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Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper

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Re: Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper

#231

Post by filoleg »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #197
spoils19 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horrible for the free market, imo.

Probably not, since it encourages companies to actually invest in people that they can't just fire at will. Society comes out on top, and business is kept accountable for how they treat human beings. The free market with at will employment is a race to the bottom. France's model is more of a steady march to the top.

> France's model is more of a steady march to the top

Eagerly awaiting for France to have their own equivalents (in terms of success and worldwide influence) of Google/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/SpaceX/Tesla/etc. As well as for their devs to be paid even remotely close to what they can get paid in the US.

From what I am seeing, even "the year of Linux on desktop" is more likely to happen than that. Which doesn't inspire much confidence.

Re: Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper

#232

Post by nullc »

sulam wrote: post #172
nullc wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be interesting to see if any of them are bold enough to argue that their ability to exert influence over the public via their role at twitter was a material part of their compensation.

You apparently have a very negative view of people who work at Twitter. I worked there for 4.5 years and literally no one I worked with or knew of there would ever make such an argument. The only people who even really have a claim to such an argument got last week and we haven't heard a thing from them, although I'm anticipating some sort of lawsuit having to be filed to recover the real USD compensation owed to the…

The posted email, linked two posts up stated that "Today is your last working day at the company, however, you will remain employed by Twitter and will receive compensation and benefits through your separation date [90 days out]".

Unless they want to claim some side effect of working is part of the employee's compensation this lawsuit looks baseless enough to be an abuse of process.

Re: Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper

#233

Post by pessimizer »

dragontamer wrote: post #195
pb7 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how lawsuits work. You don't sue someone for something they might do with zero indication that they will. When you buy a company headquartered in California and elect to layoff half of it, you probably know your legal obligations.

> When you buy a company Elon didn't even read the contract that bought the company. He spent the last 6 months in court trying to get out of the contract, not realizing it was ironclad.

He was trying to get out of it because it was a stupid deal at that price, not because he couldn't understand a contract. He was trying to limit the dumb consequences of his dumb impulse.

Failing at that, he might as well lean into it. He's got enough money to make billions of stupid mistakes, and this stupid mistake gave him ownership of his favorite thing. A favorite thing that incidentally gives him leverage against a US government desperate to control social media, a US government who is basically a business partner on every company he has.

He's likely to extract a load of profit out of twitter through that, anyway, we just won't see it because it will show up in his other businesses in the form of contracts, favorable regulation, and favorable legislation.

Re: Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper

#234

Post by kodah »

pessimizer wrote: post #229
kodah wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jeff Bezos's decisions about where to stick his weiner cost him tens of billions of dollars. People are allowed to want to divorce without it being referred to as "where he sticks his weiner". I think what grosses me out is that revenge porn was laid thickly on top of this that people just actively ignored .

> People are allowed to want to divorce without it being referred to as "where he sticks his weiner". No they're not. Getting a divorce doesn't give you the right to control how other people talk about your divorce. > I think what grosses me out is that revenge porn was laid thickly on top of this that people just actively ignored. People care about revenge porn because it hurts vulnerable people (i.e. the vast major…

I'm not a fan of Bezos or his companies but these are objectively shitty takes.

Re: Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper

#235

Post by pb7 »

rtkwe wrote: post #50
pb7 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how lawsuits work. You don't sue someone for something they might do with zero indication that they will. When you buy a company headquartered in California and elect to layoff half of it, you probably know your legal obligations.

The person suing got their termination notification on 11/1 so I imaging they know more about what their termination actually entails than you or I do. Also Musk consistently pushes and oversteps the legal boundaries of what he can and can't do to get his way. Him being in charge of Twitter at all is because he was forced to execute a contract he willingly signed what makes you think he'll be more calmly compliant to…

Clearly they don't: https://www.businessinsider.com/read-blunt-email-telling-twi...

Re: Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper

#236

Post by Tangurena2 »

e40 wrote: post #76
nomel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he didn't consult a proper lawyer Do you have any evidence for this?

I run an HR department, albeit not for one as large as twitter. I have done layoffs. I always consulted a lawyer and it never triggered lawsuits. There are layoffs all the time at large companies that don't trigger lawsuits. Either he consulted a terrible lawyer or none at all.

> Either he consulted a terrible lawyer or none at all.

I disagree.

He got bit by lawsuits over a previous mass layoff at Tesla. The lawyers who filed this lawsuit were the same lawyers involved in the previous one. Links pointing to the previous case:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33469900

I think that Musk learned from that, and reading the email employees received today, I think the lawsuit will be thrown out.

https://www.businessinsider.com/read-blunt-email-telling-twi...

On first sight, the mass layoffs appear to violate both California & Federal WARN Act notifications.

After reading the email, it appears that they are getting 3 months of "gardening leave" instead paychecks getting cut off at end of day.

> An employer who violates WARN provisions is liable to each employee for an amount equal to back pay and benefits for the period of the violation, up to 60 days.

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

Europe has different labor laws. I know enough about them to know that I don't know enough to have an opinion on what might happen over there.

Re: Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper

#237

Post by 93po »

blindriver wrote: post #160
mikestew wrote: post #16

Can we please fix the title? Not only is it incomplete and makes no sense, it also got butchered such that it is now wrong. Original: "Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs without proper legal notice" At least replace the "with" with "without".

It's also wrong. According to the email they received, they are getting paid until Feb 2023, plus one vest of their RSUs from what I heard. There is no legal basis for a lawsuit.

There's no realistic basis for a lawsuit. However that won't stop journalists from using language like "faces" lawsuit which means literally nothing has happened but we're going to speculate to generate clickbait.

Re: Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper

#238

Post by Tangurena2 »

nomel wrote: post #103
e40 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run an HR department, albeit not for one as large as twitter. I have done layoffs. I always consulted a lawyer and it never triggered lawsuits. There are layoffs all the time at large companies that don't trigger lawsuits. Either he consulted a terrible lawyer or none at all.

The existence of a lawsuit can't be used to judge the legality of the layoffs. Only the ruling can. It's possible (although a bit more unlikely) that the person filing the lawsuit is a terrible lawyer. Making factual statements/judgements seems misguided, at this point, in my IANAL opinion.

The lawyers filing this lawsuit were the same lawyers in the previous lawsuit over WARN Act violations.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33469900

Re: Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper

#239

Post by bena »

postalrat wrote: post #164
bena wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine needing the paycheck. Those who were put on garden leave have 3 months of pay to lean on while they search. Those who were not, if they quit, their pay ends that day. They'd have whatever savings they have.

You both seem to assume everyone wants to leave. Which is probably not the case.

No. I'm not assuming that.

You asked what was stopping someone (who wasn't fired but who wanted to leave) from just quitting.

Now, kenjackson's statement is kind of generalizing from self a bit. He believes he'd want to leave in that situation and believes that most people share his ideals in this case.

And while it's probably not the case, it's also not the case that the number is zero.

There are valid reasons to stay in an undesirable situation until you can line up something better.

Re: Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper

#240

Post by Domenic_S »

lovich wrote: post #217
Domenic_S wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People try and get out of deals all the time. It's a normal part of business. Edit: I take it many of you haven't been a part of a company that gets an offer that falls apart later, tried to buy/sell property, etc etc. Deals fall apart constantly , trying to get out of a deal isn't indicative of anything meaningful in and of itself. The only really unusual thing that happened in the Twitter deal was Twitter forcing t…

He waived his ability to do due diligence which is part of the normal business process that allows for backing out of a deal, because he was so confident in buying Twitter. Then he almost immediately tried backing out by claiming that things that would have been found out during the due diligence phase were a surprise to him(bots). It was forced because he left himself open to the deal being forced which was the idio…

He did not claim that bots were a surprise -- in fact, getting rid of bots was the premise of his offer in the first place. His issue with the bots was that he thought there was evidence that there were far more bots than claimed and Twitter was dodging his requests for info. There are some plausible arguments that even outside due diligence that bot problem would be meaningful, like that it's a materially adverse change.

But that's all beside the point. These kind of antics happen all the time in the business world. The buyer threatens to back out, the seller takes them to court, they settle. LVMH & Tiffany comes to mind as a very recent example: it wasn't a due diligence argument there, either.

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