Should labor laws ( generally speaking ) favor employee or employer?

Just as the question states in a broad general sense. Not crap like " I think anyone named steve should be paid 1000$ extra a month! BTW. My names steve." or "Employers should be able to take your home to recover back pay owed in the event an employee takes to many sick days" or some ridiculous crap that I know people will still throw in here. Cause, well, thats political forums for you. or

 

In theory, both employers and employees should be treated equally and fairly. That's "in theory".

Best course? Don't be either an 'employer' or an 'employee'! Make a pile of money, retire, and tell the world to go FUGG itself!

. "So glad THAT'S over with...."

 

Health and safety laws should always favor the workers. Other than that, the government should stay out of it

 

I feel there should be different laws for large bureaucratic-run corporate businesses than for small businesses.

 

The outcomes shouldn’t favour anyone but the process to achieve that will typically favour the parties with least power. In a lot of areas that’s going to be the employee (safety, changes to conditions of employment etc.) but for some it will be the employer (behaviour that reflects on the employer, actually turning up and doing the work agreed etc.).

I think there is a general problem with this kind of law where people perceive it like criminal law, expecting clear cut victims and defendants leading to a simple assessment of guilt or innocence. Civil law more often is about a balanced dispute that almost always could have been resolved much earlier and more easily and the purpose of the courts is to determine the rational middle-ground compromise the parties are unable to agree on. In that context, the flaw in idea of the law favouring any particular kind of party should be clear.

 

In the news a few days ago, a former employee of a company shows up and goes on a rampage. Several are left dead. It's a scene that plays itself out on a regular basis.

Georgia, like many states, has a right to work law. One of those provisions is that an employer can fire you for any reason - or non reason. Wait, don't we have something to say here?

You go to work on a job. Maybe you give up your nights, week-ends and holidays. The employer demands complete loyalty so your family comes second to the job. You miss important events with your children to fulfill your duties at work. You're working when it's your anniversary, child's birthday, etc. Many times you put your health and safety at risk.

On many jobs, supervisors and managers mistreat their employees; they abuse them emotionally and verbally. If the manager or supervisor don't like your attitude when they are abusing you, they may fire you. And, in states like Georgia, you have no recourse. So, some people look back on the time they wasted and the abuse they took. They lash out and people die - and sometimes, no matter how much it hurts to admit it, those who do lash out are justified.

In 1801, during his first Inaugural Address, Thomas Jefferson said:

“Still one thing more, fellow citizens–a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”

My interpretation of that is employers are free to regulate their own business pursuits provided they do not injure employees (which includes the abuse.) This we do not do and regulate businesses where no regulation was ever needed or wanted (i.e. telling the employer who to hire.) We do it bass ackwards. Employers, by their very nature have the upper hand. Government intervention is necessary primarily to make sure the employers treat their employees fairly and do not make slaves of them. As an employee that gives their life, their time, their loyalty, etc. to an employer, they deserve more than to be kicked to the curb at the whim of overbearing managers and supervisors.

 

If the employee gets more money, prices of goods go up. if the employer gets more money, then the money goes to the banks so people can lend and grow their stake in the growing economy.

 

There is no point in growing an economy if the workers cannot afford to live.

The challenge is to get employees a realistic paycheck without over-burdening the employer. Case in point:

MickeyDs employees wanted a wage of $12 or more an hour. I have forgotten the exact amount. Anyway, when it was looked into, the pay increase would mean the average meal would have to go up by 15 cents. MickeyDs would not hear of it. WTH? Could YOU live off of minimum wage?

Not only is MickeyDs NOT going to pay a realistic wage, but they will be introducing robotics soon and eliminate jobs. Here is the way it really is:

Walmart is a mega corporation. They donate millions upon millions to various charities. Yet, in Georgia, the children of Walmart employees constitute the largest segment of children on Peachcare (a kind of Medicare for indigent children.) Walmart pays so low that their employees are a burden on the taxpayer. It costs a certain amount to live. So Walmart execs live good and they have millions to donate to charity - which is good PR, but their employees live in poverty. You and I pick up the slack from Walmart's low wage scale. There has got to be a better way.

 

So you also favor laws the prohibit an employee from quitting unless they can show a justifiable reason against the employer, correct? Or do you only want it one-way where a employer can't fire an employee without proving a good reason, but employees can quit at-will?

 

Other than employees must be paid what they are promised, government should stay out of it.

 

Honestly, I haven't considered it, but in some circumstances you might be onto something. I have a good example:

My former doctor was with me through several years of visits that culminated in a couple of surgeries. When the insurance companies got involved and needed his personal input as to my condition, fate gave him another opportunity. He left Kaiser and another doctor who I had never met is left with the task of telling them about my condition.

That doctor is in no better position to talk about my health than the insurance company that never heard of me before. Had my doctor been required to follow through on pending patients before leaving his job, it would have benefited a lot of people. A person should be able to accept another job if his current employer cannot meet the employee's needs when another employer can.

At the same time, your employer can have a sizable investment in your training AND be dependent upon you for the current state of affairs in a company. You have an excellent question and one that we should definitely consider in any plan to protect the rights of workers. you ultimately want a solution that is equal and beneficial. Still, the law should favor the employee because employees come to the table in an inferior bargaining position.

 

The reason employees have less bargaining position for most jobs is the flood of unskilled and semi-skilled labor flooding the job market - both domestically and by immigration, both legal and illegal. For highly technical, necessary skills the employee has the upper hand - why companies want to bring in skilled people from other countries (ie hold wages down.)

As example, one of my adult children is in the military and has developed a very difficult skill set with the appropriate necessary credentials that is in severe short supply in both the military and private sector as it requires not only high intellect, but the focus and efforts to learn, develop and then carry those out. There are dozens of companies that would not hesitate to offer her a full benefits job and job contract at $100+K a year as starting salary - why the military is particularly in short supply due to after such training etc those who are capable and develop this do not re-enlist as the private sector just offers too much $$, benefits and job assurances.

One of the things we teach our children is that it really is not just good grades that matter. Rather, it is knowledge, real skill sets and experience that can be documented, and collective resume that matters. Diversity of proven successes, knowledge, experience and people skills on a resume matters most to potential employers - plus gives the greatest set of opportunities. The piece of paper is nice and someone having a 4.65 adjusted GPA is impressive, but someone who has already proven capable of doing exactly what the employer wants with a 3.8 GPA is who the company will hire. Increasingly, companies do not even care what academic credentials a person has. They only care about what the prospective employee can do for them in real and productive terms.

If the company/employer MUST have an employee for a certain role? If you are 1 person in a line of 500 you have no negotiating power. If you are in a line of 5 people and you are the most proven and the best, you have some negotiating power. But if you are the ONLY 1 standing in line for the job, the only question is how good are your negotiating skills to obtain as much as possible without offending sensibilities.

 

The laws should be a fair balance between management and the worker.

 

The real reason Americans on the low end do not have jobs is due to the following:

1) They fail drug tests

2) They have a criminal record (though many times it is insignificant, but made available due to the lobbying efforts of anti-immigrant extremists

3) Some Americans don't want those jobs because welfare pays better

4) Too many mommies prop their 20, 30 and even 40+ year old parasites up and don't require them to go out and get a job

5) Foreigners have a better work ethic

6) Americans don't show up and stand in a line for a low wage job

7) Too many people are in jails and prisons instead of in the labor market.

 

the law should stop both from doing bad things against the other

 

You've made your contempt of Americans very clear numerous times.

The primary causes are the flood of unskilled laborers - domestic and foreign - legal and illegal, and the welfare state, combined with tens of millions of jobs lost to foreign sweatshops.

Maybe your view of how rotten American workers are is your reflection on yourself?

 

Dude. What is your major malfunction? I work in the business sector and can tell you straight up you are wrong on every level.

My car is paid for. My home is paid for. Not bad for a guy that had to start with no family and work his way up. I hire enough people and counsel enough people to tell you that you don't know what in the Hell you're talking about, but if attacking me personally makes you feel good, have at it. It only shows that you're grasping at straws and have no legitimate case.

 

I think it should be a fair contract to both parties. If the employee wants to quit they should be able to do the same day they decide they are done. If the Employer wants you gone then they should also be able to fire you with same day notice.

Ideally the customer, employer and employee all can get a fair deal. Sadly this often doesn't happen in the business world where big business screws everyone over.

 

Employee. The employer economic class already controls 99.99% of the leverage anyways. The idea or notion that the employer "needs protections against the all powerful employee" is a scam perpetuated by bought and paid for corporate shills.

 

Absolute insanity. You give up your nights, week-ends, holidays, and jeopardize your health while putting a job ahead of your family life. Then, after a number of years, an employer - without just cause fires you a couple of years before retirement. You lose your health coverage, benefits, and being at the end of your working career, nobody wants to hire you.

No. Employers should have to have a legitimate reason to fire their employees.

 

All the more reason to organize under the banner of a union. At least there are agreed upon rules in place to protect workers from abuses such as you mentioned.

 

We again come back to the question of should employees have to have a legitimate reason to quit? If the reason can be the employee found a better job, then it would seem the employer could claim to have found a better employee.

No discharge without just cause is the dream of slackers and a real mess. I know that having been a union steward in a packinghouse. It was so problematical the company ended up closing the packinghouse and buying non-union meat from another company. The union was tough and it the highest paying packinghouse literally in the USA. I wrote many a winning grievance. But slackers became such a problem that the company was starting to come to the union asking to be able to fire this or that employee not for any specific reason, but because the employee truly was a lazyass. A few times this was so true we would agree.

Rather, there should be protected accumulation of benefits such as pension and healthcare that is protected by law.

As I noted, there is the flip side. Many a company has been severely harmed or wiped out with an employee of many years that they trained and made all their information available to, who then goes to work for a rival taking that insider knowledge and skills with him/her. This isn't just concerning management employees.

For example, someone we know just saw an example of this. A years long delivery driver for a water company delivering bottles of water quit and went to work for another company. That driver knew who hundreds of the top customers were, providing this to the competitor. Cleverly, the competitor had his trucks show up a day early making no indication this was a different company and making his prices slightly less. The original company lost 300+ of their highest volume customers out of this. It is not just training that company's invest in employees, but also information and knowledge potentially harmful to the company if divulged or even just facilitated skills that go to another company. The military has a HUGE problem with the private sector hugely outbidding their most technically trained personnel when re-enlistment time comes.

I do not believe requiring employers to have to prove a legitimate reason to fire an employee is viable. I can see there being laws that establish protection of pensions, accumulated benefits and even some ratio of required severance pay if reason to fire the employee can not be shown. For example, 1 months pay for each year worked starting the 2nd year - or something like that.

In addition, the days of someone working for the same company for 30 or 40 years has become quite rare, including that few people want to do the same thing that long and instead do try to advance.

As just a comment, one way defense industries get rid of top executives they no longer want is not to fire the person, but to put that person in an isolated office with exactly NO job duties whatsoever. The person has to report for work during working hours and just sit there for 8 hours, minus lunch break. A form of solitary confinement. Nearly all go nuts and end up quitting fairly quickly as literally doing nothing and interacting with no one can be the worst job of all. Time just crawls by.

 

Anyone can quit their job for any reason at anytime, anywhere & any place should they so choose; to imply otherwise would be illegal. If under contract or a personal service agreement (PSA), then you have an obligation to stay and work under the terms and conditions of the agreement; should you nonetheless decide to quit prior to the expiration of the agreement or terms of the agreement, they the employer would have the right to sue you in a court of law.

 

Which is why organized labor should have pressed management for equity over wages and other benefits. IOW, union bosses have seldom focused on serving the workers who elect them.

 

I gather it’s not as common in the US but here in the UK, most workers have a contact of employment which among other things lays out how it can be legitimately terminated by either party. Typically either are free to do so but there are notice periods (anything from a couple of weeks to several months depending on the level of the job) to reduce the risk of employees suddenly finding themselves unemployed or employers suddenly finding themselves with an empty post. Not a flawless system but this whole area doesn’t seem to be anything like as big an issue as it seems to be there.