Firing: The Best Way to A Quality Workforce!

[Omaha Steve]

http://uniongal.blogspot.com/2009/03/crossposted-with-permission-from.html


written by bendygirl at Saturday, March 21, 2009

Crossposted with permission from Unbossed's Shirah

Is it, though? The mantrum you hear every where these days is: To get good workers and good work an employer must be able to fire workers. That means just-cause employment, tenure, and union grievance procedures are on the firing line, because, they, well, stand in the way of the “firing” line.

NPR reporter Claudio Sanchez can barely report a story that advocates this position. For example, on March 18, his story starts with:

Michele Rhee, the District of Columbia's public schools chancellor, has done a lot to shake up schools in the nation's capital.
. . .
So Rhee is intent on attracting young teachers who aren't vested in the old contractual arrangements with the teachers' union, which Rhee thinks is getting in the way of her reform efforts.

link

Now, it may be that Claudio Sanchez is just confused and doesn’t understand that all just cause, grievance procedures, and tenure get an employee is the rights to be fired

1. only because the employee has done a bad job or
2. only if there is business necessity, such as financial troubles and
3. only after a fair demonstration that these facts exist, otherwise known as due process

These rights do not get you a job for life.

They do not give the right to keep a job even when a worker is incompetent.

So essentially what Rhee wants and what Sanchez advocates is the right of employers to fire workers on whim and with no proof that the worker is not doing a good job.

They assume that workers will only do a good job if they are terrified of losing their jobs.


FULL story at link.

[AdHocSolver]

1. Your summation of their basic assumption shows how stupid they are.

You wrote:

"They assume that workers will only do a good job if they are terrified of losing their jobs."

I think that is an accurate summation of what most managers think. However, it needs some elaboration.

First, that assumption is stupid. People under such pressure don't do their best work. They do what it takes merely to please the boss. Often the bosses don't know what good work is, in the sense of quality work. At least, that has been my experience during many years of work. In the corporate world, managers are not selected for their knowledge of the business. Managers are usually selected for their ability to be obsequious to their boss, and their ability to manipulate people, usually by intimidation.

A similar equally erroneous assumption is made in the field of education, where it is assumed that students will only "learn" if they fear getting a failing grade. Not really. They will do what it takes to get a passing grade, cheating if necessary, without learning anything. I taught school for a couple of years. It isn't the teachers' fault. It is the system.

I do believe that labor, and not just union labor, is fighting a losing battle so long as jobs continue to be offshored to low wage countries so easily. The action unions should take to get more support from the general population is to push for actions to bring jobs back to America by eliminating or renegotiating trade agreements like NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF, and that ilk so as to make it more difficult and less profitable to send jobs to low-wage countries.

It is a fallacy and a fraud to tell people that they should retrain for new technology jobs when those jobs can be offshored as readily as the "old" jobs have been. The American economy will not recover until a majority of the goods and services purchased in America are made in America. The longer it takes to bring jobs back, the longer and the deeper the depression will be.

Similarly, making it easier to join a union won't help if those jobs can be easily offshored. The priority of labor should be to do what is necessary to bring jobs back to America.