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[Leafsnail]

If they're fired for a frivolous reason, isn't there some kind of action the worker can take against the company...?

[Aqizzar]

Ah yes, unemployment, I should have thought of that.  I'm quite sure that it's not the firing company that pays the unemployment benefits, but there are repercussions for high purpose-terminated turnover.  It's a complicated field that I don't know much about, but it's certainly something WalMart understands.

If they're fired for a frivolous reason, isn't there some kind of action the worker can take against the company...?

You've just been fired from WalMart.  How much do you think you can put up for legal fees, to fight for your right to go back to work at WalMart?

[freeformschooler]

If they're fired for a frivolous reason, isn't there some kind of action the worker can take against the company...?

Yes. Draw unemployment.

But otherwise I haven't heard of much, other than worker's union stuff, but I don't even know that they can do anything about that.

If they're fired for a frivolous reason, isn't there some kind of action the worker can take against the company...?

You've just been fired from WalMart.  How much do you think you can put up for legal fees, to fight for your right to go back to work at WalMart?

If you've got more money and income than the entire corportation, you could take them to court for the rest of your life until they have nothing nothing. But then you wouldn't be working at wal-mart in the first place.

[Bauglir]

Hm... a prayer and a phone call to Lionel Hutz sounds like about the maximum resources that could be mustered. Ah, the law. Providing equal recourse for all in theory, soul-crushingly biased in practice.

[Leafsnail]

You get stuff like employment tribunals here (for which there is no cost, unless you're found to have been acting unreasonably at the end).  The idea is that they aren't often used, but are important if other avenues fail (and providing a threat to the company not to dismiss you unfairly).  My aunt got a proper redundancy package after going through one, for instance.

I guess there isn't such a provision in America...?

[Reelyanoob]

QUOTE "At Common Law, an employment contract of indefinite duration can be terminated by either party at any time for any reason. The United States is the only major industrial power that maintains a general employment-at-will rule. Since the 1950s, however, many courts have allowed discharged at-will employees to bring suits alleging wrongful discharge from employment."

legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Wrongful+dismissal

Most industrial nations have this law, "unfair dismissal" here in Australia, "wrongful dismissal" in UK and Canada, for example. You can try and sue them if they fire you in the USA. Getting the aggrieved employee to quit stops them being able to sue I guess. It's easier when everyone is on casual hours, you just cut their shifts till they can't afford to work for you anymore.

[Aqizzar]

I guess there isn't such a provision in America...?

No.  If you want to file a suit against an employer, you either have to put up enough money to make it worth a business lawyer's time (expect several thousand, up front), or throw a wing and a prayer at the ACLU or some other semi-pro-bono rights organization, and hope that your particular case is either an open-and-shut case in your favor or that it could set a precedent.  Or, y'know, represent yourself, pay the (minor) filing fee for the suit, and hope to God that the company considers it of such frivolous cost that they let you win by not paying a lawyer to spend a day in court representing themselves.  Note that any of these options will take months, if not years, to play to completion.

So, in a word, no.

[SalmonGod]

I think as a rule of thumb, if someone ever uses the word "breeder" to describe straight people they are being facetious.

Ah-ha.  I've heard the word "breeder" used to describe those who believe Having Children Is The Entire Purpose of Life For Not Just Me But Everyone, which kind of makes sense.

Thank you for clarifying.

Gah... the goddamn Childfree Movement.

Allow me to clarify what I have seen of this group.

This is a very loud and growing movement with two factions. 

There are people as Vector described who honestly just want not to be pressured by a social expectation to have children.  I can understand this and don't have a problem with these people.  I acknowledge that this social pressure exists and is unfair, and support their ability to be free from it.

Then there are the ones I have a problem with, who seem to be the loudest spokespeople for the movement.  Common features include

1.  Hate children and don't ever want to come in contact with them under any circumstances.  Is openly verbose about their indignation whenever a child is brought into public that doesn't make every possible effort to hide their existence from every stranger who could possibly be annoyed by a child-like noise or movement in their vicinity.

2.  Think pregnancy/childbirth is disgusting and loudly proclaim their desire to blow chunks whenever the subject enters their minds, and openly expresses this disgust as a hatred for parents.

Common terminology:  Parents = Breeders, Children = Crotch-Droppings, Mothers = Moos, etc

3.  Most dangerously do not believe under any circumstances that parents should receive any slack or support from modern adult society for being a parent.

You wouldn't believe how fucking hissy people get about the idea that responsible parenting is a demanding and unpredictable task, which often involves things like missing work, turning in assignments late, performing at tasks less than optimally due to stress and exhaustion, etc.  If a group of people become aware that you were granted leniency related to these issues by an employer, teacher, etc, there will inevitably be a cry from someone of  "It's not our fault they fucked up their lives by having children!  How come we don't get special priveleges!  How come we're left to pick up the slack!"  These people have always been around, but in the last few years they have begun to actually organize and actively deconstruct the ability to be a responsible parent in our society.  I am a very very tolerant person and will express this of very very few, but I honestly believe these cold, selfish, and obnoxious people would go die in a fucking fire.  This especially applies to employers with the attitude "If we had wanted you to have children, we would have issued them to you."  (actual quote from the struggles of another parent)

Edit:

Was away for a few days when this thread began.  Looks like some interesting stuff.  Wish I could have contributed as earlier events were ongoing.

[Vector]

On the other hand, food is pretty much always sold in portions too large for single people, and... I worry vaguely that I'm going to get some flak for this, but there's something so awkward about couples, "families" (i.e. couples with children), and stuff like that.  For a single person, I mean.  I've found that my friends who end up pairing themselves off stop relating to me in a meaningful way.  It turns into "love" > companionship, where by "love" I mean "they started dating a girl a few weeks ago and suddenly they know everything about everything and don't care about me anymore."

I'm sure not all couples do this, but it seems to happen more often than not.  One particularly powerful bond annuls others, and there's no longer any meaningful room for friendship.  The single person is always showing up into a functioning family unit, with it's own dynamics, and she or he can't really ask to try to pare things down... because that's rude, or, often, comes off "child-hating" or whatever.

I don't like kids.

The reason why I don't like kids is because I feel like there's some sort of obligation that I interact with them.  I'm not having children because I'm too much of a loner (and my perfectionist streak would turn out abusive).  End of story.  I don't like the assumption of responsibility.  Interact with a child and suddenly you are The Responsible Adult.  I feel like I've done my time, you know?  I've had people depending on me, or been in relationships that didn't benefit me, where I felt crushed by liability.  I feel really tired, especially because there's some sort of expectation that girl = wants to spend time with children and babies.  Hell, I still need taking care of...

I'm kind of prejudiced because when I was a teenager, my parents would never stop staring at the babies and little kids that went by, as I walked behind them.  As long as there was a young child around, they didn't pay attention to me.  I know it's selfish, but I needed their attention, when they spent so much time arguing and bickering, allowing me to drop off the face of "reality" in favor of their coupledom, almost all of the time that we spend together as a threesome.  When both of my parents are in the same place, they usually seem to forget that I exist.  They forget to check plans with me or listen to what I have to say... often, they'll bicker for hours while I walk behind them or sit in the back seat of the car, and then of course they have to have Healing Couple Conversations for hours while I continue to be silent; it's only if I'm lucky that they'll solicit my opinion on something.  Often, this cycle will go on for multiple days.  If there's an argument, I'm expected to just disappear from the face of the earth, so that they can do coupley things and I can keep from inconveniencing them.

Please forgive me, because I am bitter.

And then, people get mad when you don't want to be with their Perfect Child or whatever.

It's kind of like...

Yeah, I don't like being around families or children in general.  I'd never use any of those words you outlined.  I don't like kids at all, but I wouldn't let the kid know it.  But all the same, I really wish there were a balance between kids and adults in a way that there isn't.  I don't feel like I can tell or ask someone else's kid to be quiet/calm down/whatever.  I arrive on the scene and the child, the family takes power and precedence.  As a single person--as an individual, rather--my wants and needs are nullified in favor of the weighted, unified mass of the family, so that in a democratic system there ends up with three like-minded-enough votes against one, if that makes any sense.

And for me, at least, quiet from certain kinds of noises is not a want, but a need.  The noises kids tend to make often set off an unbearable sensory overload.  It's not simple annoyance.  If it were, I would just deal with it.

But the way I feel, in this culture, is that that sort of thing doesn't matter, and what I'm expected to do is either do whatever the family wants or withdraw myself from their presence completely.

And, as far as the not receiving slack from modern society for being a parent:

I think you should receive slack from modern society for being a person, with a person's needs, not necessarily receiving perks based on parenting things.  People should be considered as people.  As a member of a family, you will have times when you have to take care of the family, but also many times at which the family will save you time.  As a single person, there will be many events where I will be spending a hell of a lot more time taking care of things--or so I believe, though I may be wrong--and no slack will be accorded for the drain.

I will probably spend a large portion of the rest of my life depressed, with the accompanying loss of productivity, because I just can't get people and often find myself without enough human contact, but no one is ever going to take that into account.  Indeed, I will not be treated like a person.  I will simply be told that my problem is that I lack a date.

I'm sorry for this rant.  I hope it's comprehensible and inoffensive.  I'm... really tired.

[Gamerlord]

I thought that biologically, the only point of life was to breed? (From an evolutionary standpoint)
Also, if you are Christian, you also believe this, because apparently God told man to be fruitful and multiply.

But anyway, from the point of view of a country, wouldn't you want to sink you resources into children? Wouldn't you want skilled, well-adjusted, happy workers? And don't parents influence the political views of their children? Wouldn't a government want to make parents happy with them so the children are influenced to vote for them?

That Childfree movement confuses me.

[Criptfeind]

I thought that biologically, the only point of life was to breed? (From an evolutionary standpoint)

If you want to go by lologic, then there is no point to existence at all and you should kill yourself. I would rather like to think the point of life is happiness.

Anyway, I like children. Cause it is very easy to get them to believe lies.

As for Vectors post, when you take out the slight, ah, bitterness for a lack of a better word, I quite agree.

[Virex]

I thought that biologically, the only point of life was to breed? (From an evolutionary standpoint)

If you want to go by lologic, then there is no point to existence at all and you should kill yourself. I would rather like to think the point of life is happiness.

There is no lological reason to kill yourself either, so apathy-ho I guess?

[Truean]

Thank you for making this vector.

*begin rant*
Conservative talk radio has hijacked my dad's brain to the point where functional conversation about anything but what he hears on it is impossible. Any conversation at all about anything will inevitably turn into a rant about things he hears on AM radio about "liberals being the end" or some such crap.

My mom is equally as racist, bigoted, etc as he is and even she's had enough of his shit. When confronted that his conversations always degrade into a political badmouth session of individual politicians we don't care about (which has what exactly to do with if you want pork or steak...?), he just says "I'm just saying." As if that was somehow a justification for ranting for hours when people have begged you to shut up or talk about something, anything else at all. It is headache inducing. This man is single handedly driving up the stock price of headache medicine....
*end rant*.

As someone being royally screwed over by society, I appreciate people like you Vector.
(No, I'm not telling anyone how this applies and if anyone's doubt/curiosity demands an answer, I could care less.) Thank you.

[Darkmere]

I thought that biologically, the only point of life was to breed? (From an evolutionary standpoint)

That ignores the species that display homosexual behavior in natural settings.

Listed here.

Please note that is just selected lists and there are more broken up by classification elsewhere.

I'm not going to make implications of this behavior, just stating that it exists in nature.

[ChairmanPoo]

On firing people for frivolous reasons: here at least you can fire anyone (barring the trade union representative). Only, if you don't have a justified reason, you have to pay him or her extra.