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Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

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Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#291

Post by crackercrews »

aetherson wrote: post #279
crackercrews wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your link: > The law forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment. This makes it sound like affirmative action is illegal. But it is currently allowed and many companies brag about doing it. What Twilio is doing is basically the same. It's like affirmat…

Affirmative action in hiring for jobs in the US is illegal. University admissions are different, but it is straightforwardly illegal to say, "I'm hiring a software engineer, I have two candidates, I prefer the one who is black because of his race."

Companies sure don't seem to be following that law in hiring.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#292

Post by UtopiaPunk »

pc86 wrote: post #58
UtopiaPunk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwing people out on the street is tough, but at least we destroy people's livelihoods ~progressively~. All CEOs are bastards.

> Throwing people out on the street is tough, but at least we destroy people's livelihoods ~progressively~. > All CEOs are bastards. Imagine turning a perfectly valid criticism into some weird anti-capitalist thing?

I'm an anti-capitalist, so that's just how it goes :) I believe democracy is a pretty good way of doing things. It's a pretty mainstream boring opinion to think democracy is good. I just want to see democracy applied to workplace.

To be clear, I'm not saying we should just copy what we do in civil governments over to corporations. The United States' government at all levels is pretty anemic in being democratic, imo, and not a model to be envied. But there are other models for groups of people to collectively work together where they share decision making power and share in the fruits of their labor. There's stuff like worker-owner cooperatives, sociocracy, and open source software, for example. These different models for building things exist despite being within a capitalist society. I believe that under a different economic model, or even just powerful policy changes, people could be empowered in other ways to work together to create things for society.

And looking at your other post, it's true, I don't think Apple could exist as it does today in any society besides a capitalist society. That's not so bad, though, is it?

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#293

Post by rootusrootus »

peter422 wrote: post #220
orthecreedence wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And of course that white person had innumerable advantages their entire life This is the problem. You don't know this, and you can't tell this just from the color of someone's skin. A white man can grow up in a trailer park with a drunk, abusive father. A black woman can grow up in a loving, upper middle class family in the suburbs. Skin color is only a fractional indication of someone's experience.

A person can both have advantages in society and yet have specific situations in their life that are much more impactful. You could have used the same arguments in 1860... Not all black people were enslaved, some were quite prosperous in fact! Therefore there was no benefit to being white.

And thus the exact problem. It's okay to observe that a whole class of people enjoy a privilege. Where it goes off the rails is when you use that knowledge to discriminate against individuals in an attempt to correct the historical injustice.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#294

Post by wizofaus »

crackercrews wrote: post #289
wizofaus wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Than they would have" if what though? They just allowed subconscious racist biases to affect their decision making? It's not like we lack evidence that this does in fact happen. If an "anti-racist lens" means anything other than "processes to help avoid the effect of subconscious racial bias" I'd agree it's a problem.

The opposite of anti-racist isn't racist. You are assuming the decision makers have subconscious racist biases. And you are assuming those biases favor white people, men, etc. In the world I live in there is a good chance that each of these is false. The fact that they made this statement indicates as much.

There are actual studies showing 95-99% of us have subconscious racist biases. And so what which races they favour? I'd call it a massive fail for any "anti-racist lens" if, say, only whites were fired. (You also mention "men" - subconscious sexist biases are just as universal. For highly skilled roles unfortunately they very much typically favour men.)

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#295

Post by phpisthebest »

whymauri wrote: post #262
mdcds wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See what Dr. Kendi is advocating for and his "anti-racist" ideas. I think it will make sense to you why some people write things like "People have lost their damn minds. This is actual institutionalized racism."

Kendi is one person with one interpretation and doesn't work for nor represent the policies of Twilio, a completely separate institution. I read the statement the same as the GP comment.

Given that Kendi has spoken at Twilio and they Reference him in several of the DEI Annual reports it should be assumed that Twilio shares Kendi's view of "Anti-Racism"

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#296

Post by dominotw »

gitfan86 wrote: post #227
vondur wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure if you are white and laid off, you will have a pretty strong case for a lawsuit. I can't believe someone in legal wouldn't warn the leadership that putting out a press release stating this was a good idea.

Legal probably approved the word "lens". And if this ends up in court they will say that "lens" means that we are aware of the impact layoffs have on our society, but does not change who we fire during a layoff, meaning even if we didn't do this through a lens the person suing would have still been let go.

> but does not change who we fire during a layoff

what does 'carried out through a lens' mean. Through means it was put through that lens?

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#297

Post by TigeriusKirk »

crackercrews wrote: post #55
John23832 wrote: post #34

(I am a black man) I feel like the statement that the layoffs "were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens" puts a target on the backs of the people who you claim to be helping. If you're affected by layoffs described this way, you then question whether that was because of who you are. That then makes it harder for the minorities you claim to be "helping" to stay in the room anywhere else because of…

This creates three problems. The first is that some white people who were affected will believe it was because of their race. The second is that minorities who were not affected may be assumed to have been kept because of their minority status. But the most harmful is for minorities who were laid off. That signals that they were really subpar, even more than the average laid off person. It seems like this policy has…

It also makes the company a political lightning rod, making whatever their business situation is worse. Irresponsible move by a CEO.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#298

Post by Crash0v3rid3 »

peanuty1 wrote: post #243
trention wrote: post #135

So, a company explicitly states that when push comes to shove, if you are white, you move to the front of the firing queue. Remind me again, why would a white person (especially man) not put them on the back of the queue when deciding where to apply for a job? Despite not living in the states (and in a country where this sh*t is illegal), I think I will make it my policy to never work for a (parent) company that has…

In tech, Indians and East Asians are also not considered a minority.

+1. I bet Indians and East Asians were bucketed with white people.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#299

Post by mod »

pc86 wrote: post #163
mod wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. We shouldn't have CEOs, in which case most businesses today wouldn't exist. There's over 30 million businesses in the US [0], and 200,000 CEOs. Is it really impossible to imagine another structure that doesn't involve a CEO or chief? I don't personally think it'll change anything (nor do I have any hatred for CEOs), we'll just hate whoever made the decision. It's just easier when it's one human-with-out-of-fashi…

So of the 29,800,000 other businesses "without a CEO," how many of them still have one person making the majority of the decisions? I'd venture to say 80-90% of them. And how many of the largest, most economically successful companies have no CEO? Zero.

> 1. We shouldn't have CEOs, in which case most businesses today wouldn't exist.

I was just responding to this. Sounds like you agree we'd have "most" of the 30M businesses left.

Re: Twilio to lay off 11% of workforce

#300

Post by NeverFade »

crackercrews wrote: post #221
lr1970 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it plain illegal. For employment purposes Race is a protected class (at least in USA) and racial discrimination while hiring or firing violates federal law. How would they get away with this?

Isn't affirmative action in hiring legal? Seems like this is just the same thing but for layoffs.

It is absolutely illegal. It violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which:

> outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

Yes, that's the same act that makes it illegal to discriminate against racial minorities, women, religions, etc.

Discrimination based on race is illegal, pure and simple. Hiding it under nice names like "affirmative action" does not change this fact.

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