"Irresistible" worker fired in Iowa

[garbon]

Admittedly I made it up........


.........but that being so it seems that you are getting a raw deal over in the USA???

It can be difficult to get fired, regardless of the "at will" status of many states. Corporations don't want to be known as quick to pull the trigger on someone, and it's really not all that hard to sue a company for descrimination since there are so many options to choose from. Even if it wouldn't win in a court of law, companies are more likely to settle than to let it get that far. It's cheaper, in the long run.

Just see the case of that crazy bitch at my old job. They even had photos of her sleeping.

[HVC]

The thing that was really crappy about your crazy bitch is that she got someone else fired.

[Martinus]

- you can fire an employee for bad job performance -

Who gets to make the call?

If there is a dispute, the court.

It's no different than, say, you hiring a guy to paint your flat and then him doing a lousy job. If you refuse to pay or want the price decreased but he insists on getting the full pay, you go to the court. 

Actually, it is fairly different.  Unless the terminated employee has pretty convincing evidence that the firing was discriminatory, the courts are going to give the employer pretty wide latitude to fire people based on poor job performance in most American jurisdictions;  while in your example of a contractor suing to get his pay, the courts are usually going to rule that he has to be paid in full absent good evidence that the work wasn't done or was substantially substandard.

He was asking about Polish courts, so not sure how your response is relevant.

[garbon]

The thing that was really crappy about your crazy bitch is that she got someone else fired.

On the positive, he now has a job he likes a lot more.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Most Americans are okay with the system for a few reasons:

1. In truth it isn't a factor in most employment relationships. Most large corporations and government employers do not fire without cause, and make it policy to only terminate employment by following a rigid, codified process that involves multiple warnings given to the employee.

2. Many of the jobs where it is a factor are jobs populated by itinerant types who often go from job to job in any case, so aren't really too concerned about the matter.

3. It is understood employers who can easily trim dead weight are more likely to create jobs for good workers, and it's understood forcing employers to keep bad employees is an economic albatross.

[Razgovory]

Anyway, we really need some better pictures of this chick to deduce if she was really "irresistible".

[Malthus]

Most Americans are okay with the system for a few reasons:

1. In truth it isn't a factor in most employment relationships. Most large corporations and government employers do not fire without cause, and make it policy to only terminate employment by following a rigid, codified process that involves multiple warnings given to the employee.

2. Many of the jobs where it is a factor are jobs populated by itinerant types who often go from job to job in any case, so aren't really too concerned about the matter.

3. It is understood employers who can easily trim dead weight are more likely to create jobs for good workers, and it's understood forcing employers to keep bad employees is an economic albatross.

It seems to me that there is a fundamental misunderstanding at work about how other jurisdictions handle firing workers.

For example, here in Canada you can fire someone without cause any time you like (assuming they aren't unionized) - you just have to give them "notice", meaning usually pay in lieu of notice. How much notice depends on all sorts of factors, mostly length of employment (generally, the longer you work for someone, the more notice)  ... but if you are firing them "with cause", you don't have to give any notice.

So it isn't like you are forced to keep "bad employees". If they are truly "bad" enough to amount to "cause" you can fire them without paying anything. If they aren't truly "bad", and you just don't need or want them any more, you have to give them severence - or "pay in lieu of notice" - which is a cost assuredly, but not the same as "forcing" the employer to keep them on.

In this case, had the dentist been in Canada presumably he'd have to give his hygenist some pay in lieu of notice, since his wife being jealous doesn't amount to "cause". He could still of course fire her. Seems to me that would be a more reasonable outcome.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Note my Dearest Shylock I made no comments specific to any non-American jurisdiction nor hath I asserted a thing about Canadian employment law. I just explained a certain principle in the American psyche. Also might be worth noting the dentist in this situation did give her one month's pay as severance when he initially terminated her employment.

[CountDeMoney]

Note my Dearest Shylock I made no comments specific to any non-American jurisdiction nor hath I asserted a thing about Canadian employment law.

You can't ever stop those guys from doing that FOR EXAMPLE UP HERE ITS DIFFERENT stuff. 
I blame BB.  Foreigners. 

[HVC]

How will you ever learn if no one teaches you there is a better way

[Malthus]

Note my Dearest Shylock I made no comments specific to any non-American jurisdiction nor hath I asserted a thing about Canadian employment law. I just explained a certain principle in the American psyche. Also might be worth noting the dentist in this situation did give her one month's pay as severance when he initially terminated her employment.

The American psyche does not understand that there is no way inbetween being "forced" to keep an employee and being allowed to fire him or her "at will", and so must be properly educated with the superiority of other folk's sytems. How else will it ever learn? 

For a 10 year employee, 1 month is not overly generous. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't really agree with what you've concluded from what I said. I said Americans tend to favor at will because there is a belief it makes us more productive and allows businesses to more easily shed unproductive workers and thus create more positions for productive workers. I don't think that belief is incompatible with some level of benefit scheme or whatever, but in America it is generally felt such schemes shouldn't be forced onto all employers because it hurts small business. Larger employers have unions and/or a desire to make their company attractive to good workers and Americans on the whole are fine with that system.

I've heard companies like IBM do one week of severance per year of employment, so it isn't like no one gives decent severance here. But we've just decided universal requirements in that regard aren't ideal. I don't know the situation elsewhere but unless your employer dismisses you for misconduct you are still eligible for unemployment benefits as well so it isn't as though you go without. Note that unemployment hearings are administrative law and there is a strong default preference for the employee. If an employer contests your unemployment benefit the burden is on them to either demonstrate you quit or had committed misconduct--employers often do not prevail in these hearings even when they should.

[merithyn]

Note that unemployment hearings are administrative law and there is a strong default preference for the employee. If an employer contests your unemployment benefit the burden is on them to either demonstrate you quit or had committed misconduct--employers often do not prevail in these hearings even when they should.

I can attest to this. 

[Malthus]

I don't really agree with what you've concluded from what I said. I said Americans tend to favor at will because there is a belief it makes us more productive and allows businesses to more easily shed unproductive workers and thus create more positions for productive workers. I don't think that belief is incompatible with some level of benefit scheme or whatever, but in America it is generally felt such schemes shouldn't be forced onto all employers because it hurts small business. Larger employers have unions and/or a desire to make their company attractive to good workers and Americans on the whole are fine with that system.

I've heard companies like IBM do one week of severance per year of employment, so it isn't like no one gives decent severance here. But we've just decided universal requirements in that regard aren't ideal. I don't know the situation elsewhere but unless your employer dismisses you for misconduct you are still eligible for unemployment benefits as well so it isn't as though you go without. Note that unemployment hearings are administrative law and there is a strong default preference for the employee. If an employer contests your unemployment benefit the burden is on them to either demonstrate you quit or had committed misconduct--employers often do not prevail in these hearings even when they should.

Great, so instead of employees paying the costs of the inevitable downtime between being fired without cause and getting a new job, it makes more sense to unload those costs on the taxpayers generally? America, stop being so damned socialist! 

Sure, I get it that the theoretical justification for at-will is that it makes for ecomonic flexibility. In reality, as you point out, what it does as well is dump the costs of that flexibility onto the workers themselves and the public via unemployement insurance. Seems to me that any system in which the benefits are private but the costs are public is less than ideal in terms of incentives.   

[merithyn]

Tax payers don't cover unemployment. Employers do.