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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.).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.
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
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.
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