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Amazon rescinding the offer while I am on the notice period

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Re: Amazon rescinding the offer while I am on the notice period

#131

Post by Kim_Bruning »

scarface74 wrote: post #73
gbear0 wrote: post #64

Has anyone tried to add special clauses to their initial contract along the lines of: "If the offer is rescinded before the start date, the applicant will be awarded 3 months salary. If the applicant is fired within 3 months of the start date, the applicant will be awarded relocation fees to previous location." And you'd update that based on costs of moving, or possibly the state of the economy and your risk toleranc…

Unless you are a special snowflake with a unique skillset, why would a company the size of Amazon ever veer from their standard contract?

I've negotiated with some very large companies at times.

No one can operate a company as a single giant monolith. They're all subdivided into departments or subcompanies or subunits in some way or other. And these subunits often have more or less leeway and authority to act by themselves (depending on the exact organization).

My favorite story is when the manager across from me happened to have signing authority for the relevant subunit. So he just grabbed a sheet of A4 out of the printer, scribbled down what we agreed upon, put his signature under it, and handed it to his secretary "Please file this in Kim's file". Didn't even blink. Another time I made a cultural mistake, I actually gave a Very Large customer my best offer upfront (negotiating as a small company owner this time). I should have tacked on 20% or so, just to give the manager something to negotiate over. Lesson learned: Big company managers aren't just able to negotiate; some actually almost feel cheated if you don't give them anything to negotiate over! ;-)

Re: Amazon rescinding the offer while I am on the notice period

#132

Post by mafuy »

vikingerik wrote: post #126
tyingq wrote: post #17

Rescinding an offer that's tied to a visa is just extra shitty, sorry this happened to you. Surely they know the consequences that you'll suffer. I wonder if the Amazon leadership chain that collectively decided to do this has any remorse. Edit: Feels like something that governments should tie to individual company's ability to use the visa program. Rescind a visa-tied offer (for no-fault-of-applicant reason), and we…

On that last, beware the law of unintended consequence: that penalty would serve as a deterrent against making offers to visa users in the first place, if the company had no route out of it once offered. It's the same idea as European worker protection employment laws compared to the US: they sound good, but the effect is that companies have to be slower to hire when firing is that much harder.

> that penalty would serve as a deterrent against making offers to visa users

It would put the additional costs they create to be visible. This is as it should be, since visa users do cost more than hiring domestic.

However, it would not be much more. And if amazon deems it to be too expensive, then other companies which are more efficient can take up the spare visa users, just as the free market intends.

Re: Amazon rescinding the offer while I am on the notice period

#133

Post by Kim_Bruning »

tyingq wrote: post #17

Rescinding an offer that's tied to a visa is just extra shitty, sorry this happened to you. Surely they know the consequences that you'll suffer. I wonder if the Amazon leadership chain that collectively decided to do this has any remorse. Edit: Feels like something that governments should tie to individual company's ability to use the visa program. Rescind a visa-tied offer (for no-fault-of-applicant reason), and we…

I would agree. I think the political reason this doesn't happen is because the victims aren't voters in the relevant area. Not even necessarily in the most cynical sense. How many people will have researched upfront who the relevant representatives are at their destination, let alone how to reach them?

I keep thinking one might want to have some sort of international organization where people in each country reciprocally lobby for better international workers rights for each other's citizens.

Maybe something like this already exists, but I haven't heard of anything like it?

Re: Amazon rescinding the offer while I am on the notice period

#134

Post by bentlegen »

hodgesrm wrote: post #118
bentlegen wrote: post #117

176 points, 100 comments in 1 hour … downvoted by HN mods and off the front page immediately. As a point of feedback, when mods get so obviously involved in suppressing content seemingly-valued by the community it would be nice to understand the motivation behind that.

How do you know it's downvoted by HN mods?

Do you have an alternative explanation? It was #2 when I first viewed this thread (with far less points and comments), and a few minutes later it was off the front page entirely.

But this question is exactly why I would like illumination. The mods could respond to my post and explain.

Re: Amazon rescinding the offer while I am on the notice period

#135

Post by joshka »

phpisthebest wrote: post #92
gbear0 wrote: post #64

Has anyone tried to add special clauses to their initial contract along the lines of: "If the offer is rescinded before the start date, the applicant will be awarded 3 months salary. If the applicant is fired within 3 months of the start date, the applicant will be awarded relocation fees to previous location." And you'd update that based on costs of moving, or possibly the state of the economy and your risk toleranc…

I really think there needs to be a rework of contract law when it comes to idea of that is permissible and what is considered an unconscionable contract For example, most relocation agreements I have seen have a stipulation where by if the employee quits with in a year or 6mos or some defined time period the employee must pay back any relocation costs incurred by the company. There however is no reverse stipulation.…

I suspect that contract / tort law would cover this situation already in many jurisdictions. There's a contract to hire the OP and I'm guessing that contract didn't have language about rescinding the contract (my Amazon contract did not), only about being an employmee-at-will. Such a clause would probably allow an employer to fire the person once they are hired, but likely wouldn't let them get out of a contract to hire the person first. If I were the OP I would talk to a lawyer and get them to negotiate payment of all actual damages rather than the 1 month pay offer on the basis that this is possibly either fraud or breach of contract. I am not a lawyer, but I LARP as one sometimes.

Re: Amazon rescinding the offer while I am on the notice period

#136

Post by phpisthebest »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #40
tyingq wrote: post #17

Rescinding an offer that's tied to a visa is just extra shitty, sorry this happened to you. Surely they know the consequences that you'll suffer. I wonder if the Amazon leadership chain that collectively decided to do this has any remorse. Edit: Feels like something that governments should tie to individual company's ability to use the visa program. Rescind a visa-tied offer (for no-fault-of-applicant reason), and we…

So what's the better option? Laying off someone already employed instead? It's not extra shitty, it's just as shitty as any other situation. It sucks for the person involved but the alternatives are not better. At least someone that got their offer rescinded can sue for promissory estoppel.

Markets and business economics do not change that fast where there should be a need to rescind offers in a properly managed company. Amazon clearly has major management problems.

Re: Amazon rescinding the offer while I am on the notice period

#137

Post by parasense »

vikingerik wrote: post #126
tyingq wrote: post #17

Rescinding an offer that's tied to a visa is just extra shitty, sorry this happened to you. Surely they know the consequences that you'll suffer. I wonder if the Amazon leadership chain that collectively decided to do this has any remorse. Edit: Feels like something that governments should tie to individual company's ability to use the visa program. Rescind a visa-tied offer (for no-fault-of-applicant reason), and we…

On that last, beware the law of unintended consequence: that penalty would serve as a deterrent against making offers to visa users in the first place, if the company had no route out of it once offered. It's the same idea as European worker protection employment laws compared to the US: they sound good, but the effect is that companies have to be slower to hire when firing is that much harder.

> the effect is that companies have to be slower to hire when firing is that much harder.

Sounds like EU labor policy causes a set of effects resulting in a kind of equilibrium, perhaps a Nash Equilibrium.

Re: Amazon rescinding the offer while I am on the notice period

#138

Post by parasense »

prng2021 wrote: post #65
iLoveOncall wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's the better option? Laying off someone already employed instead? It's not extra shitty, it's just as shitty as any other situation. It sucks for the person involved but the alternatives are not better. At least someone that got their offer rescinded can sue for promissory estoppel.

The better option would have been to hire him. How is that not obvious? Amazon as a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company can absorb the expense of employing him. I’m the worst case, they can lay off an existing low performing employee to compensate.

> Amazon as a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company can absorb the expense of employing him.

That is a very charitable opinion. The idea that because a company is large enough, or profitable enough, that it therefore should be compelled to hire indefinitely, or never shrink in size.

Let me ask, is it your opinion that economies only ever grow forward, that companies in the economy never shrink?

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