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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."
... understand that Korea is a very different culture when it comes to cell phones and things like SMS than the USA. SMS usage is waaaaaaaay more common with everyone and people use SMS more frequently as it is much cheaper than actually talking on the phone.
My girlfriend who is Korean can friggen enter SMS messages by using the keypad faster than I can write them with a stylus on my p800; it is both awesome and scary at the same time.
--- I do not moderate.
It's a tragedy for the people involved in the story.
I can't help but wonder if this story would have been posted under "It's funny. Laugh" if it had been an American company firing American workers.
Is it only funny because it is happening half a world away?
You'd think that registered mail would be more appropriate, more traceable, and more reliable.
And much more expensive. When a company is bankrupt and shutting down, things like that just aren't quite an option.
"The firm said it had no method for contacting striking staff other than using the short message service (SMS)."
Um, they had the cell phone number needed to send the sms - buck up and call them.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I'd suggest start working on your own business. It's not that hard to do. And with companies pushing more of the grunt paperwork down on already over-worked people, you might find it's less work than some of you are doing now. The big expense for most people is health insurance.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
is posting about the fax McFly gets in back to the future 2?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
These people also went on strike trying to get blood from a stone. The managers they were talking to were in charge of a division that was nearly bankrupt and about to get merged back into the mothership company... which means most of the people on the other side of the table also are likely to lose their jobs too.
So you like working for $0.25/hour, or whatever the employer decides to pay you that week.
For all their problems, organized labor unions (with laws protecting their rights) are a necessity to protect the common workers from exploitation.
Labor Strike != "not working". It is the only tool workers have for forcing fair negotiated wages and other compensation.
No, I'm not (and never have been) part of a union. Thankfully I'm in a profession which doesn't require that kind of protection. But Upton Sinclair and Tennesee Ernie Ford didn't get famous for bitching about non-issues...
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
It's called your right to strike, it has a lot to do with unions and the like, and it's one of the few things that (attempts to) keep capitalism from degrading into an awful muck of worker exploitation, decreasing middle classes, and huge poverty rates. Or at least, that's what numerous trips through history tell us.
There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
Sure others received similar spam awhile back titled "You're Fired". While I realize SMS is different, and more secure...I still wonder about the security...
What's to stop some spoofer/hacker/etc from sending out bogus, legit looking "You're Fired!" SMS - say from a stolen/borrowed/hacked cellphone or computer, etc of the company.
Even if it later is revealed the "You're Fired!" SMS were bogus, the damage is already done...
Ron
Labor unions are a great idea on paper, but sometimes in implementation they go wrong. In this case, it did. Any time a strike results in being the death blow to a weak business, it's a misuse of the tool. The union doesn't benefit from the destruction of the employer.
That's why I attempted to qualify my statement with "For all their problems...". And I was merely responding to the AC's cold attitude towards striking workers.
However, in this case, the company was going to go under anyway so these folks were screwed no matter what.
A good example of your point in current practice is the upcoming expiration of the NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement. The NHLPA (the players' union) is refusing to even discuss a salary cap, even in the face of an independent analysis of the NHL finances. I really think the NHLPA should reassess their position because a two-year work stoppage (as they are advising the players) would pretty much kill the NHL. Only us hard-core fans would be left (and I'd seriously look at where else I could spend my sports-viewing dollars).
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
I know it doesn't answer your question, but part of the issue is that there's always someone out there who will work for cheaper than you will. There are 6.2 billion people around here... chances are, I'll be able to find a handful of people who will work for moldy bread crumbs.... but that doesn't make it ethical to have that kind of set-up.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
If a company's workers would rather go hungry than go to work, it doesn't deserve to be in business.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
There are plenty of hard working people who will take the job.
A typo in your message. I think you meant to say:
There are plenty of exploited working people who will take the job.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
The union doesn't benefit from the destruction of the employer.
Workers don't benefit from destroying the employer but in some cases they do. For instance, if an employer has lower standards or wages than what one would expect in a particular society, workers won't lose much if such businesses go out of business. This is why labour supports minimum wage, even though it puts many companies out of business. It is much better for these low-wage companies to go out of business than to have them pay something very low.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Capitalism has no such thing as underpaid (or overpaid). Capitalists would do anything to drive wages as low as possible. Things like outsourcing are primarily done for such reasons.
Of course, I don't expect a libertarian-conservative like you to accept my view.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Listen: It's one thing to (allow) link to a major site to report a story without warning or a cache (though I don't buy the reasons they give in the FAQ, but that's another rant), it's another thing to link to a site for that has no relation to story.
/. knows who milton is, there was no need to link to this poor guy's site at all.
Practically everyone on
I'm just asking for a little consideration from the moderators not a linking policy.
minus
(and no, I didn't go to this guy's site)
"when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
http://www.swingline.com/html/1695.html
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I'm not sure how much registered mail costs but I doubt that at the end of the day it would have made a huge impact on their business. It's not like they were going completely out of business, the people affected represented 1/4 of the entire workforce. 161 registered mails surely wouldn't put them completely under.
It is much better for these low-wage companies to go out of business than to have them pay something very low.
What's wrong with hiring a kid to help build a fence on a weekend and paying them little? The kid has few responsibilities, and isn't accomplishing very much. He'd also be happy to get the money.
What's wrong with hiring a highschool student to do low-wage work as he lives with his parents? $4.00 an hour might pay for all the gas & food he needs.
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?
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).
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
If a person worked 65 hours a week at $3 per hour, they'd still be homeless a year later. The reason there is a minimum wage is to ensure that you are paid at least enough to feed, clothe and house yourself. $20 per week? For full time? That's fifty cents per hour. That's not even a McDonald's value meal by the end of the day. Do you honestly think that if we got rid of the minimum wage that suddenly the cost of the necessities of life would go down or that a homeless person who can panhandle $20 per day would work for eight hours to receive less than the price of a hamburger? Please.
There are 25 million Americans are working full time for at or near minimum wage. If you eliminated their wages entirely, it would reduce the wage expenses of the country by 267 billion. That's if they were SLAVES. Total salaries and wages in the United States are roughly 6.5 trillion. Would you institute slavery to get a four percent discount at Taco Bell? No? Then, would you make someone work 80 hours a week just to be able to afford food and shelter so you could get a two percent discount on your McValue meal? 60 hours so you could get one percent? Where do you draw the line?
I think anything ending with an "ist" or "ism" is a leach on the society. That includes the word "capitalism" (capitalism is not the same as the free market). Capitalism is a system where a small number people gain a disproportionate level of influence through market manipulations. The label "capitalism" was defined by people in the Marxist camp. The US was intended to be a free market.
For the free market to work, people have to have ownership of something. The game of selling your entire life to a company is a single transaction is not leading to optimal results. This game where the majority of people become 100% dependent on a single source of income is a farce. This episode of striking against a bankrupt firm and getting fired by text message can only be described as a comedy.
"Well, they were a little bit off in their prediction of the ubiquity of fax machines and stuff - nobody thought computers, email and wireless devices would be quite what they are now."
We don't know that a new trend in technology won't be like the fax machine. Likely? Eh maybe not. But who knows? Maybe we'll go through a 'simple' phase in life where we only want the really really important stuff to be printed?
Sorry if that sounds a little crazy, but in light of how full my inbox is right now, I'd certainly love for my family to just fax me. Then I know it's important since they'd be using my personal phone #.
"Derp de derp."
Why do people bag on capitalism so hard? America was built on capitalism, and is now the most powerful, prosperous country in the world. Say what you like about capitalism, it works. (Go ahead, I can feel the troll mods homing in as I type...)
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. --Edmund Burke
There's something about that argument that doesn't pass the smell test.
If the employer was bad, then the employees should just quit. At least then the company, if it truely was paying below market wages, will have to raise wages to hire new people, and has a chance of becoming a viable, good, employer.
To sum up:
No union: people quit over a period of time, people lose jobs, company still has a chance to make amends.
Union: People strike, people lose jobs, company destroyed.
I see no advantage to the labor union here.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Now, to be fair, if I go on strike I would feel the company totally justified in letting me go after three days for job abandonment
Wow, laws in the USA must be very different! Going on strike is totally different from job abandonment, workers strike is a legally valid option for Unions, which is turn are legally valid organizations of workers. Nobody can be fired for being on strike for 3,4 or more days, since a strike is a legal and valid form of protest. Not going to work for 3 days is a totally unrelated matter since I suppose that those days were not accounted for legally (sickness, pregnancy, etc).
S'cuse me?
...
S'cuse me?
...
I'll burn the building down...
Without a union supporting otherwise interchangable and easily-screwable workers, the company would have nothing to make amends *about*, since their dismally low wages would be "market wages" as usual.
No union:
Company lowers wages, but employees can't quit (can't afford to move, find a new job, etc.). Employers can keep cutting wages and benefits to a "barely living" wage. With lower labor costs, the company can cut retail price, maintain rising profits, and gain from both ends. To compete, other companies must follow suit. Overall market wages go down. Nobody's wages are below "market", but "market" sucks.
With union:
Company tries to lower wages. Union responds, stops work. Company is forced to negotiate, and keep wages high. Even non-union workers benifit, since the market retail and market wages are higher, and there is competition on a decent-wage playing field.
This works, of course, until someone finds a supply of non-union labor and finds it's easier to import, but... well... that's free trade.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
if they can receive an SMS message, doesn't that mean that they have a mobile phone
in which case you can ring them and ask them to come in for a "meeting".
Or at least TELL them they are fired over the phone.
Striking workers are really productive.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Why is this article filed under "funny"? If 161 Americans had been fired by instant message I rather think it'd be "your rights online". But because they're foreigners it's only important as something to laugh at. Maybe the editors have their aidience pegged, as the post above and the majority I've looked at are dumb insensitive jokes.
Don't paint the company that way. They were on strike, and that's an important detail to report. I don't blaim a business for firing striking workers when it can get away with it. Cause hey, it's a nasty working world out there and when your employees stop working because they believe they are mistreated that is one thing; but when people rush to replace them it's a good sign that the working conditions were at least RELATIVELY acceptable.
When people strike they should understand the likelihood that they will lose their job. If they don't consider this that's their own fault. You cam't blaim to company for defending it's own right to decide who does and does not work for it. They aren't black listing, they're firing people who aren't working.
And hey, it does beat just removing them from payroll.
It's gallows humor. Some things are so pathetic the only thing you can do is laugh; it's probably healthy, unless you identify the manager doing the layoffs.
The thing about a joke is, its not funny unless you understand. Unfortunately, almost all of us can understand what it's like to have a manager who swaggers around like a business lion but is, deep down, a coward. Any manager who would let his people go this way doesn't have the balls to be in business. It takes courage to give people bad news to their face. Especially a layoff, which pretty much indicates a management screw up.
"I projected wrong, and unfortunately as a result you don't have a job any more. I still have a job, and I realize this is not fair, so I will do what I can to help you."
A real leader would take the time to say somethign like this to each person's face. This does several things. One, it doesn't burn bridges. You never know when somebody you screw will be in a position to pay you, or your company back. The onther thing is that it keeps your remaining employees on board. How do you think the people who are left at this company feel? You think they have any respect for the managers who did this? Would anybody who has any ability have any loyalty to them?
Layoffs are an unfortuante part of business, but in the end, trust be, the joke is on the managers who did this.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.