[USNetizen]

I'd much rather own/operate a business in an At Will environment. If someone isn't performing, you don't have to worry about tens of thousands of dollars (or more) in legal fees to defend your decision to get rid of them. Add to that all of the lost productivity and taxes paid funding a position for someone who is wholly incapable and then having to create a year-long paper trail to back up a decision you came to as little as a month into their employment.

That is time and money that could have gone towards hiring high-skill, productive people who actually WANT to work at your company and supporting expansion (e.g. new job creation).

Contrary to your statement, Knowledge Workers fare the same in At-Will situations as they do in others because of the high levels of job demand. The demand itself motivates employers to retain them (and if they don't want to incentivize their retention, there are thousands of other companies that will).

I'm speaking, of course, as an employer who has offices in both At-Will and other states in the U.S.

[kyllo]

The term "Right to Work" doesn't mean that employment contracts are required. Right to Work is a euphemistic term for "employees cannot be required to join a labor union." Totally different issue. Many states are both "At Will" and "Right to Work." All US states implement "At Will" employment but some states have exceptions to the rule.

[santaclaus]

> Right to Work is a euphemistic term for "employees cannot be required to join a labor union."

I thought forcing someone to join a labor union as a condition of employment was illegal under Taft-Hartley across the entire U.S.? One can be required to pay agency fees to unions for contract negotiations, however.

[kyllo]

Taft-Hartley outlawed closed shops but did not outlaw union shops:

A pre-entry closed shop is a form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to hire union members only, and employees must remain members of the union at all times in order to remain employed. This is different from a post-entry closed shop (US:union shop), which is an agreement requiring all employees to join the union if they are not already members. In a union shop, the union must accept as a member any person hired by the employer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_shop

A union shop is a form of a union security clause under which the employer agrees to hire either labor union members or nonmembers but all non-union employees must become union members within a specified period of time or lose their jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_shop

A Right to Work law is a state law that outlaws Union Shops in that particular state as well.

[rmc]

Likewise in EU/CoE. There is a right to form and join a trade union, and that extends to not joining a trade union. However no-where in EU has "at will" employment.

[USNetizen]

Terminology has been corrected. Though, not all states are "At Will" given the severe restrictions they place on it.

[6t6t6]

The problem is who defines what is under-performing. For some employers, not performing may mean not wiling to assist to meetings at 8 pm or taking job related phone calls on weekend.

In many European countries it is possible to fire a worker who is not performing, but the employer needs to prove the reasons, and also which steps have been done in order to correct the situation before taking the decision to fire this person.

[cma]

> high levels of job demand

But then there are the normal boom/bust cycles. Tech workers were largely immune to the last bust, but that isn't historically the case.

[rmc]

> I'd much rather own/operate a business in an At Will environment.

Laws that are good for employees are usually disliked by employers.