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Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

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Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#131

Post by michaelmrose »

endisneigh wrote: post #116

Isn’t the whole point of severance compensation for terminating your employment and other prior agreements, given that you are not at fault? It doesn’t really make sense for one to demand both severance and their leave. From my understanding the Google severance effectively pays you more than maternity leave anyways unless you were at Google for less than 3 years. I wonder how many are in that situation. One example…

Most of the folks laid off aren't on any sort of maternity leave. Of the tiny fraction on maternity leave few logically will have just gone on leave the day they get laid of. Statistically if you pick a random time in a 24 week period the average remaining duration is 12 weeks. Its also meaningless to add the severance that google already agreed to pay and maternity together to decide if the total is reasonable, even more so when you are picking the edge case on an edge case of a long term worker laid off right after going on leave. It's not even clear more than one person in the whole cadre actually meets those criteria.

We are talking about presumably a fraction of 1% of laid off workers receiving an average of 12 additional weeks of pay which for google is a rounding error. Most wont be receiving this benefit and of those that will the majority will have closer to 30 than 60 weeks of pay total.

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#132

Post by rejectfinite »

siliconc0w wrote: post #126

The 'big tech' calculus to suddenly antagonize their workforce to eek out marginal 'efficiency' gains is going to backfire. People may not leave right away but a demoralized fearful workforce isn't going to innovate, or really even give a shit about the work. Teams basically haven't done anything for three months because all the work needs to be reprioritized and that can't even be done when teams still don't know wh…

Ïs this a "big tech" issue or a "USA employment laws" issue? Dosent all comapnies do this in america?

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#134

Post by rejectfinite »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #121

OK, I'll take a stab at defending Google's policy here. Not necessarily because I believe they're 100% in the right, but because I see so many of the arguments on the other side completely failing to address some issues of fairness, and of leaning solely into the emotional aspects of this issue ("Person was laid off!"), or just spitting out lazy comebacks ("Google is evil now!!!") I don't really see this as "Google w…

Agreed. All this talk on how Google was supposed to be different, not evil etc etc. Well, are they breaking any US law? No? Okay then, when push comes to shove it won't matter.

USA needs some laws lol

Related (may break american minds): https://imgur.com/a/dAo1D6Q

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#135

Post by sokoloff »

protastus wrote: post #125
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #121

OK, I'll take a stab at defending Google's policy here. Not necessarily because I believe they're 100% in the right, but because I see so many of the arguments on the other side completely failing to address some issues of fairness, and of leaning solely into the emotional aspects of this issue ("Person was laid off!"), or just spitting out lazy comebacks ("Google is evil now!!!") I don't really see this as "Google w…

Yes, the root cause is that the U.S. barely has any labor laws, and this puts people in cruel situations that are inconsistent with the level of economic development achieved by this nation. Many knowledge workers expect stronger guarantees for earned benefits, out of an intuitive sense of ethics and commitment, but those expectations are more in line with labor laws found in European countries. In the U.S., workers…

My PTO is an earned benefit (legally). I’m sure Google is paying those out. Free meals or free office printing are not earned benefits (legally). I’m sure Google is not paying for 30 weeks of meals or printing for laid off workers.

If you agree with the above, the challenge becomes figuring out whether a benefit is more like the legally earned or more like those provided as a courtesy and convenience.

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#136

Post by sokoloff »

hansvm wrote: post #11
m348e912 wrote: post #2

Why should Google pay maternity leave for laid off workers? They are no longer employees once they're laid off. At the very most they deserve a severence.

- Laying off somebody on maternity leave and then not paying them for that leave is exactly what you would expect from a company laying somebody off _because_ they're on maternity leave, which would be strikingly illegal (IMO not immoral per se -- that burden should be averaged across all of society rather than localized to each employer -- definitely illegal though). At a minimum they'd want their ducks in a row to…

Isn’t the entire point of Cobra that you can keep your previous healthcare plan?

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#137

Post by xracy »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #124
pfoof wrote: post #64

So, can someone clarify: if a laid off Googler is in hospital bed and they stay there after the deadline, they might go into debt (due to hospital prices)?

No. Here are the options: 1. Google is continuing to pay full health care for 6 months, for all laid off employees, as part of their severance. 2. In addition, in the US, workers at decent-sized companies have the option to get COBRA for up to 18 months. COBRA basically says you can stay on your employer's group health plan, but you have to pay the full premiums out of pocket (usually companies pay most or all of the…

Nothing in your last 2 points disproved the original comment. In fact... the opposite.

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#138

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

xracy wrote: post #137
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Here are the options: 1. Google is continuing to pay full health care for 6 months, for all laid off employees, as part of their severance. 2. In addition, in the US, workers at decent-sized companies have the option to get COBRA for up to 18 months. COBRA basically says you can stay on your employer's group health plan, but you have to pay the full premiums out of pocket (usually companies pay most or all of the…

Nothing in your last 2 points disproved the original comment. In fact... the opposite.

It is extremely, extremely doubtful that someone who was a Google employee, who gets a minimum of 4 months severance plus 6 months of paid insurance coverage, couldn't afford cobra or Obamacare.

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#139

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

sokoloff wrote: post #135
protastus wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the root cause is that the U.S. barely has any labor laws, and this puts people in cruel situations that are inconsistent with the level of economic development achieved by this nation. Many knowledge workers expect stronger guarantees for earned benefits, out of an intuitive sense of ethics and commitment, but those expectations are more in line with labor laws found in European countries. In the U.S., workers…

My PTO is an earned benefit (legally). I’m sure Google is paying those out. Free meals or free office printing are not earned benefits (legally). I’m sure Google is not paying for 30 weeks of meals or printing for laid off workers. If you agree with the above, the challenge becomes figuring out whether a benefit is more like the legally earned or more like those provided as a courtesy and convenience.

But it should seem pretty obvious that something like maternity leave couldn't, and shouldn't, be an "earned benefit" - should everyone except to accrue a month of "maternity leave benefit" through the ages of 20 and 40 or something?

It's good that we do have benefits that only apply to subclasses of people (i.e. parents), but how those benefits are structured shouldn't be at the whims of a company if we feel, as a society, that they're important for people generally.

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#140

Post by protastus »

sokoloff wrote: post #135
protastus wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the root cause is that the U.S. barely has any labor laws, and this puts people in cruel situations that are inconsistent with the level of economic development achieved by this nation. Many knowledge workers expect stronger guarantees for earned benefits, out of an intuitive sense of ethics and commitment, but those expectations are more in line with labor laws found in European countries. In the U.S., workers…

My PTO is an earned benefit (legally). I’m sure Google is paying those out. Free meals or free office printing are not earned benefits (legally). I’m sure Google is not paying for 30 weeks of meals or printing for laid off workers. If you agree with the above, the challenge becomes figuring out whether a benefit is more like the legally earned or more like those provided as a courtesy and convenience.

> My PTO is an earned benefit (legally)

Your case does not generalize. In the U.S., there is no federal law requiring the payout of unused PTO.

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