Google to lay someone off, remove all access and give him 16 weeks of severance + two additional weeks for each year of service?
I didn't say anything about Google.
The submitted article was about Google…
You're taking "Human resources" a bit too literally.
We are resources. The one Big Tech company I have worked for has 1.556 million employees. What else was I besides a “resource”?
It's not a binary between "we are family" and "we are resources", it's a spectrum.
In your case, yes, you were absolutely a resource. This is exactly why companies of that size simply shouldn't exist - because they cannot not treat their employees as resources, with all the inhumanity this implies.
Yes because a small company could deliver a national same day shipping infrastructure and worldwide network of cloud servers including its own undersead cables.
And again, work is a transaction. I’m perfectly fine with being treated as a resource when I was getting a quarter million a year and working remotely…
I'm okay with not having same day shipping if this means that companies don't have to treat their employees like dirt.
But, more importantly, a company that large is simply too much concentrated economic power (which then translates to political power). Even if it was all just robots, I'd still say no. Our political system is in shambles in large part because of these kinds of entities.
So exactly what “power” does Amazon have over your life?
Our politics is in shambles because of religious nutcases, anti science, anti intellectuals, who are afraid of the country becoming majority-minority and straight out racism and bitterness.
Amazon has nothing to do with that.
You can literally just punch "Amazon lobbying" into Google and get pages of results.
Okay? Name one policy that the current administration has done that helps Amazon?
I didn't say anything about "current administration", so I don't know why you think that is relevant.
Okay, name one law that was passed during the pass 20 years as a result of Amazon’s lobbying that was favorable to Amazon?
It's older than 20 years, but not needing to collect sales tax was definitely a big benefit for Amazon (and other ecommerce providers) and presumably involved lobbying to keep it for as long as possible.
That wasn’t based on lobbying, it was the law at first and Amazon took advantage of it.
Amazon didn’t have any significant lobbying 20 years ago and it definitely was the behemoth it is today. That being said, even today it isn’t as large as Walmart and was definitely not a large retailer back then.
It was seriously in doubt 20 years ago whether Amazon would ever survive and definitely wasn’t consistently profitable.
Totally, I completely agree that they didn't lobby for the original exemption.
However, I would be very surprised if they weren't lobbying heavily to keep said exemption for as long as possible.
Pretty sure they wouldn't want someone like you to do so either.
they are doing great!
Thanks.
People are more important than businesses
that’s only what employee handbook says.
You're not starting a business anywhere, so no one cares.
too late
Always someone with a horrible opinion to give in this hellsite
i have had to avoid hiring excellent candidate(s) from EU, just because they would become unflushable if it comes to that.
> just because they would become unflushable if it comes to that
Your choice of verb tells a lot about what you think of your employees.
sure i am being dramatic but my point stands. if my company can’t be fluid and can’t react fast to market due to bs unions and backward laws of some land, that place is what i avoid.
And people in those places will thank you for avoiding hiring them, some folks prefer to not be treated miserably for your own greedy exploitation :)
This is a genuine question: do you make these views clear during hiring? Because if you believe in them and think that they make sense, there shouldn't be any harm in sharing them with the candidates upfront, right? Especially since these views directly affect their livelihood. And if you don't, why not?
If your business is contingent on the behaviour of one employee then you have failed to hire properly or build a resilient business...
In many cases problematic employees can and are removed from EU companies.
many cases isn’t competitive when i can find equal talent with no such restrictions.
The fact you refer to people as “unflushable” or “useless” is chilling.
Thats just not true.
You don't sound like a big company ceo. If you have a good reason, even as a small company, and revenue / affordability is one, you can fire people.
You just need to be able to pay them for min. 3 month if thats your contract length and as a business owner you should know how to calculate.
vs. i can hire in canada/ukraine/india/pakistan/china for a more skilled person with no such bs restrictions.
This doesn't make sense. If you hire them to work in local offices in those countries, they often have even more employee protections than Europe does. And if you bring them over to US, then it's the same law regardless of where they are originally from.
why would i establish a local office in say paris if laws are so hostile towards startups.
How exactly would they become "unflushable"?
Also, surely if they were excellent candidates then you'd be doing your absolute best to keep them around?
> Also, surely if they were excellent candidates then you'd be doing your absolute best to keep them around?
Well to be fair excellent candidates are excellent on paper. It sometimes happens (not often, but not once in a blue moon either) that the candidate turns out to be completely unsuitable for the job.
Please post the name of your company so we can be sure to avoid it.
done
I take it that this was posted in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard"?
people are getting quite snippy about this comment, but hating this mindset means you lock yourself away from so much actual wealth. It means you confine and condemn people to significantly worse economic conditions by limiting people's ability to freely associate and disassociate.
just to hammer this point home: Every mandatory employee benefit has a huge cost, and adding enough of them kills your economy. It makes it more expensive to have an employee than X many jobs can justify. That X grows every year, and that's X people who cant do that job and get paid money for it.
exactly, as a startup founder i wouldn’t commit to a yearly reserved ec2 instance for a year let alone an employee.
Wow, that's an interesting perspective.
Meanwhile, Big tech (pre-2022) went to pretty extreme lengths to keep tenured employees around because of all the knowledge they'd built up which made them valuable to the company.
But whatevs, you do you. I'd advise you to only hire contractors if you want people to stay less than a year.
And it's worth noting that you appear to be responding to people who are in German speaking countries, where 3 months notice is standard. Other parts of Europe are not like this, and in Ireland you can fire as per the US for the first 6 months/year, and only need to pay redundancy if they've been there 2+ years.
"had to"
Not even building and exporting widebody aircraft?
outlier.