I had a manager namecheck the layoffs as a reason they don't need to move on addressing any of our team's concerns about working conditions. Same manager invoked the Nuremburg Defense the other day. Trying times.
Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
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Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#12This claim violates Hanlon’s Razor “Never attribute to malice, that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.” Over-hiring, over-salarying and not anticipating the consequences of a pandemic and post-pandemic on business might qualify as “incompetence” The thing that bothers me is this tone I'm seeing online and in particular in this discussion where people presume that a salary is owed no matter what, and t…
But they all find themselves in the same predicament all at the same time, across diverse markets and services?
As far as I can tell there's is no actual downturn in the market, this is all anticipation.
And so it's a 'movement' even if it's not a diffuse, or actual conspiracy.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#13follow up question, why hasn't apple needed to do this? how are they keeping 'tabs' on 'worker power'?
So why did Tim Cook take a 40% pay cut?
Which is completely absurd if you bother doing 20 seconds of math?
The reason Apple didn't do a mass layoff is because they didn't overhire during 2021/2022.
Like most articles from the LA Times, this seems like complete BS as usual.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#14You mean *consolidate worker power. Critical people don't get layoffs unless they work for a muskcorp.
Many of the higher profile high performers who are now unemployed would seem to be a direct counter example to this claim. What you’re describing doesn’t seem to match the recent layoffs we’ve witnessed.
Actually it matches what I'm seeing. Are you not seeing all of the recruiters/HR being let go in these layoffs? Seems like there are many more than SRE's (SRE's are what I'd consider to be business-critical).
I don't have hard numbers though, even layoffs.fyi doesn't have a great breakdown of who was affected by these layoffs by department. If anyone has hard numbers I'd love to be proven wrong.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#15Would be interesting to see if there is a strong relationship between the companies doing layoffs and the companies who did WFH en masse and might be thinking a layoff will “encourage” their compliance to come back to the office.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#16follow up question, why hasn't apple needed to do this? how are they keeping 'tabs' on 'worker power'?
My feeling is that they were already doing it so for them there was nothing to be changed.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#17This claim violates Hanlon’s Razor “Never attribute to malice, that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.” Over-hiring, over-salarying and not anticipating the consequences of a pandemic and post-pandemic on business might qualify as “incompetence” The thing that bothers me is this tone I'm seeing online and in particular in this discussion where people presume that a salary is owed no matter what, and t…
I have a recent counter razor: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity what is better explained by self-interest"
Many of these orgs laying off thousands have fallen into the depths of a moral maze -- where rational thinking is just impossible and all that's left is self-preservation.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#18Would be interesting to see if there is a strong relationship between the companies doing layoffs and the companies who did WFH en masse and might be thinking a layoff will “encourage” their compliance to come back to the office.
One company did exactlly that: everybody must be in the office in 3 weeks, 25% quit, no layoffs needed.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#19Intentional or not, worker power has been crushed by these layoffs.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#20Guess tech workers should have unionized when they had the chance. As if capital was going to let the most powerful group of workers that's ever existed continue to slip their noose