Perhaps part of the reason that the NYR is being so snide is that they are feeling defensive about their own privileges: New York is one of the many states that allow employment on an at-will basis.

Employees in the USA are divided into two classes:

   1. at-will employees
   2. just-cause employees

An at-will employee in the USA can be terminated at any time, and for any reason - or no reason at all - and the courts will generally not intervene to protect the ex-employee from allegedly unfair treatment by the employer.

This doctrine even allows for dismissal for morally reprehensible reasons:

An often-quoted statement of at-will employment appears in an old case from Tennessee:

All may dismiss their employees at will, be they many or few, for good cause, for no cause[,] or even for cause morally wrong, without being thereby guilty of legal wrong.

In other words, in an at-will state an employer may fire his accountant for refusing to falsify the books.

The above quotes are taken from the History of At-Will Employment Law in the USA, which is a very lucid explanation of what at-will employment is and why it is bad law.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman