Getting Fired
It’s Good for Business
By Daniel Muniz

A zookeeper employed at a zoo in the town of Recklinghausen Germany did more than care for the animals under his watch. He ate them. Instead of going to the local supermarket to purchase meat, this zoo employee barbecued two Cameroonian sheep he accosted from his workplace. The sheep were popular with the children who liked to pet them. The zoo employee also grilled five Tibetan mountain chickens.

Naturally, when the zookeeper was caught feasting on the town’s zoo animals, he was fired.

But getting fired in socialist Western Europe is not that easy even when an employee is caught red handed doing something completely outrageous. Socialist countries, like Germany, despise the idea of anybody losing his or her job for any reason whatsoever even if it was the worker’s fault.
 

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Consequently, the zookeeper challenged the dismissal, asserting that his contract mandated that he be given a six month notice before he can actually be released from his job. A labor court sided with the zoo worker and awarded him a six month severance package even though it was totally irrelevant that his termination was justified. The town agreed to pay the settlement but insisted that he does not need to return to work although there is nothing that the zoo could do to legally prevent him from coming back to his job site since he was not really separated yet.

To put it bluntly, socialist employment laws are insane.

It is imperative for any organization to have the ability to fire any employee, especially when his or her actions or lack of any interferes with company objectives. And more to the point, if that person becomes a menace to the workplace, then it is absolutely essential to get rid of that employee as soon as possible.

But Europe doesn’t work that way.

Although the employment laws of socialist countries have good intentions, they are patently misguided.

The purpose of protecting everybody’s job may be noble but the expectations are totally unrealistic. Some people are just not cut out to do certain kinds of work while others may not have the right temperament or personality to fit in for a particular occupation. And there are some people who have a lousy work ethic or a lack the maturity to do their job correctly. Additionally, there are some individuals who have the skills on paper but it doesn’t translate into real world circumstances for them to be successful at it.

Regardless of the reason, there are some people who have to be fired.

But what about the good people who are terminated for the wrong reasons?

For many people, that is perhaps the foundation of the egalitarian basis of protecting everybody’s job at all costs. Getting fired or laid off is an ugly traumatic event. And the moment that happens, it is like someone reaching into your pocketbook. It becomes frighteningly personal because people need an income to survive.

So is it the role of the government to prevent such deeply personal incidents from ever happening?

For the people who believe in that philosophy, they have to understand that there is a price to pay for it. In America, there are many government jobs that have a crummy reputation. Although there are many honest hardworking civil servants, it is the bad apples that give the governmental entities the bad rap. There are lazy irresponsible employees at all levels of government who collect a paycheck that they truly do not deserve. And much like Europe, it is next to impossible to get rid of such government workers even if they are involved in criminal activities.

And sadly, when there are too many rotten apples in the barrel, it discourages the good talented people who are inclined to become a civil servant from ever being interested. As a result, certain professions end up with more of the bad apples since it cannot attract any more of the good workers.

It is absolutely vital that a free market economy be allowed to have the flexibility to keep only the workers it wants. That means that people have to get fired or laid off. Although there will always be critics who despise such harsh realities of the American workforce, just take a look at what has been accomplished in the last century.

The United States has the greatest economy in the world which has allowed it to maintain its status as a superpower for decades. Its citizens enjoy one of the highest standards of living on the planet and even its poor people have it good when compared to the billions who live in abject poverty. It was the free enterprise system, not the government that created the enormous wealth and standard of living that Americans currently enjoy.

Yes, getting fired is a horrific experience and hundreds of millions of Americans have suffered through it in their lifetime and it is unfair that some people are terminated for the wrong reasons. However, the United States has a vibrant robust economy that keeps expanding and allowing for more people to join the great middle class. And about the only way to preserve that dynamic is to continue to allow the private sector to maintain its freedom of deciding which employees it wants to keep in their workforce.

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