stating the obvious

[lapsedmodernist]

but sometimes it needs to be stated.

The whole at-will employment paradigm is completely fucked up.

As I said over gchat to my theophile yesterday:

you lose your job, COBRA costs 2/3 of unemployment, if you are lucky to get it, public insurance isn't taking anyone, and in states like Michigan there isn't even money to pay out unemployment

and they are going to euthanize the animals in franklin park zoo.

wolodymyr--I think you posted a link at some point (maybe on facebook?) to a T-shirt that said:

AMERICA: Were Number One

Do you still have that link? Because I want that T-shirt.

Comments

[la-chispa.livejournal.com]

Yes to that t-shirt.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I wish I knew where to get it.

[cos]

What is "the whole at-will employment paradigm"?

To me, it sounds like it refers to the idea that employers can hire new people and lay off people as they need/want, flexibly, rather than hiring being an act of incurring an a more serious obligation to hold on to that employee for the long term, as in other countries.

If that's all it refers to, I think it's necessary, because that flexibility is what enables a lot of people to do what they want to do, a lot of companies to get started, and what prevents economies from ossifying because everyone's stuck with yesterday's employer/employee matchups.

But you follow up your statement with a comment about COBRA, unemployment, insurance, etc. So it sounds to me like you're talking about something else: the lack of a social safety net, and the whole "everyone's on their own" paradigm that we have in this country. That's a very very different thing than at-will employment, so it's not clear to me what you mean. In fact, it's not only different, it's contradictory: the lack of a social safety net contributes to the very same problems as inflexible employment systems do. Having a "we're all in this together" mutual-support paradigm to our system of government would strengthen and reinforce the advantages of at-will employment.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

At-will paradigm runs ideoligically counter to unionizing and the protection that affords the workers and is an amoral system to practice in a country where health insurance is tied to employment. I happen to think that at-will employment, at least the way it is done in the US, is part and parcel of the same political and economic paradigm within which people do not have a safety net. At-will employment in the US sucks far more than "ossifying" policies in other countries (like the one in which I now work). Lack of a social net sucks as well. The suckage comes from the same place.

[cos]

Putting aside for the moment the statement "at-will ... is an amoral system", it's fundamentally not true that at-will employment (as I described it) is the same thing as a lack of a safety net. However, it seems like you're using "the at-will paradigm" as a broader term that describes both at-will employment and a lack of social safety net. Is that true? If so, explain why you think they're inextricably linked?

(My opinion, as I implied above, is that it's horrible that we don't have much social safety net, and we need to have it, and I see that as part of an "everyone for themselves" paradigm; but that I think at-will employment is a good and beneficial thing if coupled with a good social welfare system. So, obviously, to me coupling the two as if they were one is inherently frustrating and not something I can engage a discussion on - because it couples things I have diametrically opposite opinions about as if they were the same thing)

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I never said it is the same thing as a lack of a safety net. I believe I explicitly said that I believe they are a product of the same system--ideological system/value system/economic system--that big regime of value that you look at when you look at normative socioeconomics in a nation.

At-will employment in some abstract theoretical sense is not the same as as-will employment in a specific context of USA and its self-reifying gonzo capitalism. To me looking at something outside its historical and social context makes no sense. In the US that context is the mythology of capitalism and all of its virtues (deregulation, neoliberalism, at-will employment that's good for the bossman and for the worker) and the nasty fetid shit that it covers up--protected oligarchies, poverty traps, the fact that at-will employment holds a much greater liability for a worker than for a corporation in a system where a social safety net is BAD because privatizing is GOOD.

[cos]

Ahh, that's what I'm trying to get at: An explanation of what you mean by "the at-will employment paradigm". I think calling it that misled me (though I could tell that it was misleading me), so IMO it's not a good term for what you're talking about; however, now I have a better sense of what you're talking about when you use that term.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I mean the labor practices that are codified and institutionalized across the US (I think with the exception of Montana), and the political and economic ideology behind them. Maybe "in theory" at-will employment stimulates national economies, but "in theory" markets also regulate themselves and the comparative advantage principle really works out.

I think it's no coincidence that in reality countries with good social safety nets don't practice at-will employment. It's a different paradigm of social values and labor relations.

[the-macnab.livejournal.com]

If that's all it refers to, I think it's necessary, because that flexibility is what enables a lot of people to do what they want to do, a lot of companies to get started, and what prevents economies from ossifying because everyone's stuck with yesterday's employer/employee matchups.

Which explains why the Scandinavian countries have higher standards of living, greater inter-generational income mobility, greater shares of employment in small firms and higher levels of new-venture formation than the United States, right? Except that they don't have the employment-at-will doctrine that we have.

Careful when you call things "necessary." Only takes one counter-example to disprove that.

[cos]

Like I said above, having a strong social safety net conveys many of the same advantages. If coupled with flexble employment, and done well, it could be really really strong. Scandinavian countries have a fantastic social safety net, which gives their economies a huge advantage over ours. However, that doesn't mean that there's no benefit from flexible at-will employment. In fact, it'd be even more beneficial in countries like those, and with much less harm (in our system, it causes a lot of harm, but that doesn't make it inherently not beneficial).

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

so who does it benefit? "the economy" at large? Because that logic sounds one step away from trickle-down economics.

[cos]

I don't understand this question.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

you are saying at-will employment is in general beneficial because it keeps economy from ossifying. to me that sounds right in line with the trickle-down theory.

completely off topic

[jones-casey.livejournal.com]

i'm such a gossip (http://omg.yahoo.com/news/true-bloods-anna-paquin-and-stephen-moyer-are-engaged/26051)

Re: completely off topic

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

OOOH!

[seishino.livejournal.com]

I don't know how I feel about at-will employment (this is my first job to offer health). But the health system is definitely an f'ed up thing.

http://consumerist.com/5330848/giving-birth-and-covered-by-health-insurance-22000-please

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

that's just great.

Just for comparison, in the Netherlands a birth out-of-pocket (which some people choose if they want to give birth in a hospital without medical indication--the default standard here is homebirths with midwives) costs about 300 EU.

But hey, USA #1!

off topic

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

Dont suppose you've had a chance to put that SIM card in the post? Sorry!

Re: off topic

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

hey, I actually did but only yesterday--sorry--I carried it around with me but things kept preventing me from going to the post office in Berlin and then in Norway. You should get it in a couple of days hopefully!

Re: off topic

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

No problem thank you!

[congogirl.livejournal.com]

You should make your own at not-Cafepress (I can't remember the great site someone recommended, I can dig it up off delicious I think) - I'd buy one.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

eh, I'd rather find the design that I saw, it was really good. I don't think I could make such a good design.