it's surprising how often saying nothing works out well.
X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum
51–60 of 474 posts
Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. Companies could even offer that as an option. We pay you $97k with no labour protections, or $68k but we promise to give you all the labour rights that Germany has, including nice long holidays, unions, no unpaid overtime, can't be fired without cause, etc. Your choice. (And those figures are the median programmer salary in the USA and…
> You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. Yes. And I appreciate those labor protections enough that I gladly pay for them. I could still buy a car, a house, raise a family, have some savings, etc. The stability and security provided by the labor protections are very much appreciated, a lot more than some extra cash would be.
And the money is not the only problem, Europe is CHEAP compared to America, it's fascinating.
I heard that wges are less than 50% but you end up saving more
Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. Companies could even offer that as an option. We pay you $97k with no labour protections, or $68k but we promise to give you all the labour rights that Germany has, including nice long holidays, unions, no unpaid overtime, can't be fired without cause, etc. Your choice. (And those figures are the median programmer salary in the USA and…
>but we promise of course, who's to say that next quarter priorities of management or shareholders shift & those "promises" evaporate?
Of course you'd want to put those terms in the employment contract, not just a verbal promise. Surely you wouldn't get exactly the same protection as in another country with a completely different legal system, but at least you could get part of it.
And yeah, they could terminate the contract, but they would still be bound by its terms that say how they can do that, with how much notice, for what reasons, and how much they will owe you.
Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you should look at the facts and that is that X is both way more in the media than before - both in a good and a bad way - and the userbase has grown while a significant portion of operational expenses have been cut.
> and the userbase has grown Most of those 'users' are probably bots though. The bot activity has increased massively since Musk has bought the company (just look at all the like-bots nobody seems to do anything about).
Yeah, I get new bot followers nearly every day, this rarely happened in pre-Musk Twitter.
Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, to me as a European, this feels like a very high number already.
Wages in America must be truly incredible for this to seem normal. I know so many full time developers on a tenth of that.
>Wages in America must be truly incredible for this to seem normal
They indeed are for a very small subset of people, who are overrepresented on this website.
I really don't think you can generalize that wages o/a are incredible in the US.
Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum
#56Would this be legal in any jurisdiction (click-or-be-fired)? I am not familiar with US labour laws, are employees actually at the level of indentured servants considering terms of employment (which I would expect to be a contract between TWO parties)?
From everything I read, in US, in general, outside of specific list of protected reasons, or a contract specifically describing conditions for contact termination, one can be fired at any time. This works both ways - employee can quit any time too. I wouldn't be surprised musk just applied the same logic worldwide and let lawyers deal with consequences
"This works both ways - employee can quit any time too."
I think employees have been allowed to quit at any time since the early 20th century in most western countries. Of course there is a probationary period involved, but it's nothing like earlier times when police would possibly come and take you to your place of work, or it was illegal to be unemployed in several jurisdictions up to 20th century (e.g. USSR) etc.
So discussing this as "feature" rather than tablestakes in any modern society is somewhat misleading IMO.
I don't know if there are some professions where it's a bit more complicated than this and am happy to be corrected.
Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the main reason I chose to move to Europe instead of the US, despite potentially making more money in the US. I very much appreciate the labor protections in most EU countries.
You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. Companies could even offer that as an option. We pay you $97k with no labour protections, or $68k but we promise to give you all the labour rights that Germany has, including nice long holidays, unions, no unpaid overtime, can't be fired without cause, etc. Your choice. (And those figures are the median programmer salary in the USA and…
> we promise
There you go.
Remember folks: a company's interests are directly opposite to yours. If it makes enough money to not hold their promise, they will.
I don't want promises from an actor that is structurally infinitely more powerful than I ever will be. This is why not only must this be on contract and enforceable at any time, but individualistic mindset is always against our interests, because it's easy to promise to one who will be able to defend themselves and plunder another one who can't.
It's not my choice, it's our choice.
Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum
#58If this is allowed, the concept of a contract is meaningless, as all terms change whenever one party feels like it. So Musk feels to be above contract law. The whole basis for law based commerce goes out of the window. Musk's world view is incredibly dangerous for a law based country. This means €550k is a way to low number as punishment. It might be enough as restitution for the employee, but an additional, much str…
It's even worse, he can get out of paying that in a number of ways. If he simply refuses to pay, the employee needs to sue. He can play for time and later declare bankruptcy in the European subsidiaries that have too many legal costs racking up. IANAL, so I might be wrong about some of this, but I did see things play out like this. The employee OTOH has probably had to deplete quite a few savings to afford to go through with this.
Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Unpaid two weeks of matternity leave" are you nuts? Holy sh.. "vacation longer than three weeks requires the company to stop paying your salary" What? Why is it called vacation then, I cannot comprehend this at all, heh. Don't tell them some EU companies even give unlimited PAID vacation, lol. Never experienced this myself, because I usually have "only" 5 weeks paids vacation, but unlimited HO. Of course in practice…
I have "unlimited" vacation here in the states. If you go over three weeks, they still require special paperwork, but they allow it if you are tenured enough. What unlimited means is "as long as your manager is decent, you will maybe get your days off" vs accrued vacation where you may be forced to take vacation to not lose it.
> accrued vacation where you may be forced to take vacation to not lose it.
I don't look at it that way. If you have accrued vacation, you "earned" your vacation and they can't take it away from you without compensation. Thus, you are guaranteed your days off. If they fire you, they should even have to pay you your salary for those vacation days.
"Unlimited" vacation just gives all the control to your employer: the right to deny you vacation, the right to dictate how long your vacation is, etc.
Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unlimited paid vacation days are for the employers benefit not employee.
For those who may not yet know why: US companies must pay out vacation time when employment terminates, meaning unpaid vacation affects liabilities and thus the balance sheet and thus stock price.
>US companies must pay out vacation time when employment terminates
Doesn't that depend on the state?