Are Americans more likely to be pro-employer rather than pro-employees?

[Deathknightish]

Every time I've heard someone say stuff like "Why should corporations have to pay for employee's vacation days? They should save up for the money they need to survive those days themselves, it's not my problem as an employer" or "why should employers have to pay for sick employees?" and such, it has always been Americans.

Why is this? Are Americans less likely to be pro-employees, and rather stand on the employers side when it comes to benefits at work and such?
Sounds so foreign to me, who lives in Sweden where basically everything is made for the benefit for the employee, not the employer, when it comes to work.

Unions seem to be absolutely despised in the U.S as well, where as they are a natural thing here that people are expected to be a part of.

[Sunseeker]

Because most Americans are under the delusion that they're part of the wealthy class.

[ipaq]

Thanks to the work of outfit like Heritage Foundation... Its almost 100% support for the slavers.

Every time I've heard someone say stuff like "Why should corporations have to pay for employee's vacation days? They should save up for the money they need to survive those days themselves, it's not my problem as an employer" or "why should employers have to pay for sick employees?" and such, it has always been Americans.

Why is this? Are Americans less likely to be pro-employees, and rather stand on the employers side when it comes to benefits at work and such?
Sounds so foreign to me, who lives in Sweden where basically everything is made for the benefit for the employee, not the employer, when it comes to work.

Unions seem to be absolutely despised in the U.S as well, where as they are a natural thing here that people are expected to be a part of.

[Combatbutler]

Because most Americans are under the delusion that they're part of the wealthy class.

I'd say more the delusion that they one day might become part of that class. The american dream and all that hogwash.

[Svifnymr]

Every time I've heard someone say stuff like "Why should corporations have to pay for employee's vacation days? They should save up for the money they need to survive those days themselves, it's not my problem as an employer" or "why should employers have to pay for sick employees?" and such, it has always been Americans.

Why is this? Are Americans less likely to be pro-employees, and rather stand on the employers side when it comes to benefits at work and such?
Sounds so foreign to me, who lives in Sweden where basically everything is made for the benefit for the employee, not the employer, when it comes to work.

Different evolutions/ timeframes for the development of either society. How long was the transition from a feudal (no worker rights) society to a free society with worker protections for Sweden? Compare this to the evolution of American society, and the presence of capitalism in a wide open arena vs being crammed against other European nations that were busy invading each other from time to time. King vs Guild became Government vs Corporation and workers are protected at the expense of corporations whereas in America there are fewer restrictions for workers. Of course, there's the side effect that the larger corporations shuffle resources to areas that cost less/ fewer restrictions.

So really, singling out USA when there's countries like China or India or whatever... eh.

Likewise, any companies that wish to retain employees offer vacation/ sick time. So sure, some low-training jobs offer no such thing since it's easy to replace the person, but that also results in the quality of employees that would take that job being the folks with no other option. As welfare has made the prospect of not-working as livable as the prospect of working in those style of jobs, it's become harder to find people. I imagine in Sweden folks just don't take those jobs (or, more likely, they're done by immigrants or something)?

Unions seem to be absolutely despised in the U.S as well, where as they are a natural thing here that people are expected to be a part of.

Collective bargaining doesn't have the same stigma as organized unions, but even Unions are well liked by many. Of course, they're also widely considered corrupt, so there is that.

I certainly don't think the anecdotal experiences you've had are representative of American thought on the subject, let alone other countries with even less coverage, but there's certainly discussions to be had about the value of such things from both sides (boss or employee).

Like, I support Maternity Leave to an extent, but lets say you give the person a month off when baby is due. You need to either cover that job for a month by everyone else doing extra work, or hire someone to do that job for that time period. If you can easily cover it, why do you need the person at all? If you hire someone else, then you fire that person after a month? What if they're better than the person on leave? How does offering Maternity Leave tie into finding reasons to not hire women that might get pregnant? It's not as simple as "Maternity Leave is a basic human right!" and done.

[Stormdash]

We value hard work and self-reliance. Benefits from your employer should come because you negotiated them based on your value in the job. Businesses aren't there to provide jobs and "living" wages; they are there to make money for their owner. They provide jobs and wages as means to that end, not as an end unto itself.

[Deathknightish]

We value hard work and self-reliance. Benefits from your employer should come because you negotiated them based on your value in the job. Businesses aren't there to provide jobs and "living" wages; they are there to make money for their owner. They provide jobs and wages as means to that end, not as an end unto itself.

I mean... not everybody can own a business, or have enough smarts to educate themselves into a good job. There will always be people who are stuck at factories or flippin' burgers. I don't see what's wrong in making sure they have their benefits covered as well, not just those who are above those entry-level jobs.

I don't think 4 weeks vacation and sick days where you are still paid 80% of your wage is too much to ask for every worker.

[Machismo]

Why not support both?

[Deathknightish]

Why not support both?

Of course, but the employee is often the weaker of the two, and thus need more protections. For instance, here it's extremely hard to fire someone who passed the 6 month trial employment. You have to screw up royally, or do actual sabotage, to really have a chance to get fired. I think that's good, because it puts a lot of peace of mind on the employees. They don't have to worry about getting fired on a whim.

[Machismo]

Of course, but the employee is often the weaker of the two, and thus need more protections. For instance, here it's extremely hard to fire someone who passed the 6 month trial employment. You have to screw up royally, or do actual sabotage, to really have a chance to get fired. I think that's good, because it puts a lot of ease of mind on the employees. They don't have to worry about getting fired on a whim.

No, they don't need more protections, they need to assert their power. People shouldn't be "extremely hard to fire someone who passed the 6 month trial employment."

If an employee can quit on a whim, they should be free to be fired on a whim.

[Combatbutler]

If an employee can quit on a whim, they should be free to be fired on a whim.

Which they can't, they would need to notify the employer one month prior.

[Deathknightish]

No, they don't need more protections, they need to assert their power. People shouldn't be "extremely hard to fire someone who passed the 6 month trial employment."

Why not? What exactly is bad about feeling secure about your living and not having to worry about getting fired for bullshit reasons? You can still fire people who actively damage you business. What other reason would employers even need to fire someone? The 6 month trial period is meant to filter out bad workers. During those you can fire someone for any reason you want.

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Which they can't, they would need to notify the employer one month prior.

This. In my country it's even common with 2-3 months notice. You can't just quit and leave the very next day. I think it's illegal, even.

[Machismo]

Which they can't, they would need to notify the employer one month prior.

Yet another restriction to capitalism and the free markets.

No thanks.

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Why not? What exactly is bad about feeling secure about your living and not having to worry about getting fired for bullshit reasons? You can still fire people who actively damage you business. What other reason would employers even need to fire someone? The 6 month trial period is meant to filter out bad workers. During those you can fire someone for any reason you want.

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This. In my country it's even common with 2-3 months notice. You can't just quit and leave the very next day. I think it's illegal, even.

Like I said, I support both employees and employers.

That's what capitalism is all about.

[Combatbutler]

Yet another restriction to capitalism and the free markets.

No thanks.

Which is a very good thing. A truly free market is absolute cancer.

[Machismo]

Which is a very good thing. A truly free market is absolute cancer.

Nah, I'd much prefer people be able to quit shitty jobs, and companies be able to fire shitty employees.

[Stormdash]

I mean... not everybody can own a business, or have enough smarts to educate themselves into a good job. There will always be people who are stuck at factories or flippin' burgers. I don't see what's wrong in making sure they have their benefits covered as well, not just those who are above those entry-level jobs.

I don't think 4 weeks vacation and sick days where you are still paid 80% of your wage is too much to ask for every worker.

The work of a burger flipper doesn't provide value to the employer commensurate with giving up lavish benefits or a $30k plus salary. There is a reason the "unskilled" job market is called that - and your first tier service industry and retail staff aren't doing anything that require any specialized knowledge or involved training that requires a deeper financial investment.

Gonna use the example of a small business, a restaurant. Generally speaking, to be profitable at all - like, to have more net money left over after everything running the business cost you, including everything you spend on licenses, taxes, utilities, rents, capital expenditures like the equipment, etc, all these essentially fixed costs - to even be turning a modest profit, like 4-10% - you need to be running your combined food/labor cost between 50-55% of revenue.

Now I should point out, that 4-10%, if the restaurant does $500,000 in a year in revenue, that profit is $20k-$50k for the year. That's the profit. That's what that small business owner lives on, and pays their own taxes. On average, a new restaurant in its first year across all sectors has revenue closer to $100k. Do that math.

Now perhaps the owner works and pays themselves a salary, but then they count on their own labor cost and it's really just robbing Peter to pay Paul, if you follow.

In a single-unit operation, the owner probably works the restaurant as well, nominally for free, to reduce labor costs.

So here's the thing - if you have this business owner, whose working their own restaurant at 40-50 hours a week and living just on the restaurant's profits, assuming this is a stable and quite successful restaurant, may be living on $40k-$50k a year. She is running F/L at 55%, trying to keep her food costs low to pay her staff enough to retain loyalty. A regulation comes in that requires her to give each of them an hourly wage equivalent to $30k a year and two weeks paid vacation - she'd be out of business, immediately. Best case, she can try to stay open by cutting everyone to part time and hope that they stay at all.

Now, understand that of all your big national chains like a Domino's or a Chick-Fil-A or a Subway... these are just that small one-unit restaurant owner. One of their fixed costs is the franchising fee and royalties they pay to have the brand value of that chain attached to their business. But they get hit with those burdens because BIG CORPORATION... and she was only ever living on a lower-middle class income in the first place.

[Combatbutler]

Nah, I'd much prefer people be able to quit shitty jobs, and companies be able to fire shitty employees.

Which is still very much possible, just in a far more orderly fashion.

[Machismo]

Which is still very much possible, just in a far more orderly fashion.

Nah, no need to slow it down with government entanglement and restrictions. Let them be fired immediately, let them quit immediately.

[Combatbutler]

Nah, no need to slow it down with government entanglement and restrictions. Let them be fired immediately, let them quit immediately.

And ultimately have a shitty working system, with people being utterly exploited left and right, essentially little more than working drones.

[Deathknightish]

The work of a burger flipper doesn't provide value to the employer commensurate with giving up lavish benefits or a $30k plus salary. There is a reason the "unskilled" job market is called that - and your first tier service industry and retail staff aren't doing anything that require any specialized knowledge or involved training that requires a deeper financial investment.

Gonna use the example of a small business, a restaurant. Generally speaking, to be profitable at all - like, to have more net money left over after everything running the business cost you, including everything you spend on licenses, taxes, utilities, rents, capital expenditures like the equipment, etc, all these essentially fixed costs - to even be turning a modest profit, like 4-10% - you need to be running your combined food/labor cost between 50-55% of revenue.

Now I should point out, that 4-10%, if the restaurant does $500,000 in a year in revenue, that profit is $20k-$50k for the year. That's the profit. That's what that small business owner lives on, and pays their own taxes. On average, a new restaurant in its first year across all sectors has revenue closer to $100k. Do that math.

Now perhaps the owner works and pays themselves a salary, but then they count on their own labor cost and it's really just robbing Peter to pay Paul, if you follow.

In a single-unit operation, the owner probably works the restaurant as well, nominally for free, to reduce labor costs.

So here's the thing - if you have this business owner, whose working their own restaurant at 40-50 hours a week and living just on the restaurant's profits, assuming this is a stable and quite successful restaurant, may be living on $40k-$50k a year. She is running F/L at 55%, trying to keep her food costs low to pay her staff enough to retain loyalty. A regulation comes in that requires her to give each of them an hourly wage equivalent to $30k a year and two weeks paid vacation - she'd be out of business, immediately. Best case, she can try to stay open by cutting everyone to part time and hope that they stay at all.

Now, understand that of all your big national chains like a Domino's or a Chick-Fil-A or a Subway... these are just that small one-unit restaurant owner. One of their fixed costs is the franchising fee and royalties they pay to have the brand value of that chain attached to their business. But they get hit with those burdens because BIG CORPORATION... and she was only ever living on a lower-middle class income in the first place.

I understand all that, but why would it not be possible in the U.S if it's possible in most European countries? It's not like we have a lack of small-sized businesses who don't go bankrupt because of employee benefits.