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“I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”

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Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”

#61

Post by dang »

yoloClin wrote: post #6

I'm from a country with public health care, so this comes as an interesting shock - would employees immediately lose health benefits if made redundant / fired etc? Seems to incentivize getting rid of people when they need healthcare the most (eg "I have cancer" -> "Look, we're going to have to let you go, your performance the past few months hasn't been up to scratch"). I assume there'd be a bunch of health related a…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22819568.

Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”

#62

Post by dang »

electro_blah wrote: post #46

The tweet has been removed.

Probably that implies he doesn't want a big thread about it here either, so I've buried this one. If it were a discussion worth keeping, that might be a hard call, but it's mostly wretched.

Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”

#63

Post by DoreenMichele »

labster wrote: post #27
nsxwolf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a law called COBRA that lets you continue your employers coverage for up to 18 months I think it is. You have to pay the entire premium including the portion your employer paid so the price tag is usually a shock.

So on Friday you have good health coverage, and then you get a recorded message on Zoom from your now former job. Now you have to pay for COBRA but you only have enough money reserves for two months of housing/food. So you apply for MediCal. Nope, you have too much money. So the reasonable thing to do is to take no health insurance. Then, you get the coronavirus. Pretty bad. You’re young, so you live through it, but…

Yes, US health policy leaves much to be desired. But a few points:

Up to eighty percent of people on ventilators die to Coronavirus die. (This percentage is so shockingly bad that some doctors are doing all they can to avoid or delay using them.)

Most who need ventilators for Coronavirus are older and have other health issues already.

As someone in a high risk category due to being medically handicapped, I will suggest that a lot of those people aren't hale and hardy enough to have a good job with good benefits. I've done freelance work for years.

Though, yes, it's true: In spite of the "all homeless are junkies and crazies" meme, serious health problems and their cost are a significant contributor to people ending up homeless in the US. Another major piece is our lack of appropriate housing options.

In addition to fixing healthcare, the US desperately needs to fix it's housing issues.

Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”

#65

Post by op03 »

rossjudson wrote: post #48
hkai wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it mean you have to distribute it to employees? It seems to me that even if Disney earns 100 times that, their employees should not get more than the market rate.

No, but it certainly means that Disney's employees should understand exactly how much they matter to the company. There's a junior MBA somewhere bumping their career by destroying others'.

Its not destroyed. You still have Disney on your resume and you didn't get fired for anything dumb you did.

Having been through this stuff a couple times and heard these reactions before, I can tell you most people, esp those from blue chips, get picked up fast.

Covid changes things yes, but the system is not static. Response and handling of it will get better and better week by week as people learn and adapt. Companies will restart work and hiring sooner or later. Look at S.Korea. They got hit by MERS. They learnt, evolved new plans and this time around were prepared.

Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”

#66

Post by dang »

trophycase wrote: post #57
nodesocket wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, if it causes the company to have severe financial distress or even possibly go bankrupt, hard decisions such as these have to be made. If the company goes under lots more jobs and wealth is lost.

Ah yes. Hard decisions about whether the new CEO will wipe his ass with that 11 billion, or use it as fuel for his fireplace. Decisions, decisions.

Could you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly, and we ban accounts that do that because it kills the spirit of curious conversation, which this site exists for.

If you wouldn't mind taking a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and using HN in the intended spirit, we'd appreciate it. It's understandable that temperatures rise and pots boil over, but we all need to control ourselves in those areas, or else we end up ruining this place.

Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”

#67

Post by dang »

njoubert wrote: post #41
hkai wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it mean you have to distribute it to employees? It seems to me that even if Disney earns 100 times that, their employees should not get more than the market rate.

What the fuck? “Should not get more than market rate”?

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here, regardless of how wrong another comment is (or you feel it is). It helps nothing; it just makes the thread even worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”

#68

Post by dodobirdlord »

sidlls wrote: post #45
dodobirdlord wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fun bonus fact, employer based insurance was first offered as a workaround for world war 2 era wage controls. Plus, its tax incentivized in three different ways. - The employer can deduct it as a business expense, reducing corporate profits on which they have to pay income tax. In fairness, wages work the same way... - ...but! The employer doesn't have to pay payroll tax on the amount it adds to their payroll. - An…

Companies big enough that "buy health insurance for their employees" is a thing pay insurance companies to administer the plans and they pay the medical costs as well. When an employee of such a company files a claim, the company ultimately pays the cost. I'm skeptical increased payroll taxes are more than these companies' cost to provide insurance. Also, payroll taxes themselves are also deductible.

> I'm skeptical increased payroll taxes are more than these companies' cost to provide insurance.

Doesn't seem unlikely to me, once you have enough employees, average cost per employee ends up being about the population average, skewed heavily by the fact that the company isn't employing very many people past retirement age where so much of total medical expense lies. Profit margins for health insurance companies aren't very high, so after administrative costs, what the average person/company pays in healthcare insurance is about what the average person accrues to their insurance in healthcare costs.

> Also, payroll taxes themselves are also deductible.

Shifting compensation to untaxed benefits brings the savings from corp_tax_rate * payroll_tax_rate to payroll_tax_rate.

Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”

#69

Post by alkonaut »

blast wrote: post #64
alkonaut wrote: post #54

Furloughed without pay? Isn’t that a breach of the contract by the employer?

That would depend on the contract would it not?

Absolutely. But even if such contracts were possible, wouldn’t people avoid signing contracts that allow the employer to simply stop paying?

My contract has a 3 month notice so unless I agree to anything else, I’d be paid 3 months regardless of whether the business is able to operate at all.

But I suppose that if my contract didn’t have that and I instead had a signing bonus or some other comp that gave me a few months of security then that would be equivalent.

Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”

#70

Post by threwre423434 »

code_biologist wrote: post #20
downerending wrote: post #11

From a pure cut-throat capitalist perspective, this seems like a stupid move. Teams like this are not easy to replace, and Disney has plenty of money.

They're furloughed, not laid off. I doubt they'll lose anyone who wasn't intending to leave. I get that John is down, and I definitely don't have whatever insight led him to say "even if I'm lucky enough to return someday, other people won't be". From my understanding though, a huge portion of corporate around the stores and parks was furloughed because there's not much for them to do at home. Their healthcare is cov…

I wonder what happened to all the H1Bs and postdocs. Disney Imagineering employed quite a few graduates in Robotics and Graphics (typically, from India and China).
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