My understanding from the comments was that this prevents people who don't do their job from being fired, as long as they don't set fire to the servers or something. If I misunderstood, then the union is being nicer than they have to.
Why wouldn't it be? Businesses doing pro-business things are the main reason well paying jobs exist. And people love well paying jobs rather than poor paying jobs.
Government is in charge of regulating the minimum wage. Private companies are in charge of bidding for the "maximum wage", they have no obligation for providing a minimum as they serve their shareholders not the public, the government serves the public.
>Private companies are in charge of bidding for the "maximum wage", they have no obligation for providing a minimum as they serve their shareholders not the public, the government serves the public.
This doesn't support your point the way you think it might.
My own experience working in a white-collar union with a just cause provision is that the process is much more cumbersome and time consuming, and includes some off-ramps, but it is certainly possible to fire and or punish low performers. The more concretely "low performance" can be measured, the quicker and easier, but we're still talking months or years.
That is your problem right there. You cannot trust comments to give you an accurate idea of what actually happened. The linked source is marginally better (but keep in mind that it is close to one side of the story, even though it is more independent than some people here seem to believe).
My understanding from the comments was that this prevents people who don't do their job from being fired, as long as they don't set fire to the servers or something. If I misunderstood, then the union is being nicer than they have to.