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Fired Via Instant Message
JThaddeus writes "Yahoo! news reports that South Korea's third-largest credit card issuer, KEB Credit Service, fired 161 people--a quarter of its workforce--via mobile phone text messages. Hey, at least they got told, right? Afterall, they could have been like Milton."
This really wasn't PC instant messages but SMS text messages, which they use over there a whole lot more than we ever do. Since these workers were on strike, they couldn't very well be told at the office anyway.
Accident group was a bunch of ambulance chasing lawyers - you know the adverts - "have you suffered an injury - contact us and we'll sue for you" (and take a massive cut from any compensation).
These people were on strike. They couldn't be told at the end of their next shift because there was no next shift for them. So, the only way to get them in person would be to summon them via text message for an annoucement...
They were all out on strike (and apparently, firing striking workers isn't illegal there), so there was no way to tell them in person.
In the UK where text-messages (SMS's) are old-hat, this has happened previously. See these articles on BBC news:0 .stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2949578.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/204361
From the article: "The firm said it had no method for contacting striking staff other than using the short message service (SMS)."
South Korea's third-largest credit card issuer fired a quarter of its workforce via mobile phone text messages on Friday, after negotiations with striking unionized workers broke down.
The firm said it had no method for contacting striking staff other than using the short message service (SMS).
I suppose, to them, it would be no different than calling them all up directly, other than the fact that that would take too long (plus, you'd have to put up with them complaining about getting fired, etc.).Reference is to "The Fifth Element."
Just a sec, I need to jot this down in my notebook of things not to do: Item 694: Go on strike to prevent job cuts.
That done, Marjorie Kelly makes a good point in her work The Divine Right of Capital that employees are are the wrong side of the ledger. People are expenses not stake holders. This creates the negative feedback that as productivity increases wages go down...not up.
This strike and instant death messages shows that confrontational method of strikes does not work well in a market that is suffering from over capacity. What needs to happen is we need to figure out how to get more people from the expense side of the ledger into the stake holder side of the ledger.
They were sacked by SMS not IM. Many children in the UK are much more dextrous with their thumbs than their parents, mainly due to sending SMS messages via their mobile phones.
Here in the UK, an instant message would be sent via AIM or MS Messenger. Phone to phone messaging is called text messaging. It's real name is SMS - simple message services - but no-one calls it that anymore.
I'd be much more impressed if someone was fired via an instant message:
Bob has signed in
Bob says: Morning Alex
Alex says: Hi Bob
Bob says: You're fired.
Bob has left the conversation
All your base are belong to us.
WWJD? JWRTFM.
all your base history
WWJD? JWRTFM.
Because if your employer can just hire someone else, that makes the strike worse than useless. The point of the strike is that you're not getting paid, but your employer isn't getting any work done and therefore isn't getting any money either. If they can hire someone else, they still get the work done--and you, because of that, have lost your right to strike.
There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
I'm really wondering who had the audacity of naming Short Messages "instant messages" - there's nothing instant about them at all. They can (and really do) take up to 7 days to get delivered, even if one's phone has good reception for almost all the time.
People have the right to strike (in many countries) because society (mostly the working people) are of the opinion that workers need power to battle the employers. That is the reason why the right to strike was instituted. People didn't have such right in the 1800's or even early 1900's. So to sum up, it's just a right enshrined to give power to workers (who are often weak because they don't have capital--most important thing under capitalism) to defend themselves against employers (who do have capital). If you don't understand any of it, just read a bit on history and the worker movements from early 1900's to mid 1900's. The right to strike was developed during that time period.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/29 52194.stm
In america yes but I have been to Korea and any job is a good job. And that is a fairly well off country in comparison to much of the world.
I would say that Korea may get to the point where that statement is as true for them as it is for us and other G7 countries, but it aint there yet.
You Have Lost
Wow, laws in the USA must be very different!
They are... from state to state, even. But in any case, legally recognized unions can legally strike in the US, at least under legally mandated conditions. ("Wildcat strikes" are another matter.)
I've never worked in a union shop, so that's about the extent of my knowledge... other than when the machinist's union at Boeing settles in for a protracted strike, it's a great time to shop the classifieds for a used boat, motorcycle, plasma TV or other big-ticket luxury item.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
.. lots of reasons for having a minimum wage.
I'm a 20 year old, working my butt off for a dollar over minimum wage, and I really can't afford to live on my own even though I work fulltime, and I'm the assistant manager at my store. I'm also a full-time university student. I started school when I was in my late teens (17-18), and I depended on minimum wage to get me through school, and when I was in school, to feed, clothe, and shelter me.
Without a minimum wage it wouldn't be possible for me to get post-secondary education, because I'd be getting paid even worse. Yes, I do retail. And even though I don't want it to be my career, I need to be able to make enough to support myself.
No login, sorry about the AC
Economics has to be the one highly mathematized discipline where, for some reason, isomorphism with reality just is not an issue.
The free market is only able to create economic equilibria in very idealized cases (perfect information, rationality, etc-- see the work of J. Steiglitz on this issue). It will *not* sort out wage and supply to 'optimal' conditions left to its own devices. If you read any history, you will see that it took sustained political pressure to get such luxuries as a 40-hour work week and a decent living wage. Capitalism was perfectly content with steep levels of social stratification for decades until political movements forced significant redistributive measures.
Moreover, the 'free market' has always required government intervention-- once again, a glance at history will show that, depending on context, protectionism, nationalization, subsidies, and/or free trade, privatization and laissez-faire were required. Your Chicago School view of economics is pretty much obsolete in serious academia. It lives on in corporate-funded think tanks which have, ironically enough, political motivations.
iopha
I think minimum wage may not apply to hiring kids to build a fence (I'm not 100% sure). I know for a fact that certain jobs (eg. newspaper deliveries, canvassing, etc) are below the minimum wage.
:( ). THe problem I have with your argument is this: capitalists justify compensation based on skill sets. There are a whole slew of UNSKILLED jobs with very low pay. If the job is unskilled, why do you care about past experience? Past experience in most of these cases is totally irrelelant to the job anyway (eg. a packager now applying for transportation). Knowlege and responsibility is totally irrelevant in these cases.
The thing about minimum wage is that you're assuming that it's a career position, when in truth it's often a passing job on the way to bigger and better things. It's not good when young people have no opportunity to work a low-level job. How are they supposed to get experience and become more responsible?
There are a ton of jobs at minimum wage! There is no shortage of them. You can literally find minimum wage jobs in retailing, fast food restaurants, factories, etc. I really don't think young people are out of jobs because of it. Perhaps this may be true for rural areas (with fewer potential employers) but in municipal areas, minimum wage jobs are plenty.
In any case, there is no such thing as a career. Maybe you have a career but most of the lower class people don't. If you think some people don't work minimum wage for most of their lives, you probably live in a world without any knowledge of what goes on around you. Just look around and you'll see what I mean. There are adults in minimum wage jobs such as fast food restaurants, cleaners, waiters in restaurants, factory work, taxicabs, certain sales, "homeworkers", lifting and moving, and so forth. These jobs are carried out by adults--not some students who live with their parents. You live in a parellel world not conscious of such situations. There are actually people who make around $15k to $25k per year even though they work 40 hours. These people are called the working poor. You might want to look it up.
Instead, young people can't find a low-responsibility, low-pay job. So, they just don't work. Then, when they're expected to be independent, they have no job experience at all, they just have a High School degree, which is worth about as much as the paper it's printed on (as far as representing knowledge and responsibility).
I just love the arguments coming out of capitalists these days (yes, you are one
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places