This kind of pure inflammation is trolling. Please don't do this here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I live in Idaho, so I can speak to this case specifically.

Idaho is a very rural state. Most of the population is in Boise, but every district in the state has a representative. This means that the wills of the city goers can't overrule the wills of the larger state as a whole, even thought it has the majority of the population.

Now, something to know about rural America is that it tends tomostly care about two things -- religion and the right to bear arms (this is a generalization, of course). As a result, the elected officials typically campaign on those points, and everything else is glassed over. Thusly, many of the elected officials serve special interest groups under the guise of a bible and a gun, and the rest doesn't really matter. It's not lack of intelligence, but lack or priorities other than these.

And that's how Idaho residents put up with these types of laws being put in place.

> religion and the right to bear arms (this is a generalization, of course).

Minor nit (sorry!) but rural folks mainly want limited government – a lot of their other arguments stem from that. They tend to not like power or authority and want to be left alone. (Perhaps to commit their own power abuses!)

Having lived the first 35 years of my life almost entirely in conservative states: "limited government" means "government won't bother you as long as you act like a good conservative, but once you stop acting like a good conservative all bets are off".

We're seeing this openly practiced in places like Missouri and North Carolina, where the state legislatures advocate for limited government right until the moment a city in the state passes something whose social implications they disagree with. Then, as if by magic, a new state law appears to override the city policy or strip away the city's power to have such a policy.

They always say they want limited government, but they also say they want government to control who you can marry, who you can have sex with, what drugs you can take, and what women can do with their own bodies. And they say these things completely oblivious to the hypocrisy involved.

Yes, they also want that. I'm speaking mostly about Idaho, where the religious influence is very strong in the southern half (Mormonism) and the neo-nazi influences in the northern half (Ruby Ridge).

Most will say limited gov and then in the same breath talk about how Christianity should be enforced as the nation's official religion, and how 2A laws should be expanded upon, both requiring bigger gov.

What gun laws do you think Idahoans, of all people, want to see expanded?

> What gun laws do you think Idahoans, of all people, want to see expanded?

Any law pertaining to firearms, because most believe the "liberals" are coming for their guns, so the further right the laws are, the more ground there is to fight.

For example, Idaho recently passed a "Constitutional Carry" law which allows anyone who legally owns a firearm to conceal it, without any training or permits. Previously, a background check and conversation with your local sherif was required to obtain a Concealed Weapon License. This barrier was low, and I'd never heard of anyone being denied, but apparently it was too invasive. I exercised my right to this prior (licensed) and after the change, and feel it wasn't a logical change.

So previously, there was a law that said "it is a felony to carry a firearm in public, except as follows...", or something to that effect.

Now there is no such law.

I sincerely don't understand how you can view the removal of a law as "bigger government."

You're right, it's not a good example of bigger government. I think I got sidetracked in my reasoning.

I live in the south, in the heart of "limited government" country, and I voted Republican until the last election (but I was always more of a libertarian).

There are libertarians in rural areas who really want limited government--they exist.

But they are vastly outnumbered by cultural conservatives, who want to use the government to shape the country into a version of what they think existed in the 1950s.

What is the issue with "at will"? That benefits both sides - unless I'm unique in the fact that I've never had a negative experience with it?

"What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between [workmen and masters], whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour.

"It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate."

-- Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 8.

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_...

There's seems to be some kind of American myth that "at will"-employment is for the benefit of the employee, or in the very least of equal benefit to both parties.

That may be true for educated middle to upper class professionals, without children or other dependants, but I have a hard time seeing how it benefits the average worker.

The issue is that each side has vastly different costs to the employee leaving.

Imagine we have a 100 person company. If an employer loses an employee, they are down 1/100 of their production until they can find someone to replace them. If an employee loses their job, the lose 100% of their production.

Unless the company is very small or the employee is insanely important, the cost is just not equal for each side.

Employers have all the financial leverage and employees have none. Even people with highly-sought-after skills and experience are more easily replaced than some of those people can find a new job with comparable compensation.

So the two sides arrive at the "correct" amount of pay. How is that a problem? If someone wants to offer an employee more money, shorter commute, better perks, personal unicorn to fetch coffee from Starbucks, employee tells the employer "bye" and moves.

If an employer finds someone who can do employees job better or cheaper, employer tells that employee "Bye!"

Will the job market become commoditized? Sure. And it is absolutely great. Commoditization increases access to products of the said market.

[Edit: It is highly amusing to see people's reaction in this thread. It is akin to a toddler stomping his foot saying "Mommy, I don't want to!"]

In theory, yes, the parties arrive at the "correct" amount of pay, and the transaction goes forward.

In practice, however, the typical employee only has one source of income (the job from their employer), while the employer has many employees. This makes the employee less able to survive loss of the job than the employer to survive loss of the employee. That's what leads to the imbalance of power between employee and employer.

As an individual working for a corporation, you have to keep in mind that you're depending on a sociopathic entity for your survival. Said sociopathic entity is legally mandated to act in the best interests of shareholders and investors, and to disregard your interests entirely unless they happen to align. This makes them as dangerous as a wild animal, but, fortunately, more predictable.

This attitude is literally why Trump was elected president. Multinationals can just pay people in other countries much less for similar output. They have the leverage and former employees have none.

What's the benefit to the employee?

Well, it's a small thing but being able to leave on a moment's notice and not having it considered a breach of contract is helpful.

I was a bit surprised to find that instead of being a matter of courtesy, I'm contractually obligated to give 6 weeks' notice before leaving. I don't mind, really, but it's still kind of ridiculous.

Whether it's ridiculous or not is a matter of perspective. In Europe the minimum is 1-3 months, though there's often a trial period where the obligated notice is 1 week or less.

In practice though the employee/employer are free to upon termination sign an agreement reducing the dismissal period to whatever they feel is appropriate. Few employers wants to keep an employee that's decided to quit longer than strictly necessary.

This is indeed in Europe.

Again, I don't really mind, but it was surprising.

I sincerely doubt that the contract that you are in is enforceable.

If you just stopped going to work one day, and didn't tell anybody, there is nothing anybody could do about it.

They can sue you if you're in breach of a contract. However, unless it were some special circumstance, I expect they'd make do with just withholding any payments.

In exchange, the employer also has to give as much notice before firing you, right? I would say that's a reasonably fair trade.

In India four to six months notice is extremely common requirement.

The employee can take another job whenever they want to? The alternative is a contract that says I can't fire you absent these specified reasons for X period of time and you can't leave absent these specified reasons no matter how much you hate it.

Given the inherent imbalance of power, another alternative is to remedy that imbalance by giving the favour of flexibility to the worker rather than the employer.