This makes it easier for them to fire you and everyone else. Why, even as a contractor, would you be ok with that? Niceties or no you are weakening your own position and the value of you labor.

Why should a company be forced to continue to pay for employees they aren't in need of?

Where did I say companies should be forced to pay for employees they don't need? I didn't say that.

What I did say is that this is yet another move by business to pay you less and offer you less security for your labor - because let's be honest, that's what this is. Companies will go with the lowest bidder they think can get the job done. Do you really want to have a race to the bottom for the price of your labor?

And for that matter, how do you think unions, tenure, weekends, 40 hr workweeks, PTO, sick leave, health benefits, and a whole other myriad of benefits for your labor came about? I guarantee you its certainly NOT because people in the past viewed their labor value as purely transactional to themselves and their employers.

You as an employee have far more to lose.

Because other countries have decided that "we need to make our quarterly earnings look good" isn't a good enough reason to can half your staff over. If you fire an employee at anytime it's just unpredictable (and inefficient) contract work.

To take the lucrative job someone less skilled was holding.

I'm not proposing any changes in legislation to make it easier to fire anyone.

What I am advocating for is for people here to see reality more clearly.

What you're doing is playing Devil's advocate?

C'mon now: "to see reality", "not proposing to make it easier to fire people".

Why can't the working class demand changes and influence the reality?

Coming from a contractor... yeah, really...?

I want to work for a company that’s financially strong (or at least profitable). If that means they sometimes fire people, that’s ok. I want my “don’t fire them” to be based on a premise that I’m creating much more value for them than I cost. That’s a stable situation for all parties, short and long term.

It doesn’t work like that though for publicly traded companies. Even if you bring in more revenue that they be are paying you, it can be attractive to fire you to juice the stock price on Wall Street.

I guess you never worked for a company that got record earnings after laying off 10000 employees.

I don't want my company in the red, but I also don't want to feel like I'm dangling on a cliff. There's a reason most companies stopped doing stack rankings.

He's hurt he didn't get the same benefits as full-time. That's why.

Actually, if you accept to work for free, a good business decision would be to stop paying you.

Would you act personally surprised or offended or hurt if your company made that business decision?

That would be a terrible business decision, because the company would have no employees.

You missed part of the idea: "if you accept to work for free".

The parent was saying (if I understood correctly): "stop complaining, you should accept the business decision, because that's what a company does: optimize the profit without caring about how the employees feel".

I was just saying that as an employee, you have the right to negotiate your working conditions. If you accept all the "business decisions" because they help the company make more profit, then they will stop paying you. That would be completely rational as a business decision.

If I accepted to work for free, I would be absolutely fine with the company taking me up on the offer. I'd be shocked if they didn't.

> Acting personally surprised or offended or hurt when a business makes a business decision is not good for you. The sooner people accept and realise this the better.

Exactly, which is why labour of all classes and types should organize and gain power against businesses. Too bad the labour movement was killed decades ago.