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X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

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Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

#61

Post by closewith »

valenterry wrote: post #34
hyperman1 wrote: post #18

If 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…

€550k is just the compensation. But for such a behaviour, there should be an actual punishment involved.

Exemplary damages are awarded only in exceptional and extremely rare cases in Ireland, and the WRC (which issued this ruling) cannot levy them.

Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

#62

Post by sethammons »

andyferris wrote: post #41
burnished wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a lawyer but broadly most forms of employment in the US is considered to be 'at will' and can be terminated by either party at any time for most any reason (excluding membership of a protected class). If you were fired for failing to respond to the yes-or-resign I believe you would be able to claim unemployment because they can't force you to resign and changing the terms of employment to force a resignation is a…

What does "claim unemployment" mean in this context?

To claim unemployment is to take advantage of Unemployment Insurance. Companies pay into that and when you are terminated (doesn't count if fired for cause) you get some predefined amount of money for a period of time to help while job searching. The amount is dramatically less than your normal pay.

Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

#63

Post by rsynnott »

hyperman1 wrote: post #18

If 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…

Most European countries, including Ireland, are not terribly keen on punitive damages as a concept. In this case the 550k was compensation, not punishment; any punishment would be separate, and likely by the regulators and not the courts.

Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

#64

Post by londons_explore »

less_less wrote: post #53
cr1895 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 muc…

Contract law is strong. If a company deliberately gave the employee lots of rights in an employment contract (in return for less pay), a court would hold the company to that later whilst it was solvent, even if company management later changes it's approach.

Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

#65

Post by juanani »

hyperman1 wrote: post #18

If 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…

[dead]

Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

#66

Post by janalsncm »

emmet wrote: post #39
xenonite wrote: post #36

Earlier 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.

Median wage is only about $50k in the US. Tech compensation is just really high.

Also note that salaries are rarely that high even in tech. Usually a big part of compensation is stock grants which are taxed differently.

Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

#67

Post by ekianjo »

nudgeee wrote: post #37
surgical_fire wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That, and the peace of mind of not being fired at-will when economic times aren’t so good.

this also means companies are much more hesitant to hire

Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

#68

Post by rsynnott »

withinboredom wrote: post #43
Fokamul wrote: post #23

Earlier 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…

> are you nuts? There's a new law still in committee: https://www.scstatehouse.gov/billsearch.php?billnumbers=4226... > What? Why is it called vacation then Having more than two weeks off in a year is pretty strange. I worked at a place with "unlimited vacation" once, and you weren't allowed to take off more than two weeks at a time until someone took off two weeks every three weeks ... and that ended that policy. Th…

> Having more than two weeks off in a year is pretty strange.

I mean, not that strange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...

Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

#69

Post by b112 »

DarkmSparks wrote: post #47
b112 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary. There may be some truth to this, but it's not as stark as some think. The average cost of a "moderate" house in.. say, Palo Alto is around $3M USD. Those are typically older houses, smaller lots, less desirable neighbourhoods. Everything is more expensive in such an area. Property tax on that $3M USD house is likely going to be about $…

A big section of this is the petrodollar creating an perversly stong USD. As that dies off and the USD rebalances to a post American empire equilibrium, housing priced in USD will be far more similar everywhere, exactly the same way it did post British and French empires. (back when 1gbp would buy you 10usd)

I don't get the reasoning here. Costs in SV are a direct result of the economic powerhouse it is, and the size of the local population. A lot of people cite all sorts of other reasons, but those reasons exist in every other US state to a degree, and yet many of those states do not have high property costs.

It's all about population density compared with economic might.

If the USD was to crash tomorrow, people in SV would still draw their salaries, housing would still be the same price relative to them. You're not going to erase costs due to population density and economic drive, because a dollar drops a bit.

Not to mention, the UK has a GDP basically half the US per capita. That has nothing to do with a petro dollar or not. I really see the "petro dollar" thing is a talking point, without the validity to back it up.

Re: X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

#70

Post by phoronixrly »

sspiff wrote: post #8
thor-rodrigues wrote: post #2

I am glad to hear that workers rights are being enforced in Europe. As an employee in Germany, it sounds deranged to receive an email saying I have one day to completely change my work contract, or be fired from my job.

I'm so glad most European countries have robust labour laws which often favour the employee in case of doubt, not the employer. This type of behaviour - unilaterally changing the employment agreement without even specifying them in their entirety! - should never be possible. I hope other employees and EU countries follow suit and slap X with more fines, if this impacted other citizens as well.

Can't wait until the US wakes up and we get an endless 'that's why the startup/innovation culture in the EU sucks and will never be comparable to the US'
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