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

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411–420 of 474 posts

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

#411
post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether software engineers making $750k/year is a bubble has nothing to do with my argument at all. The average annual wages in the US are ~$77,000, compared to ~$55,000 for France or the UK.

Cite? Overall in the US I’m showing about $60k. [ https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll... ]. For software engineers, it absolutely matters. For the same reason it’s going to be a pretty weird discussion about Actor/Actress pay if you just ignore Hollywood.

2023 column on the right side (numbers are PPP):

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

> For software engineers, it absolutely matters.

The bubble means you currently get more in San Francisco, sure, but take the bubble away and you'd still expect the US average to be higher than the EU average as it is in other industries where there isn't a bubble.

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

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general I agree, the bailiff system should be abolished for personal debts. Except these are High Court bailiffs collecting a commercial debt. They just enforce the powers of the court. Useful in this situation where the executives are in a different country. The High Court can do a lot worse than stopping check in if you don’t comply with its orders.

Sure, no problem with their use against companies. I don't care about the cost to Delta in that video, but I do think this particlar strongarm tactic was way over the line, due to the significant financial impact it could've incurred to innocent bystanders

Years back, a software consultancy owed me money. I took them to court and eventually called in the bailiffs for non-payment.

Are you seriously saying I should not have done this, just because it might have inconvenienced their other customers!

Get a grip sunshine; and put the blame where it it due.

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

#413
post #314
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language, culture, family, friends, and missing awareness that conditions elsewhere might be actually better, to name a few?

Also, not everyone has the resources to move to another country.

You don't need much. Just a job willing to sponsor you, or be willing to start a business on an entrepreneurship visa.

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

#414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do not miss the US; moving to the EU was the best decision I ever made. It’s very easy to live in the EU with an US compensation. I wonder if you will feel the same if you had a local job.

Cost of living is also lower here in the EU so it's not a big deal. And money isn't that relevant anyway. Quality of life is more important. That's why I live in Spain where I make about half of what I could make in Holland where I'm from. The biggest party in Holland for the last 20 years (VVD) was very neoliberal and they wanted to make the country into America where money trumps everything so I got disenfranchised…

> There's no calvinist influence.

You traded the Calvinist influence for the Roman Catholic influence in Spain. I'm sure there are tradeoffs involved. For instance, Dutch people tend to be very direct and matter-of-fact in their criticism of anything, which has benefits w/r/t efficiency and public order. Kind of hard to pull that off in a Catholic country.

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

#415
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably, you think we should what? Take the to the streets? Standard of living of food security is still far too high generally for this to seem reasonable for most. Shall we lobby our representatives? This does happen at the state level, and accordingly many states have more pro-worker policies and laws. But change at the federal level is a substantially harder thing to bring.

The way this worked in many places is that workers formed political parties. In France people did and still take to the streets over labour issues. You can also unionize. Or sure, lobby. But if people are happy with the current system then that's also fine. All in all the US has been a success story. Whether there's correlation or causation between that and some of the regulatory and legal environment is hard to say.…

> The way this worked in many places is that workers formed political parties.

Given the current political system(s) in the US, this is practically impossible at the federal level; difficult at the state level; somewhat more possible at the city level (eg New York City's Working Families Party). Third parties exist but generally have almost no influence.

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

#416
post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US, in most (all?) jurisdictions, your employer doesn't really need to have a reason to fire you. They can fire everyone wearing red shirts, if they wanted to. This is not entirely correct. They can fire you for any reason as long as it’s not because of a protected reason. There are certain protected reasons at the federal level and many states add additional ones at the state level. So, for example, they ca…

Question: So what stops them firing the old bloke, simply because they are wearing a red shirt? Ergo: Surely it should be the other way around; that you can only be fired for specific protracted reasons, i.e. gross negligence.

> Question: So what stops them firing the old bloke, simply because they are wearing a red shirt?

The possibility of a lawsuit, resulting in fines and penalties. Obviously many people won't bother to sue, and some companies will take the risk.

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

#417
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's an illegally biased opinion then presumably it will be overturned on appeal. Otherwise Irish law looks prohibitively business-unfriendly.

So business-unfriendly the tax loophole used to be called the Irish double sandwich.

“Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich” is the name!

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

#418
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, not everyone has the resources to move to another country.

You don't need much. Just a job willing to sponsor you, or be willing to start a business on an entrepreneurship visa.

And enough money to relocate across an ocean, if you can find a job willing to sponsor you, which is not at all assured. And starting a business requires initial capital.

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

#419
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this also means companies are much more hesitant to hire

Ehh, this is bullshit. Companies will hire when they need. It actually makes companies more hesitant to fire.

more hesitant to fire means they are more hesitant to hire. that 100% goes together.

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

#420
post #76
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.

nope. you dont invest the same way in a 6 month contractor that you are not sure to renew down the road as you would for a full time employee. And this goes both ways. The contractor has not much incentive to perform well either.
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