this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Just following on from this: https://lemmy.nz/post/1134134

Ex-Tesla employee reveals shocking details on worker conditions: 'You get fired on the spot.'

I'm curious about how far this goes.

You can't get fired on the spot in NZ, unless you like, shot someone or set the building on fire or something really bad.

But it seems that in the US, there's little to no protections for employees when their bosses are dickheads?

Also, any personal stories of getting fired on the spot?

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[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 132 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's not that there aren't any, it's that the protections for workers are abysmal compared to protections for businesses.

For example, if I stole money from my employer, they could have me arrested and press charges for theft.

On the other hand, if I am able to prove that my employer hasn't been paying me fairly and has been shorting my paychecks, I can spend a lot of money to take them to court, and in most cases, all that will happen is the business will have to... pay you back exactly what they already owed you. They won't pay fines, no one will go to jail, and it's an "oops" and then slap on the wrist kind of deal.

Worker protections exist, but the deck is stacked against us.

[–] Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 36 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Doesn’t even have to be directly stealing money, “time theft” can be prosecuted.

[–] blue_zephyr@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

The Netherlands had a recent court ruling that established that if the employer is satisfied with your performance, then it doesn't matter how much time you spent doing your job. This was in a case recarding a man secretly working multiple jobs.

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[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 83 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

Basically the case, yes. It varies state by state and there are some federal laws but, the enforcement is lacking to say the least and funding tends to be gutted to make it worse. Effectively, since Reagan, there's been an unending attack on labor rights and regulations. Currently, multiple states are passing laws to bring back child labor and workers who try to unionize are getting axed with no real repercussions.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 21 points 1 year ago

Oh, yes I heard about the child labour thing. That's so fucked.

[–] Dalek_Thal@aussie.zone 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Got a source on the child labour thing? Not doubting you, but as a non-American I'm confused as to how the hell youse aren't in open revolt.

EDIT: Responding individually later. In short, fuck. In long, thanks all for sending me those links, I'm gonna go wash my eyes out with bleach and attempt to un-know all that I now know

[–] ExLisper@linux.community 13 points 1 year ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_laws_in_the_United_States

By 2023, states such as New Jersey and Arkansas had loosened child labor restrictions following the lessening of the COVID-19 pandemic severity, with violations increasing nationwide as a tight labor market increased worker demand. Modifications included lowering the age in which children could work certain jobs, expanding the number of and timing of hours they could be required to work, often to include school time, and shielding businesses from civil liability for work-related injuries, illnesses, or deaths sustained by such workers.

Why there are no revolt? Brainwashing. Child labor is part of glorious capitalism, worker's rights is hideous communism.

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[–] Treczoks@kbin.social 63 points 1 year ago (9 children)

"Firing on the spot" is just one item on a long list. No maternity leave, health insurance bound to the job, reliance on tips to pay workers, lack of whistleblower protection, laughable PTO, limited paid time off for health reasons. All of that has been solved in civilized countries, except for the US.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 18 points 1 year ago

This is crazy to me. Especially tip culture. They tried to start that here for a while but it got shut down.

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[–] kaitco@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In many US states have what’s referred to as “at-will” employment. When you accept the terms of your employment, there’s a small disclaimer that states that you can be fired for anything at anytime for any reason and without notice.

This is also why we have so many lawsuits here.

So, while there’s no full protection, there are laws available that say you can’t be fired for certain things, and if you can prove that you were fired due to simply being of a “protected class” or in retaliation for reporting a workplace violation, you can sue and can likely win through settlement or decision.

The thing is, few employers will maintain records that indicate that they fired Anita because she was black or Howard because he was gay. It’s usually “Anita had 4 errors in the last year” if pressed for detail. That’s why if you feel any sense of discrimination or other unfairness on the job here, it’s a good idea to keep records of the incidents and dates in a CYA file (Cover Your Ass), just in case.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow that sounds exhausting.

[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Correct. And if you get sick, just hope youve saved enough money or you'll probably just die.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's fucked. There's a lot I can complain about being in NZ, but dam I can't imagine not being able to afford healthcare and not having paid sick leave and no accident coverage.

[–] Drusas@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

I started adulthood in poverty because I was hit by a negligent driver when I was in college. It takes 7 years for negative reports to fall off of your credit report here, so I spent the first 7 years of my independent adult life in poverty because somebody else was a bad driver and our healthcare is too expensive.

Edit: For those who aren't familiar with the American system of credit, if you have bad credit, most apartments will not accept you regardless of your income and many jobs will turn you down. It also makes it more expensive to do things like rent or lease anything (or buy a car, which is required in the US) because you will have a higher interest rate. It's a cycle designed to keep you spiraling downward.

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[–] Fafner@yiffit.net 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Constitutionally, after a little scuffle in the mid 1800's, a person or business can't own an employee. Other than that not really, we usually got to strike and revolt if we want anything, but they keep us so poor that it makes it an untenable option.

[–] maynarkh@feddit.nl 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

But they can still be rented from the government which can still own people as long as they had some drugs planted on them, right? I mean you just went into Slavery-as-a-Service instead of a proper ownership model.

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[–] dipshit@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You guys get employee protections? What are those like?

I work because I need medical insurance to live. I cannot afford medical insurance on my own without a job. I make 6 figures and live paycheck to paycheck. If I lose my job, I will probably be homeless.

I would love to live in a world with employee protections. I’m not sure what those protections would be but anything better than what we’ve got seems good.

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[–] SoloboiNanook@hexbear.net 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I live in an at will state.

I once got fired when I couldnt remember which toolbox i got a wrench from in a large warehouse lol.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Honestly that's legal grounds to mail them human feces in a package carefully designed to leak once it gets into their mail pile.

[–] SoloboiNanook@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago

I was under a guy who managed the warehouse by himself for like 15 years and he could not conceptualize someone who didnt understand it as well as he did. The wrench was the final thing, but the guy had some weirdo problems with people.

I was also fired after i toom a 3 week long vacation in Vegas in feb 2020. Covid had not quite hit yet but it was clearly building. I returned and my job called me the day before i was to come back to work and simply told me not to bother. I was never given a reason.

At will states are pretty fucked up. Employers can turn your shit upside down on a whim.

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[–] dingus@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

The vast majority of the US has "at will employment". It means you can be fired any time for whatever reason...or even for no reason.

However, there are a few reasons you cannot be fired. You can't be fired because of your race, gender, sexuality, age, whether or not you are pregnant.

HOWEVER, because an employer does not have to give a reason for firing you, they could theoretically do something like fire you for something like being gay and pretend it was for some other reason. If you can prove that they fired you for being gay, you can go to court, but that's exceptionally difficult to impossible to do. So really they can fire you for anything.

Some jobs are unionized, making it harder for employers to fire you willy nilly though. Most jobs are not unionized in the US.

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[–] axont@hexbear.net 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

At-will worker here. One time I got fired for not remembering my boss's son's birthday (a son who I had never met and was also 6 years old)

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[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 20 points 1 year ago (17 children)

"At will" employment laws are load-bearers for all sorts of horrid ruling class abuses. They allow "at will" employees to be fired under any false pretenses and make it nearly impossible to prove those pretenses were false.

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[–] take_five_seconds@hexbear.net 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

At-Will Employment yeah you can get fired pretty much on the spot for no reason

edit: like yea there's labor protections if you're a protected class but if they fire you for a bunk reason it's up to you to sue the business and prove that in the first place which most of us can't do for obvious reasons

[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Others have covered the details of labor laws in the US, so I won't touch on that, but your question does make me think about why those kinds of labor protection laws are even seen as a necessity. And I think the answer to that is we (most people, not just Americans) view jobs as equal to livelihood.

But it makes you wonder what the world could be like if we had a universal basic income, where getting fired wasn't actually the worst thing that could happen to you. It might still suck, but you'd still be able to have a roof over your head and food on your table while you searched for new work. This, critically, would give you more negotiating power when finding new jobs, as you'd likely be less desperate for a job, meaning you could credibly insist upon better pay and better conditions.

But we could take this one step further. In economics, there's this concept called an externality, which is when you do something that affects someone else as a side effect. When you do something that harms someone else as a side effect (e.g., pollution), that's called a negative externality. Negative externalities are actually a major problem in completely unregulated economies, because they cause the "invisible hand" of the free market to fail to achieve optimal distribution of goods, i.e., a market failure. The classic example of this is carbon emissions -- the true cost to society of carbon emissions (from climate change) is not reflected in the cost of providing carbon-intensive goods, thus we have a tendency to over-produce and over-consume carbon-intensive goods and services. That is, the economy would be better off in the long-run if we emitted less carbon than we currently are, despite the short-term profits of polluting. Anyhoo, this mismatch between sticker price and true cost to society is why carbon tax is almost universally regarded to be the single best climate policy: by accounting for the costs of the negative externality, you can fix the market failure, and the invisible hand can once again work as it's supposed to.

But where this relates to where I was going is there are also positive externalities, where you have a positive impact on someone else as a side effect of your activities. An example might be doing regenerative agriculture or rewilding a patch of land -- the pollinator habitat you provide or the carbon you sequester has positive impacts on other people. And like how negative externalities tend to lead to overconsumption, positive externalities tend to lead to underconsumption. I.e., the economy would be net better off of more people did rewilding and regenerative agriculture, despite the short-term immediate costs they incur. And much like taxing negative externalities (e.g., carbon emissions) is a good way to correct those issues, subsidizing positive externalities is a good way to fix the issues of insufficient good activities.

So imagine if we not only had a UBI, but if the government also would pay you to plant trees or develop/maintain open-source software or any number of other activities that produce positive externalities. If we had these alternative means of maintaining a basic level of livelihood, then maybe we could decouple existing from jobs, and we wouldn't feel a strong need to coerce businesses into holding onto people, nor would we need to coerce them into paying people enough or giving good enough working conditions -- companies would have to pay well and offer good conditions and not fire for unfair reasons, else they'd struggle to fill vacancies.

We all saw how companies begrudgingly had to pay more during the "great resignation". Or look how the professional class (e.g., doctors, engineers) get good pay and good conditions, precisely because they're hard to replace. Give workers more options, make them less desperate, and they'll be empowered to negotiate better pay and better conditions for themselves. Sure, some regulations would still be necessary, but I think there's a lot of elegance in a bottom-up approach to labor relations.

[–] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

You are making this too complicated. The "classic example" of a negative externality isn't carbon emissions, it's the "tragedy of the commons". People would overuse public land to graze their animals. Nobody took care of the public land or refrained from grazing to allow the grass to grow back, so it sucked.

A better example of a positive externality is a nice cafe that provides a nice environment for a town. The cafe doesn't just provide sandwiches and coffee. It improves the area around it and nearby businesses benefit.

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[–] GenderIsOpSec@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago

they exist, but breaking them will net you a letter from the court telling you to stop breaking the law, and like a 1000$ fine so... shrug-outta-hecks

[–] Coolkidbozzy@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you aren't part of a union in the US, you're probably working without a contract in an agreement called 'at will' employment where this is 100% legal. This is how the vast majority of jobs operate

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[–] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Theoretically yes, but they’re set up in such a way so that there’s always a work around or technicality or means testing that, in reality, means that poor, marginalized, disabled/ neurodivergent people, or non-English speakers are basically totally fucked

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago

THAT'S FREEDOM BAYBAY!

sobs

[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We have a lot of laws, enforcement is the thing we lack.

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[–] oatscoop@midwest.social 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There's actually quite a few at the federal level -- not enough, but they exist. There's a decent overview of the federal labor laws available here. Individual states also have additional laws, and shockingly "liberal" (in the American sense) states tend to have stronger worker protections than "conservative" ones.

Of course scumbag employers count on most people not knowing those laws or how to report violations and will actively push misinformation about them.

Edit:

As a bonus, have a Walmart ~~anti-union propaganda~~ training video, because Walmart cares about you..

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[–] Kes@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We have quite a lot of employee protections (not as much as Europe but a lot more than people realize), it's the enforcement that is the issue. While you can be fired without notice for any legal reason, if you are fired for an illegal reason or an illegal reason played a role in their decision to fire you, you can get quite a nice settlement from that. However, if you are fired without a good reason, the employer has to pay for your unemployment, so the majority of employers will only fire an employee if it falls under a reason that makes you ineligible for unemployment like poor performance or attendance (and labor attorneys can often sniff out when an employer is lying about it to screw you out of unemployment). Contrary to several other countries, employees can just quit without notice or even informing their employer, as at will employment goes both ways

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[–] ped_xing@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If I had a nickel for every time my boss fired somebody so humiliatingly that they forgot to take their jackets with them on the way out the door, I'd have two nickels.

I didn't observe this myself -- she e-mailed everyone she didn't fire asking if any of us wanted a jacket and went on to describe the ones her victims were wearing just last week.

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[–] AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago

Different states have different laws. It's a farce

[–] eatmyass@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago

I was fired for looking for another job

[–] EnsignRedshirt@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Being fired on the spot hardly ever happens. Usually the problem is that employers demand additional work for no increase in pay or better working conditions while maintaining a toxic or outright dangerous work environment because they know most people won't quit or even complain. That goes double for immigrants who are either undocumented, and have little recourse, or need their job to maintain their visa. Being fired on the spot sounds sort of quaint compared to what we usually see happening in American workplaces.

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