An employer that allows some employees to endanger others is negligent, most importantly in terms of ethics, but also in terms of productivity.
Your right to swing your fist ends at my face. If you want to work with people, you have to take reasonable measures not to harm them.
An employer that is willing to tell me to come in to work with people who refuse to get vaccinated is one that doesn't care about my well-being, and one I don't want to work for.
People have every right to refuse to enter into an employment contract that imposes such obligations.
What they don't have a right to do is deny employers the right to offer any terms they want. You're promoting authoritarian infringements on the right of consenting adults to engage in voluntary interactions.
Employees are in a much weaker position than companies, they are not in an equal position so consent doesn't come into the equation, as far as I'm concerned.
All you're doing here is re-stating your original argument, seemingly without actually understanding my criticism of it. I'm not sure what you're hoping to accomplish by that, but it strikes me as very strange.
Look, let's say we observe an employee and employer undertaking a discussion that goes something like this.
"Take this medicine"
"No I don't want to"
"Take it or else you're fired"
"I'm not going to take it, fire me if you have to."
"OK, you're fired"
"That's going to turn out poorly for the people who must now suffer the consequences of not having people available to do my job"
I don't understand how you jump to the conclusion that the reason the employee refuses to take the medicine is so they can have that last line of dialogue, rather than that they don't want to take the medicine.
In the US, there is a fair amount of respect (in business at least) for the idea of “consent to continue the interaction can be revoked with or without cause at any time”.
I personally can’t see a good reason why it should be illegal outside the rare edge case where there is only a single employer in a geographical region, and even that unfortunate situation should probably be remediated with a different type of government intervention.
Employers should be able to be unreasonable and shoot their business in the foot, no?
No, the problem is that sometimes, people are not able to refuse a work agreement. There are plenty of cases where a potential employee essentially has a choice between signing and starving. If the employer knows this, that is no longer an agreement between consenting adults.
If I put a gun to your head, and you then 'consent' to an agreement where you give me money, and I don't shoot you, is that a hallmark of free society?
“As my employer you have no right to dictate what I do on my own time, nor should you even be aware or have opinions.”
Disagree it’s the employees job to find a job and employer that offers the right terms for you personally.
Lots of jobs have contracts that do limit what you can say or do outside hours of work.
The White House press secretary doesn’t get to go home after work and talk smack about the president on Twitch.
Members of the military can’t go and work out with enemies of the state on vacation.
As long as the agreement is clearly communicated and voluntary at the start of employment there are reasonable limits to employees even after work hours.
I love freedom but I understand discipline and limitations make everyone more free than chaos.
I see that you hold the belief that consenting adults willingly working are being forced to do so, I do not share this belief that corporation are forcing anyone to work for them. Maybe you have been conditioned by years of State education to believe that employment does not imply consent between two parties but is a forced procedure. Many philosophers do not agree with that and consider work contracting to be consented between willing adults.
This is a fair argument, but the solution isn't to just strip the employees right to own their own thoughts.
The specific problem seems to be about patents and trade secrets. If a contract covered those two things well, would an employer have legitimate cause to push further than that?
This isn't a debate where the moral strength of the argument about the sufficiency of a particular policy carries the day - the employer gets the final say because they're writing the check. Your option as an employee is to leave.
The idea that you can demand to stay in your position and continue to pursue your own agenda is so odd. If you want that kind of freedom, you're not going to find it in corporate life.
Right, but my opinion is that the protection option should be the default, with employee (and employer!) free to negotiate a mutually beneficial agreement.
In my mind, it's a matter of inertia - if "protected" is default, then if an employer wishes to have the ability to fire anyone at will, they need to offer concessions - whether it be a higher salary, or the ability to quit at will, or whatever.
However, if "not protected" is the default case, then it becomes far more difficult for an employee to obtain such protection, as it's not beneficial to the employer. And as such, barring anyone who can negotiate their own contract (the minority, generally), most people will remain unprotected. And I believe that to be a problem, for reasons I mentioned elsewhere in this comment thread.
I can only go by what arguments you choose to present. I'm not a big supporter of 'freedom of contract' (as a strategic response to regulation), but it's such an obvious objection to your slavery argument that I was surprised you didn't address it.
As for the more general, companies have interests, just like individuals, and seek to maximize them. Numerous people have pointed out that they are able to negotiate exceptions or get such clauses removed from their employment contracts. I'm sorry about your sick cat, but I also think that economic/contractual negotiations are a fact of life that it's better to prepare for than expect protection from.
I disagree. It is not a better world to prevent people (employers) from doing things that they wish to do, that willing consensual partners in those activities do not object to.
If you don’t want this to happen in your own life, then don’t sign such contracts. Leave other people to their own business. You are not their parent.
Nothing is forcing them to offer it, but I'm expressing my opinion and saying something should force them not to, because my employer should have nothing to do with my health
What if we think about workplace requirements for vaccines? Does your opinion on employee option to not consent remain?
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