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

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

#101

Post by solatic » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:17 AM UTC

withinboredom wrote: post #59

sethammons wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

> If you have accrued vacation, you "earned" your vacation and they can't take it away from you without compensation... If they fire you, they should even have to pay you your salary for those vacation days.

This is indeed the law in Israel. What happens is that people are allowed to accrue a number of vacation days up to a limit, typically however many days of vacation you earn in a year, times two. Then the company forces you to take, at the end of the year, a number of vacation days down to the limit.

Companies where this limit wasn't put in place introduced a moral hazard, whereby people would wink-and-handshake with their superiors when they would take a reasonable amount of vacation without actually reporting the vacation days to HR, wherein HR didn't really have the means to detect and enforce against the fraud. Thus people would work for decades, retire, and take compensation for decades of "untaken" vacation days, on top of the normal retirement packages. These policies represented usually $1+ million in obligation per worker and thus were clearly unsustainable without some kind of enforceable limit.

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

#102

Post by Yeul » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:19 AM UTC

phoronixrly wrote: post #70

sspiff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'

Americans call it innovation I call it going back to 1890.

But I refuse to believe that every employer in the US is a piece of shit. I bet most of them are decent people.

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

#103

Post by madeofpalk » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:21 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #67

nudgeee wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I would rather companies be a lot more deliberate about hiring people rather than just hiring and firing willy nilly.

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

#104

Post by helsinkiandrew » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:21 AM UTC

fhd2 wrote: post #20

sspiff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that you can still get fooled or bullied into accepting a bad deal. I suggest everyone working in the EU to learn their rights and to consult a lawyer when something doesn't feel right, doesn't cost much here, initial consultations are often even free. Don't sign something put in front of you before you had a chance to understand your position. The person who wants you to sign it had ample time to do t…

> The problem is that you can still get fooled or bullied into accepting a bad deal. I suggest everyone working in the EU to learn their rights and to consult a lawyer when something doesn't feel right,

If you've been forced to make a choice with an incredibly short timescale, many tribunals/courts (in Europe anyway) will put aside your choice if it later turns out to be detrimental. It's a bit like forcing someone to sign a contract at gunpoint.

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

#105

Post by refurb » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:22 AM UTC

consp wrote: post #76

ekianjo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this also means companies are much more hesitant to hire

Having short term contracts solved this a long time ago and is mostly a fallacy.

How is a short term contract a solution? It sounds like you don’t have a job at the end of the contract?

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

#106

Post by refurb » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:25 AM UTC

b112 wrote: post #31

londons_explore wrote: post #15

Earlier 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. 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 $…

Housing in Ottawa is ridiculously expensive. Good luck buying a home for less than $1M and even then you’re looking at a considerable commute.

How one can take a 67% pay cut and have housing still high means you have more in your pocket you’re going to have to explain.

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

#107

Post by perlgeek » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:26 AM UTC

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.

BTW in Germany, if a company decides to lay off people just to save money, they have to coordinate with some government agency -- and if the company doesn't have financial trouble, those layoffs can be blocked.

This happened to Alphabet/Google when they wanted to lay off 6% of their workforce, but were wildly profitable. They couldn't in Germany.

(This probably wouldn't have applied in the Twitter case, because Twitter wasn't profitable, but it illustrates that there are processes and rules around employment that might seem very unusual to others).

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

#108

Post by refurb » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:27 AM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #56

hippich wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

When I worked in Europe I had to give 3 months notice. If I left before that I had to pay the company the equivalent salary.

So let’s say I leave after 1 month of giving notice. I now owe the employer 2 months salary.

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

#109

Post by littlestymaar » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:29 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #15

surgical_fire wrote: post #7

Earlier 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…

The problem is that this additional salary in turns inflates the housing market or tuition fees, and at the end of the day you're not earning that much in exchange for the protection you gave up.

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

#110

Post by nolok » Sat, Aug 17, 2024, 10:29 AM UTC

phoronixrly wrote: post #70

sspiff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'

I mean, it does allow a better access to "move fast, innovate and break things", the issue being that some of things broken are people lives and careers and in the EU we more or less decided this was not ok nor worth it.