Why is firing such a popular practice?

The point raised is that firing indescriminately is an act to be described in itself, in whatever societal structure you may want to name.

It is also life and how it is everywhere. Even Communist systems sometimes fire drunks and lazy workers. They serve no purpose, so why not replace them with one who does?

One would find it very hard to sustain any company if saddled forever with paying the salary of less than stellar employees. Agreed that sometimes an employer may just suddenly get rid of good employees too. It is their company. Why should we have any right to say how someone else handles their own property?

You do your 8 hours and go home, in return he/she pays you for that 8 hours. Any belief there will be a second 8 hour shift is an assumption and there is a saying about that word.

In a different economic structure, the issue of firing doesn't arise :-)

Ken, drunks go to treatment facilities and laziness, the slack-a** factor, usually arises when people are in repetitive, brainless jobs where the people feel they are doing useless work or when they feel they are not properly rewarded.

My last few employers did not offer treatment to the drunks or stoned (nor should they have). The rules were known and posted. Get caught breaking them, running heavy equipment through walls while drunk, etc., you were gone. Slack *ss workers mark themselves when they consistently handle 30 units of product in the time other workers consistently handle 300. In any profit sharing arrangement the slack *ss worker hurts the wallets of all and they get no sympathy.

Hm, employers are only able to dismiss employees unfairly if employees allow them to. There are sufficient laws, both nationally and internationally (e.g. The International Labour Organisation sets standards which signatory countries are required to adhere to) to protect employees. But the reality is, employers will always be in the more powerful position as employees are easily replaced while a job for an unemployed person is not that easy to find.

Well we all didn't get anywhere today, did we folks? Hohum. Lot of firebreathing though. It's like the ones who humiliate themselves are proud of it. The more subservient have success then? That's not an interesting work force if you ask me. Sounds kinda like a North Korea within the "Capitalist" framework.

"123butterflies", it's called forgiveness; so how old are YOU?

Unions were put in place to protect the employees, because it is all too true the a good hard working employee can be fired because he is making more money, then a young person is hired to do the work for far less. Or perhaps an employee is reaching retirement age, but is let go to save the company money, even though the worker was loyal for many years. It is not right to allow an employer to get away with anything---what about overtime? how many workers are not paid for it? What about employees taking work home with them, yet are not compensated for their time? What about cell phones? Many workers must even take that on vacation with them! Ridiculous-- Can't a person unwind? So I DON'T agree that the dictator--er, employer, is always right or fair.

It doesn't much matter. The Unions murdered themselves back in the late 60s and 70s. so today in my State essentially there are no more unions and they have zero bargaining power. Once Union executives began voting themselves member paid trips to Hawaii and insisting that employers pay for college tuition for Delegates families, etc., the writing was on the wall. Won't even talk about the greed of United Autoworkers which had a lot to do with collapsing Detroit.