Right to work at its most generic level means freedom from being forced into a union, not freedom from being held to a contract.
Nobody has these except top execs who are already in a huge position of power.
> vacation days, sick days, payout of the same
Nope, not anymore: nothing is guaranteed with "flexible time off". I literally cannot meet my performance goal if I take more than 1 day of sick/vacation day PER YEAR. Yes, my raises are tied to this performance goal. Yes, it's probably illegal, but who cares? Nobody is ever going to do anything about it. This is every company with FTO. Who gets "paid out" for PTO anymore?
> IP guarantees for hobby work
You're joking, right? Most employment contracts claim that they own the slam poetry you write on your napkin at 2:00 am on a Saturday while high on your couch. Every mention of IP in an employment contract is as greedy as possible.
> employment benefits
Ok but in a right to work state these can be terminated any time anyway.
Literally nothing about an employment contract is ever written in favor of the actual employee. Of course it's not: they wrote it. If every company in an industry does this and they all refuse to negotiate, workers have no choice but to sign it. It's crazy to me to think that a U.S. company would voluntarily ever do anything in the interest of any of its employees, ever. This is the whole reason why ambiguities are supposed to go in favor of the party that didn't write it. Voiding any part of an employee contract can therefore only ever benefit the employee (except possibly the part where they get paid). If you want protections for employees, look to regulation and unions, not contracts written by the employer.
If you want protections for employees, sure you can (erroneously, in my opinion) look to unions. If you want protections for yourself, look to negotiate.
I suspect you have lived a very privileged life if you really believe these options are actually open to most employees in the U.S. Switch industries? Start your own company? Those are both extreme life-altering multi-year responses to losing PTO payout, and only work for people who have major safety nets and support in their lives. Companies pull this bullshit because they know they can get away with it. Guess what: they're right. I'm glad you are in such a state of privilege that you can spend 4 years going back to college and switching industries without going into massive debt and without suffering from the loss of income during that time, but you are extremely lucky to be in that position. Do not assume others are lazy and/or stupid and/or bad negotiators because they can't. Negotiating is not about shaking hands harder, it's about having leverage, and 98% of U.S. workers have none.
> negotiate better working conditions next time you get hired
These were not the working conditions at the time I was hired. None of this was in any contract I signed. Companies change this stuff after-the-fact all the time. What are you going to do, hire an employment lawyer? You'd poison your own drinking well, potentially forever, with the possible upside of being the only employee in your company that actually get PTO paid out? Come on. Nobody is doing this. Companies pull this bullshit because they can.
why not get another job?
And because I like my immediate teammates a lot.
And because the issues I'm railing against are incredibly pervasive in most companies in the United States and probably beyond. Our capitalism has been completely taken over by a caste of parasitic leeches who enshittify everything they touch and I am under no illusion that any other job would be any different.
But I do also look for other jobs regularly. Finding a job that is both interesting (<1%) and not full of shithead management (<5%) is about 1 in 2,000.
