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This page was created on Apr 13, 2009 and was last updated on Jan 25, 2011
The Boomerang raw power for the employee
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How many of you have had a serious employment problem resulting in a wrongful termination? Millions of us have painfully endured the experience of being fired for an unjust reason, only to discover that the law and the legal system don't provide effective help. Not surprising! The legal system was constructed by the rich and powerful for the rich and powerful.
The globalization process has eroded the power of unions.
The employment market is now global, which results in job displacement and increase in local competition for jobs.
The quality of social safety nets in the US is poor.
The employee is in a lock-in situation with his employer because changing jobs is difficult and losing a job can be disastrous for a family.
The reality today is that employers possess too much power over their employees, which is the reason why we are seeing more abuses. Every wrongful termination case must be considered individually, but it is also part of a systemic problem, and must also be understood within the big picture.
Our goal is to restore fairness in the employee-employer relation by taking advantage of the information and communications technology. By bypassing the legal system we will create alternative methods (see The Boomerang) that employees can use against their abusers.
A company can fire a person for whatever reason it deems appropriate--good, bad, or no reason at all! The employee can also leave the company at will.
This doctrine wrongly assumes that the employer-employee relation is symmetrical. What is the reality?
For a small percentage of workers, those with very special skills, the relations tends towards symmetry, and can even turn in favor of the employee: the employer can suffer a great deal if the employee quits. But in the majority of cases the employee is replaceable, and in the case where there is no shortage of workforce the employer has the advantage.
In other words, most employees are in a lock-in situation with their employers. Their costs of switching jobs are too important, and losing a job can have disastrous consequences on their lives. Historically, unions have evolved to protect the individual employee from being abused by his employer, precisely because the relation is not symmetrical in most cases.
On the surface the at-will doctrine seams to be fair, but when we examine it just a little closer we discover the source of injustice: in the majority of cases the separation affects more the employee than the employer.
I am familiar with the neoliberal arguments against unions, labor market regulations, job contracts and others. Before you lose yourself in their rhetoric fix your mind on this principle: in a humane society well being and ethics comes before profits. Here is a little video that sheds more light on this subject.
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