Sacking of LJ staff with immediate effect & without severance pay -- legal in USA?
I've read a couple of links on my f-list to the news that LJ sacked 12 of its 28 US employees without warning this week.
( Thoughts about this )
( Thoughts about this )
It's been my experience that the classification of "contract employee" is one that's often open to abuse. I had to talk the higher-ups at St. Procrastination out of trying to classify the nursery workers as contract employees when they had the brilliant idea that this would save the church $2.46 per week per employee in taxes the church has to pay. The nursery workers clearly didn't meet the criteria for the classification. They're all teenagers and wouldn't have known any better until they suddenly received notice from the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security that they were personally responsible for paying back taxes.
This is just horrendous, coming from a *church*. With difficulty, resists temptation to say more about organised religions, and the way they tend to behave. I'm so glad you intervened, and managed to talk them round.
St. P probably could have gotten away with it, but it was wrong to do it. And so often things are only become wrong when one gets caught, you know?
Yeah... :(
For myself, there are procedures stated in my employment contract that I have to follow should I decide to leave my job. For my employer's part, there are none. I can be fired immediately and without cause. Since I'm not a full-time employee (I work 20-plus hours a week instead of 40), I cannot collect unemployment benefits if that happens. So I'm really glad I'm not the sole support for the family.
I'm very sorry to hear that. Again: I'm not attempting to bash the USA, but really--successive governments should be ashamed.
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I had a guy in my office shortly after the presidential election who claimed Obama would turn us into a socialist nation. He'd just told me his sad tale of woe about his wife's trip to the emergency room costing $1,400. (He is self-employed and has no health insurance for his family. Health insurance is prohibitively expensive for private individuals in the United States.)
I raised an eyebrow and said, "In countries with socialized medicine, they pay considerably more taxes, but they get benefits from it. Like that trip to the emergency room would have cost you nothing because you'd have health care as part of being a taxpayer." That shut him right up.
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I'm assuming that there must be many people over there who believe that the existing provisions re: access to health care, employment protection and benefits should be revised, but presumably there aren't enough for the Democrats to have felt able to propose major changes without damaging their election prospects.
The only explanation that I can immediately think of is that the proportion of very wealthy people who can afford to make individual provision, and basically don't care about those who can't, is higher in the US than it is in European countries: high enough to swing an election against any party proposing significant change. I'm simply speculating, though.
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As a people, we greatly value freedom, individualism and fair play. As a nation, even those of us with little to give are generous in helping others, but that cannot fill the gap left by a government not so interested in taking care of what the Bible terms "the least of these."
But I think we've seen lately what happens when the brakes come off and that same freedom allows some to prey on others. I hope what comes out of the current economic climate is the idea that we are all in this together, that we will make some sacrifices for the common good.
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The thing I don't quite understand, though--and I realise there isn't a simple, definitive answer--is why no American government has proposed the changes that many people would consider to be necessary, if indeed the majority of Americans are willing to give to those in need, at some expense to themselves.
Governmental policy is always going to reflect, in broad terms, the desires of the majority of the electors as at the time of the last election, and amongst those Americans who choose to stand for political office there must inevitably be some of the ones who would like to see change. The fact that they've not been able to effect that change suggests to me that they've not been able to get elected, which in turn suggests that, within the community, the proportion of those who are desirous of change is smaller than the proportion happy with things the way they are.
I didn't, and don't, mean to draw you into what you might well regard as a tedious philosophical debate, btw :) It's just that reading this news got me thinking about the way America approaches these issues, and what you wrote earlier caused me to think about them more carefully. I u/st if you've had enough *g*
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Western European countries generally tend to have a populations of similar people who are used to living within a smaller society that's had a very different history than ours. This seems to lead to a more cohesive outlook on the role of government.
And I hate to say it, but money talks loudly here. It gets out the message and makes it possible for candidates to run long and expensive campaigns. Those who don't think deeply are easily swayed by advertising that appeals to hot button reactions to social issues that have little to do with the nuts and bolts of running a country, and we are bombarded with it during a presidential campaign that can last as long as two years.
And even the most open-minded citizens get weary of it. At the time that Al Gore's presidential win was hung up on lost or damaged ballots cast in Florida, my husband said it was right for the country that Gore conceded the election, that we could not have such an important decision hanging in the air for months. Last night Corgiguy said, "I was wrong. Looking at what happened in the past eight years, Gore should have contested and fought it out. We would be in a very different situation now if he had."
I think -- and hope -- the record numbers of people turning out to vote in this most recent election is an indication that more people realize things need to be changed. The comedian Robin Williams rather amusingly put it as "Our national stint in rehab is over." :)
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I like thinking about stuff like this because it makes me put into words thing that are otherwise amorphous feelings of what is right and wrong. :)
Exactly! Me too :)
Western European countries generally tend to have a populations of similar people who are used to living within a smaller society that's had a very different history than ours. This seems to lead to a more cohesive outlook on the role of government.
I'm sure that must be part of it. On the other hand, though, and despite attempts during my lifetime to meld us all into oneness, European countries are still individual nation states, and we certainly find plenty of things to disagree about :) At least over in the USA there's a sense of national identity that's necessarily lacking amongst the European countries (when taken as a whole).
Perhaps part of it arises from the fact that the USA is younger than most European countries, and that Americans are largely the descendants of people who deliberately moved there, in the relatively recent past, with the specific aim of making a better life for themselves and for their children. People willing to make that sort of change tend to be self-reliant, and most of them will have made sacrifices in order to achieve it. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that this must have a part to play.
Corgiguy's change of mind re: the Bush/Gore election situation is very telling.
I think -- and hope -- the record numbers of people turning out to vote in this most recent election is an indication that more people realize things need to be changed. The comedian Robin Williams rather amusingly put it as "Our national stint in rehab is over." :)
I'm sure that's so! And LOL at Robin Williams :)
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