Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance • Hacker News Board

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#81

Post by Aeolun » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:14 AM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #60

skh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world this would be feasible. Few people have the pricing power for their labor to do this. I'd classify what you call a failed business transaction as a failure of government to enact necessary labor laws.

Yes, this is something that can be fixed by law. At least my native country Finland has a sort of public bankruptcy insurance (“palkkaturva”) that extends automatically to all employees. In the event of a bankruptcy leaving you with unpaid wages, you file an application with the same office that handles unemployment benefits, and they will recompensate you. C-level managers are exempt.

But taxes!

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#82

Post by btilly » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:15 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #73

analog31 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, we have unemployment compensation insurance for that purpose. I believe you can collect unemployment even if the employer is insolvent, because it's pre-paid by the employer, and comes out of a collective fund. As I understand it, a severance usually involves the employee signing some sort of agreement.

So who pays for this insurance? Is it usually the company, or the employee?

Employers. See https://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/uifactsheet.as... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#United_S... for more information about it.

Note that the caps are per state, but is sufficiently low that it doesn't replace a professional level income. Therefore if your lifestyle is based on an income of $50K+, you are strongly advised to acquire personal savings for emergencies in case you lose your job. And C-level executives frequently have contracts which specify severance packages that guarantee their income for an extended time if they are fired. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_parachute for more on that.

This can lead to weirdly misaligned incentives, like C-level executives on a failing company trying to get fired because their severance package will leave them better off than staying with the sinking ship.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#83

Post by BigJono » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:16 AM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #49

bb88 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in a world where there's a glut of labor, you're absolutely right. We, however, are not in a glut of labor for software engineers and game designers. And besides, if you explained to the employer the risks you forsee in joining their company, they will most likely understand that reason for asking for a higher salary than the norm.

We, however, are not in a glut of labor for software engineers and game designers If that's true, why are you folks working in open offices and are wearing noise-cancelling headphones?

Because the price of rent in major city centres is ludicrous, I assume.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#84

Post by mmirate » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:25 AM UTC

d357r0y3r wrote: post #54

WillPostForFood wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to note though, employer provided health insurance is a direct outcome of govt policy: Most insurance in the first half of the 20th century was bought privately, but few people wanted it. In 1942, with so many eligible workers diverted to military service, the nation was facing a severe labor shortage. Economists feared that businesses would keep raising salaries to compete for workers, and that inflation…

Rarely discussed but yeah, that's how employee provided health insurance became a thing. It makes no more sense than company-provided housing or groceries or life insurance. You're already at risk of being let go by the employer at any time. Why tack on more risk by trusting the employer to take care of important insurance coverage? The answer in 1942 would have been, "don't subsidize employer-based health insurance.…

> The answer in 1962 would be have been, "remove the subsidies and let God sort it out."

Aside from the pointless religious bit, that answer is still the correct one today.

Indeed, if any policy question is answerable via "remove the subsidies" then that answer is the correct one.

"Too big to fail" really means "too big", period.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#85

Post by sonnyblarney » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:32 AM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #60

skh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world this would be feasible. Few people have the pricing power for their labor to do this. I'd classify what you call a failed business transaction as a failure of government to enact necessary labor laws.

Yes, this is something that can be fixed by law. At least my native country Finland has a sort of public bankruptcy insurance (“palkkaturva”) that extends automatically to all employees. In the event of a bankruptcy leaving you with unpaid wages, you file an application with the same office that handles unemployment benefits, and they will recompensate you. C-level managers are exempt.

This is something entirely different. And FYI a strong incentive for companies to never offer any kind of severance in these situations since it's all socialized.

Better to just be transparent about things so employees can properly consider the risk in the situation.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#86

Post by speeder » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:35 AM UTC

bb88 wrote: post #36

skh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world this would be feasible. Few people have the pricing power for their labor to do this. I'd classify what you call a failed business transaction as a failure of government to enact necessary labor laws.

So in a world where there's a glut of labor, you're absolutely right. We, however, are not in a glut of labor for software engineers and game designers. And besides, if you explained to the employer the risks you forsee in joining their company, they will most likely understand that reason for asking for a higher salary than the norm.

I have a game design degree... And there are waaaaay more of us than there are companies to hire us. I ended working with other things because all game companies I tried wanted to offer minimum wages because there was tons of people trying to get into the industry so no reason to offer more

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#87

Post by JBlue42 » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:36 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #4

The point of severance is to give ex-employees a reason not to sue. However there is left point in protecting from lawsuits when there will be nothing left that can be sued. However I suspect that not paying out owed PTO may be a different story...

California they have to pay out PTO, that is, if they actually earned those benefits. When I worked in vfx, very few people were 'staff' and most were 'contractors' so basically W-2 with no benefits charging hopefully high enough rates to get by.

What they needed is to have a less reputable CEO - mine paid out $2k for signing a non-disparagement clause when 3/4 of the staff were laid off and the rest moved to Vancouver.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#88

Post by JBlue42 » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:38 AM UTC

Domenic_S wrote: post #37

bradford wrote: post #18

Anyone know what the unemployment benefits are like in CA? In WA state, "Unemployment benefits are made available through taxes paid by your former employer(s) to partially replace your regular earnings and help you meet expenses while you look for another job." Not sure what the situation is in CA but I'd hope that, in the absence of a severance package, there's something else that can help them land cleanly here...

$450/week maximum. There's a waiting period (2 weeks?) as well.

Yup, without tacking out taxes. More like $410 I think when taxes are taken out. Luckily, the State doesn't tax it as well. I learned when looking more deeper into it that some states will do so. I think it's kind of shitty that it is taxed, especially if you live in a high COL like CA, but so it goes. That rate hasn't gone up in many years.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#89

Post by pcwalton » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:48 AM UTC

bb88 wrote: post #36

skh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world this would be feasible. Few people have the pricing power for their labor to do this. I'd classify what you call a failed business transaction as a failure of government to enact necessary labor laws.

So in a world where there's a glut of labor, you're absolutely right. We, however, are not in a glut of labor for software engineers and game designers. And besides, if you explained to the employer the risks you forsee in joining their company, they will most likely understand that reason for asking for a higher salary than the norm.

There absolutely is far more labor than positions available for game designers. Same for game programmers, many of whom have education and background so specific to games that they are effectively unemployable outside that industry. There are a bunch of schools that train hundreds of students on nothing but how to build high-level game logic in Unity.

Almost everyone directly involved in production of game titles (i.e. not middleware) would be financially much better off taking the skills they already have and working in another industry—e.g. management for game designers, tech for programmers—with the possible exceptions of artists and musicians.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#90

Post by WillPostForFood » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 12:50 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #56

WillPostForFood wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to note though, employer provided health insurance is a direct outcome of govt policy: Most insurance in the first half of the 20th century was bought privately, but few people wanted it. In 1942, with so many eligible workers diverted to military service, the nation was facing a severe labor shortage. Economists feared that businesses would keep raising salaries to compete for workers, and that inflation…

There is this thing called lobbying. The fact that the government mandates something does not automatically mean that it is good. It could be but it does not have to be.

I've heard of lobbying, and didn't suggest government mandates are good (or not). What I thought was is interesting is that at least initially, it was an unintended consequence, nor the result of a mandate or lobbying.