this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
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This is the dumbest way to choose who is fired. You keep people on based on their skills and value to the business going forward, not how long they've been in the company. It may align with seniority, but it shouldn't be the deciding factor.
Part of unionization is often rewarding loyalty. Tenure begets benefits. This isn't a bad thing.
The world isn't a meritocracy. Pretending it is does nothing but feed the egos of the sociopaths stepping on our necks.
If it was an actual meritocracy the sociopaths, whose only real skill is manipulation, would not rise to a position where they could step on our necks.
It sounded to me like that was the system they worked out with the union, not necessarily that it was their first choice.
Maybe, that's not entirely clear to me. If that's the case then unions work differently than were I live. Here they negotiate what is a valid reason (in general, not on case-by-case situations) for termination, but not how they select the employees to terminate.
In America they often push for seniority based pay and layoffs. This is to fight favoritism and ensure that layoffs don't just mean that the highest paid workers lose their jobs. Laid off union employees often have the right to be recalled in order of seniority when a company returns to hiring people
Traditional, the least senior member of the team has the least experience and lowest skillset.
In reality that is not always the case though. I've had senior colleagues close to retirement age that did fuck-all, mostly resisted new ideas just because they liked it the old way, and were just waiting and wasting resources. If you keep these people and fire less senior (not necessarily junior/entry-level) people that were actually contributing, because of tradition, you're terrible at running your business.
Well, when you're CEO at Paizo, you can fire all the folks you think are slacking.
I'm not sure you read the article though, or know why the company's finances have gone sour
No I read it, and understand the predicament is caused by another company going bankrupt tying part of paizos stock in their warehouse. I still firmly believe firing less senior staff just because of tradition or some misguided honor code or whatever the hell it is, is complete bullshit.
This would have been previously agreed upon by the union contract, and they also said explicitly that the union would have a period of 20 days between selecting the business units where layoffs will happen and the actual layoffs to negotiate or provide alternatives. Paizo is a pro-union shop generally, and they're telling the union that layoffs are necessary and giving them a chance to make suggestions, while also following the terms of the union contract. Nothing shady about that.
Spoken like a true capitalist pig dog
hm, weird how that's not coming from lemmy.ml
It's a quote(or likely I'm misquoting it) from a movie or tv show i never remember the name of. I always liked the phrase.
No shitting on less senior staff just because of tradition (I.e. not taking responsibility for who you fire) is just the biggest possible asshole and coward move.
My guess is that they talked with their union, and both management and the union agreed that this would be the best, most respectful way to approach the layoffs, and has nothing to do with tradition.
If you aren't firing people because they are incompetent or for very specific reasons relating to that individual, then you are only treating people as cogs in a wheel. The time they spend working for you fucking matters. It's those who have been there the longest that have contributed to you than anyone else. Throwing them away because they are easily replaceable by someone who is new is incredibly inhumane
Right, and throwing the newest employees, who may be busting their ass off working harder and more for shittier pay, under the bus just because they are the newest in the door is somehow more humane or fair!? No it fucking isn't...
It's not pleasant but it is entirely fair. Last in first out IS fair.
Hard disagree. a merit-based approach rewarding skill and value, instead of a bullshit crony approach favoring old people just because, is much more fair.
Time is the only true resource we have. We all die. How much of someone's time should be wasted because you find someone better. There's 8 billion people on the planet and new ones born every day.
To only be valued until you find someone "better" is why reasonable societies have said to capital you can't fire people without cause
You call it cronyism which is not applicable to this situation. Or you need to explain how you are using that word. Because that's a term for when someone doesn't have the qualifications or other nominal requirements yet gets rewarded anyway.
In the situation we are discussing your argument is making asserting they can't do the job, when your arguing that new people might be more capable.
Age isn't the issue either. It's tenure at a job. It's unfair to throw someone out after they have been at one location for a long period of time. How cruel is it to force someone to start over after spending significant portions of their life there.
And your argument about merit ignores that we are fallable. There is no objective and definitive methodology of assessing someone's merit. You can come up with a system sure, but that doesn't mean it is perfect or even that great, but you can do it.
And what message does that tell your team? What does that do to moral. Bobs been here for 20 years, but new guy graduated first in his class yesterday so Bobs out cause he wasnt even top 10 in his class of 1000 people. That's rediculous too.
Theres no humanity in that decision only cruelty. Sure it sucks for the new guy to be let go, and they may be amazing, but Bob paid his dues.
And again this is about a situation where everyone would be kept if possible. It's not Bob sucks but he's in the union or we can't prove he's doing something wrong.
PS also keep in mind I am responding you saying seniority the DUMBEST methodology ever for choosing who to let go in a situation where it's deemed necessary to cut people. I'm not saying it's perfect or the best but its absolutely capitalist pig dog mentality to only consider who is going to make you the most money at any given moment.
Capitalist pig dog is such a good insult
Thanks, ifs a quote or misquote but I have no idea where it's from. I quite like it too.
For those who didn't ask for it but might be interested... When saying it the words are slightly clipped when spoken as I remember. So when I hear it in my head or read it out loud it's like; Not staccato, like a score would write, but, a very distant cousin might not entirely inaccurate either.