Job security

“ I am fully aware that in this era of automation and onrushing technological change, no problems in the domestic economy are of greater concern than those involving job security and employment stability. Because of the potentially cruel impact upon the lives and fortunes of the working men and women of the Nation, these problems have understandably engaged the solicitous attention of government, of responsible private business, and particularly of organized labor. ”

“ There are many companies whose employees have job security who are quite able to plan their future and implement those plans. If, however, the at-will employment status of the workforce was so important, the employer should not have circulated a document so likely to lead employees into believing they had job security. ”

“ Job security is a thing of the past. Itinerancy in various McJobs reduces the incentive to invest time, effort, and resources into a position that may not be yours next week.
Brutal layoffs and downsizing traumatized the workforce and produced in the typical workplace a culture of obsequiousness, blind obeisance, the suppression of independent thought and speech, and avoidance of initiative and innovation. Many offices and shop floors now resemble prisons. ”

“ Promote the prevention, cessation or judicial prosecution of offences against public health, consumer rights, the quality of life or the preservation of the environment and the cultural heritage; b) Safeguard the property of the state, the autonomous regions and local authorities. Chapter III—Workers' rights, freedoms and guarantees Article 53 (Job security) Workers are guaranteed job security, and dismissal without fair cause or for political or ideological reasons is prohibited. ”

“ And the survival mechanisms which have been developed in recent decades, such as relatively stable employment relations, collective agreements, employee representation, employer-provided job training, and jointly funded social security schemes, may be sorely tested in a world where work crosses borders at the speed of light. ”

“ Controlling Labor Relations: Emergency provisions regulating labor relations in private enterprise appear to have four different motivations. First, wide scale control of the relations between employers and employees may constitute an integral part of a total program aimed at countering an economic depression. Second, it may be aimed at preventing unethical practices. Third, the purpose may be to avoid interruption of vital production. And, fourth, the control may be designed as a precaution against espionage, sabotage, or other violation of the national security. ”

“ So far as the law has altered in character, it has done so chiefly by gradual development of certain sanitary features, originally subordinate, and by strengthening provision for security against accidents and not by retreat from its earlier aims. At the same time a basis for possible new developments can be seen in the protection of “outworkers” as well as factory workers against fraudulent or defective particulars of piece-work rates of wages. ”

“ It is constantly being said, both by employers and by politicians, and even by writers in sympathy with working-class aspirations, that all that the workman needs in his life is security. Give him work under decent conditions, [214] runs the argument, with reasonable security of tenure and adequate guarantees against sickness, disablement and unemployment, and all will be well. This theory of what constitutes industrial welfare is, of course, when one thinks it out, some six centuries out of date. ”

“ In some of these State establishments for the unemployed the circle of industries was remarkably complete, and the whole product of their labor above expenses being shared among the workers, they enjoyed far better fare than when in private employment, together with a sense of security then impossible. The employer's power to control his workmen by the threat of discharge was broken from the time these co-operative systems began to be established, and when, later, the national industrial organization was ready to absorb them, they merely melted into it. ”

“ What one's hours are to be, what amount of work is expected during those hours, what periods of relief are available, what safety practices are observed, would all seem conditions of one's employment. There are other less tangible but no less important characteristics of a person's employment which might also be deemed 'conditions'-most prominently the characteristic involved in this case, the security of one's employment. ”

“ That the employer should have the right to direct his business in a manner that will make it successful, and for his interest, none should have the right to question. The successful direction of an enterprise by an employer results, necessarily, in the security of employment by the employe.
A business which is unsuccessfully prosecuted, or which is fettered by the employe in a manner which prevents its successful prosecution, must, of necessity, result in displacing the most trusted servant, or the most skilled artisan. ”

“ And when layoffs are necessary for the long-term health of the company, the best companies provide adequate notice and good severance so employees have a chance at a new job with a good income.
Fifth, every company in America has a duty to provide a safe workplace. No one should have to put themselves at risk just to put food on the table at home. Government has a part to play, too, with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. But the safest workplaces are those that work in partnership, where the value at work is a safe and healthy workplace. ”

“ In ignoring any possible negligence of the employee producing or contributing to the injury, the lawmaker reasonably may have been influenced by the belief that, in modern industry, the utmost diligence in the employer's service is in some degree inconsistent with adequate care on the part of the employee for his own safety; that the more intently he devotes himself to the work, the less he can take precautions for his own security. ”

“ The Department of Labor and agencies across the Federal Government are striving to defend workers' rights, hold employers accountable, and empower Americans across our country with the tools they need to stay safe on the job. We are pursuing enhanced whistleblower protections that will reinforce every worker's right to raise their voice without fear of retaliation. ”

“ Labour Protection does not indeed include the whole moral and personal security of the wage-earner, but it does include it, and includes it fully and entirely, in so far as the dangers which threaten this security arise out of the condition of dependence of the worker either within or beyond the limits of his business. ”

“ The Congress finds that the growth in size, scope, and numbers of employee benefit plans in recent years has been rapid and substantial; that the operational scope and economic impact of such plans is increasingly interstate; that the continued well-being and security of millions of employees and their dependents are directly affected by these plans; that they are affected with a national public interest; that they have become an important factor affecting the stability of employment and the successful development of industrial relations ”

“ As too many Americans know firsthand, the economy began to slow early last year, and terrorism has hit us hard. Many workers have lost jobs and others are seeing their hours cut. The American people want action to improve our economy, and so do I.
More than two months, and more than 700,000 lost jobs ago, I proposed an economic security package to help workers who have been laid off, and to take action to create jobs and promote long-term economic growth. ”

“ The overriding purpose of the Employment Security Act is to alleviate the economic hardship incident to unemployment, on the premise that economic insecurity from unemployment is a menace to the health, morals, and welfare of all Maine citizens. ”

“ It looks like a reflection on mankind in general to say that laboring men should have to ask legislation to protect their lives while at work. It would seem that employers would of their own accord regard the safety and the health of employes as of paramount importance, and yet it has been necessary even in the United States to compel the building of air-shafts in mines and to force the use of safety appliances on railroads and street car lines, and in the operation of machinery. ”

“ The intervention of the State as regards Labour Protection in such factory and quasi-factory work as is dangerous to health and decency, is doubtless justified in its extension to household industry and trading industry of the same kind; for neither is the moral character of the generality of employers and heads of commercial undertakings sufficiently perfect, nor are the discretion and self-protection of the workers sufficiently strong and widespread to render State protection unnecessary and voluntary protection sufficient. ”

“ Believing that security is the supreme good, they have insured against sickness and death, and have found an employment where they have little fear of dismissal and no hope of any great rise. But security, once achieved, brings a Nemesis of ennui. Adventure, imagination, risk, also have their claims; but how can these claims be satisfied by the ordinary wage-earner? Even if it were possible to satisfy them, the claims of wife and children have priority and must not be neglected. ”

“ No production and operation entity may reduce the wages, welfare standards and other remuneration of, or cancel the labor contracts concluded with its employees because the latter criticizes report, accuse the entity of the problems existing in its work safety management, or refuse to comply with the directions that are contrary to rules and regulations or arbitrary orders for risky operations. ”

“ Melville W. Mix, president of the Dodge Manufacturing Company, Mishawaka, Ind., and head of the manufacturers’ bureau of that state, placed the blame for 75 per cent of factory accidents on the disinterested and indifferent attitude of the employer toward his employe.
“Safety first is not a philanthropic movement on the part of employer to employe,” said he. “Safety first is a hard practicality of business extension. That seems a hard statement, but it is not without its qualifications, as there is a blood-and-soul side of every phase of business life. ”

“ To curb the occurrence of serious and major accidents and protect the lives and property of our people, we will strictly enforce the workplace safety responsibility system, and see that all responsibilities are fulfilled, namely, the primary responsibility of the enterprise itself, the regulatory responsibility of the government in the locality where the enterprise is located, and the oversight responsibility of the relevant government department. ”

“ Article 25
⁠Where the management of an enterprise gives a command contrary to the established rules and compels workers to operate under unsafe conditions, or, major hidden dangers of accidents and occupational hazards are found in the course of production, the trade union has the right to put forward proposals for a solution; where the life of the workers and staff is in danger, the trade union has the right to propose to the management that the workers and staff be evacuated from the dangerous site in an organized manner, and the management must make a decision without delay. ”

“ Both workman and employer are in many ways interested in providing against danger from fire, bad ventilation and lighting, bad sanitation, unprotected and dangerous machinery, and bad moral conditions in the factories and other places of work. What can the workman do to protect himself? (1) He may refuse to work whenever the conditions are bad. But this requires that he inspect the factory and judge of the sanitary conditions in each case, and that he then resist the temptation to accept employment of which he may be sorely in need. (2) He may ask higher wages to compensate for the added risk. ”

“ At the same time, if the employe should be so burdened that he could not exercise his talents in a manner to compass the line of work directed to be done, it would be unreasonable to expect from him the accomplishment of the task to which he had been assigned. There is a relation between the two around which such safeguards should be thrown as will insure that free action on the part of both that will remove the possibility of oppression, and at the same time retain, in its fullest sense, the relation of employer and employe. The necessity of the one to the other should not be forgotten. ”

“ A Labor Inspector makes only periodical visits to an enterprise, gives orders and directions but is incapable of establishing a daily control for their actual execution. In addition to this, Labor Protection gives actual results only when it is carried out by the whole working mass during its usual labor processes. For its maximum success the constant utilization is necessary of that knowledge of the peculiarities of every branch of individual piece of work, which is possessed by the workers engaged at the lathes who feel the necessity of carrying out the protection of Labor. ”

“ If it is taken to mean simply that the enterprises covered by the act should not limit production in accordance with some agreement with each other in order to increase profits, or to fight the unions, it will have little or no importance as regards the question of security of employment. ”

“ Thus far, however, there has been much opposition on the part of the employers, not only to measures for compensation, but to all safety measures.
I think the question of safety is the larger proposition. One thing the trade unions have done, they have trained up competent workmen, and if the employers would be careful in the selection of their employes, that would do much to protect life and limb. ”