> if a restaurant abuses its staff
What exactly counts as "abuse"?
Here's what I've seen first-hand in a "labour-friendly" country. An employee doesn't show up at his workplace a few days a week, for several months, without doctor's notes or any real reason. Employer finally fires them. Employee goes to court and after a year gets a $20k compensation for "unlawful termination", even though his absence on the workplace was documented (but not properly processed, apparently).
> What exactly counts as "abuse"?
Nordic countries are higher-trust than America is, and so sometimes concepts like this do not need to be formally defined: "you know it when you see it" is a valid concept when people have sufficient dignity and respect for self and others as to not claim abuse when it's not actually present.
This breaks down in a system with different game-theoretical Schelling points - different "default strategies". If the default mode of behaviour for a large constituency of participants is to exploit all available weaknesses in the system, then the system has to become more formalized, more defensive, and eventually has to put firewalls around anything that could be exploited.
This is among the reasons why socialized medicine / welfare / etc work better in some countries than others. If it comes coupled with a high sense of dignity that makes one not want to fling oneself upon the commons unless it's strictly necessary, then it can do well; but if everyone wants to take everything that isn't nailed down, you simply cannot afford to offer as much, ever.
Abuse is typically things like not paying their salary, withholding holiday contributions, breaking contractual scheduling obligations, threatening the staff with termination or reduced pay, and a host of other apparently normal behavior for certain kinds of employers.
“Unlawful termination” is only a thing when it is either in breach of contract, or discrimination. Typical contracts in Scandinavia mandate a 1 month notice in advance of termination. I don’t know why you would think that’s unreasonably long. (And yes, the social security net is the reason it can be so short.)
I'm not saying that stuff like that doesn't happen, but what do you think is the ratio between employers abusing their employees compared to employees abusing their employers?
And with the different kinds of abuse, which "side" do you think causes the most genuine harm to the other though their actions?
Probably best not to shoehorn in your specific experience into this comment this way, it’s not really applicable outside of your desire to start yourself off on a rant