Would this be legal in any jurisdiction (click-or-be-fired)? I am not familiar with US labour laws, are employees actually at the level of indentured servants considering terms of employment (which I would expect to be a contract between TWO parties)?
I am glad to hear that workers rights are being enforced in Europe.
As an employee in Germany, it sounds deranged to receive an email saying I have one day to completely change my work contract, or be fired from my job.
It's the main reason I chose to move to Europe instead of the US, despite potentially making more money in the US. I very much appreciate the labor protections in most EU countries.
You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary.
Companies could even offer that as an option. We pay you $97k with no labour protections, or $68k but we promise to give you all the labour rights that Germany has, including nice long holidays, unions, no unpaid overtime, can't be fired without cause, etc. Your choice.
(And those figures are the median programmer salary in the USA and Germany respectively)
You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary.
Yes. And I appreciate those labor protections enough that I gladly pay for them.
I could still buy a car, a house, raise a family, have some savings, etc.
The stability and security provided by the labor protections are very much appreciated, a lot more than some extra cash would be.
That, and the peace of mind of not being fired at-will when economic times aren’t so good.
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.
How is a short term contract a solution? It sounds like you don’t have a job at the end of the contract?
Yes, but you know when that will happen.
Soon. Maybe, since it could get renewed eh?
The US also has contractors.
Short term contracts are basically taking the entirety of the ‘shit’ end of the stick for someone else, and are way worse than the median tech job in the US conditions wise.
Short term contracts have pretty big downsides though. It's basically impossible to get a mortgage on a short term contract, or more generally any kind of loan. Even renting is difficult.
That's why many EU countries have pretty strict limitations on short term contracts, like how many you can do in a row. It results in a huge reliance on contractors.
So what. Getting jobs isn't a problem here, on the contrary.
Ehh, this is bullshit. Companies will hire when they need.
It actually makes companies more hesitant to fire.
I would rather companies be a lot more deliberate about hiring people rather than just hiring and firing willy nilly.
And the money is not the only problem, Europe is CHEAP compared to America, it's fascinating.
I heard that wges are less than 50% but you end up saving more
This actually used not be the case. About six years ago I was in San Francisco for work, and was surprised how inexpensive it was. Like, it wasn’t cheap, but I’d heard it talked up as basically the most expensive place in the world, and it was largely cheaper than Dublin.
Going back recently, it’s a _lot_ more expensive; home has gotten more expensive too, but not at the same rate.
(Some of this is due to the currency thing, of course; the dollar was about as weak as it ever got post-financial crisis in 2018.)
Your mistake there is comparing to Dublin - I live in an expensive Uk city (Edinburgh) and it’s just incredible how expensive going home to Dublin is.
The other bit is that you’re comparing living in Dublin to visiting SF. Rental prices in SF make Dublin seem cheap. You’re still probably financially better off living in SF as an engineer, but I’d rather the quality of life of Ireland/Europe
Oh, sure, like I’m not saying SF was ever _cheap_, but it used to be in the same range of cost as Dublin (a very expensive European city); now it’s way more expensive.
Rental prices in SF make Dublin seem cheap
Oh, yeah, they definitely do _now_, but pre-Covid it wasn’t as clear-cut.
You’re still probably financially better off living in SF as an engineer
I think even that probably isn’t totally clear at this stage. If you’re in Big Tech(TM), you’re probably getting on the order of 60-70% pay in Dublin that you’d get in the same role in the same company in Silicon Valley (there’s some variation, but that’s about the usual ratio). If you have to pay SF rent or mortgage (plus property tax) with that, then you may not come ahead. If you can afford to buy outright or with a small mortgage, you’re probably doing better in SF, but even most big tech workers can’t afford that.
(I think the pay gap probably is bigger outside big tech, tho)
Europe is CHEAP compared to America, it's fascinating.
Yup. Cost of living is insanely low compared to the US, even when just comparing hotbeds like Silicon Valley vs London/Berlin/Munich, with the largest factor being housing. Additionally, healthcare costs are far lower as well - there is no such thing as co-pays, surprise bills and whatnot here (although I do admit some things like dental and vision care aren't covered by insurance, but generally still affordable).
Interesting, but as someone who visits the USA sometimes for short work/tourist trips, food and drinks are much cheaper pretty much anywhere except maybe California. And because that's most of what you spend on during short trips, not counting hotels (which are about the same price as Europe) to me the USA is a paradise of cheap drinks and large meals :D (but yeah, Europe wins on quality).
Honestly, true. But possibly not in the way people imagine
People see the difference in wages, but what they miss is a) the amount of fees and extra expenses they have to pay that escape cost of living calculations, b) the "natural" lifestyle inflation that comes with living in the US (maybe summed up by the word consumerism), c) some size/low density related inefficiencies and d) things like educational costs
Now, yes Europe makes it hard on itself a lot by being dumb (see HS2 costs soaring off or the failed German energy policy - not against renewable but their fee structure is stupid)
I heard that wges are less than 50% but you end up saving more
Curios regarding how you came up with that conclusion. After paying rent, taxes and buying some groceries from EU senior engineer's ~80k you will generally have enough to maybe buy a new smartphone at the end of the year, not any meaningful amount of savings.
I could still buy a car, a house, raise a family, have some savings, etc.
You are an outlier. Very few SDEs in EU can afford to raise a family in their own SFH on a single salary while living in a location with any notable IT jobs market.
You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary.
There may be some truth to this, but it's not as stark as some think.
The average cost of a "moderate" house in.. say, Palo Alto is around $3M USD. Those are typically older houses, smaller lots, less desirable neighbourhoods.
Everything is more expensive in such an area. Property tax on that $3M USD house is likely going to be about $20k USD per year, one may as well say an additional $2000/month. That property tax alone is more than most people pay for mortgages in any other place in the US.
I once compared my Ottawa, ON, Canada salary to at typical, comparable one in SV. After looking at the cost of housing, and living, I determined that even though I was making 1/3 the salary? I was taking home more.
Now of course, there is one key difference here. If you don't rent, and do buy, some of that missing "take home" goes into property which does have value. But if you're a renter? If your primary cost (housing) isn't coming back to you in some way?
That SV salary is actually a lot less than you think.
I'd take $100kUSD in Ottawa, over $200kUSD, maybe even $300kUSD in SV, if I wasn't able to buy. EG, forced to rent. And I'd have more money in my pocket in Ottawa, at end of day.
Oh, and that massive property tax certainly isn't recoverable. You're paying some of that whether you rent (because the landlord does), or if you buy.
Housing in Ottawa is ridiculously expensive. Good luck buying a home for less than $1M and even then you’re looking at a considerable commute.
How one can take a 67% pay cut and have housing still high means you have more in your pocket you’re going to have to explain.
https://www.realtor.ca/on/ottawa/real-estate
There are loads of houses well under $1M Canadian, the average price would likely be 700k.
In USD that's about 500K. a far cry from the 2 to 3M USD in Palo Alto. 1M CDN (720kUSD) houses in Ottawa, are what you'd pay $5M for in Palo Alto.
Inflation is not unique to Ontario, you'll see the same sort if thing in SV too
You need to compare like for like. If you're talking about homes in Kanata, then you need to look at homes the same distance in the East Bay where you can buy for under $1M as well.
A $3M home in Palo Alto is comparable to a Ottawa home in the core of the city. And not a townhome, a detached single family home.
If you're going to compare in this way, wouldn't 'most expensive in the metro area' be San Fransisco compared to 'most expensive in the metro area' downtown Ottawa?
Palo Alto is like Kanata, price wise. Ottawa core is like San Fran.
Yeh this person's argument makes no sense in the context of today's Ontario, but did about 5+ years ago. Housing price inflation here has made the lower SWE salaries here very uncompetitive.
And it's not just the house itself, goods and services associated with real estate have blown up with it. Home renovations and maintenance work on your home (if you can even find a contractor) are just stupid. So even if you bought in years ago (like I did), the carrying costs are very high.
That’s why this take came across as unrealistic to me.
Housing has exploded in Canada over the last decade. Even in smaller cities like Ottawa, the prices are more expensive than cities like Chicago.
Then layer on top low salaries, and housing affordability is worse in Canada than many US cities.
A big section of this is the petrodollar creating an perversly stong USD.
As that dies off and the USD rebalances to a post American empire equilibrium, housing priced in USD will be far more similar everywhere, exactly the same way it did post British and French empires. (back when 1gbp would buy you 10usd)
I don't get the reasoning here. Costs in SV are a direct result of the economic powerhouse it is, and the size of the local population. A lot of people cite all sorts of other reasons, but those reasons exist in every other US state to a degree, and yet many of those states do not have high property costs.
It's all about population density compared with economic might.
If the USD was to crash tomorrow, people in SV would still draw their salaries, housing would still be the same price relative to them. You're not going to erase costs due to population density and economic drive, because a dollar drops a bit.
Not to mention, the UK has a GDP basically half the US per capita. That has nothing to do with a petro dollar or not. I really see the "petro dollar" thing is a talking point, without the validity to back it up.
The US is not Silicon Valley. You have a much better take home salary if you want to buy a house elsewhere in the US.
You can also choose to live in California for a few years as a renter if you are young, save money and go live elsewhere with the savings. Ask me how I know you can do that...
I reached a similar conclusion back when I was planning what to do if the Brexit referendum went the wrong way (it did).
Even ignoring the labour rights issues (because I didn't really consider them at the time), rent and other costs were high enough that I was seriously considering a private pilot's license and a small aircraft for commuting, because that would allow a nice easy fast commute from somewhere that wasn't priced absurdly. That wouldn't actually have worked either, but I decided against the USA well before pursuing that to more than a superficial calculation — if I had, then it wouldn't have taken until Scott Manley's videos showing me the flight considerations[0] in the area, to learn why this wasn't going to happen.
[0] "I know, I'll commute by light aircraft to somewhere in the middle of a city that has a huge international airport and is 'one of the busiest airspace in the world'", yeah, no https://johmathe.github.io/flying_bay_tour.html
You are effectively buying those labour protections with the difference in salary.
FWIW, this is not as simple as labour protections being effectively equivalent to $29k. By being a legal requirement and not a choice, that $29k doesn't register to the market as using disposable income, so competitive pressure doesn't inflate prices of everything to compensate. It's strictly better than having a choice between $97k and $68k + labor protections.
By being a legal requirement and not a choice, that $29k doesn't register to the market as using disposable income, so competitive pressure doesn't inflate prices of everything to compensate.
In competitive markets prices approach the cost of production rather than absorbing all of the disposable income of the customer. If you have uncompetitive markets, that is a separate problem with its own solutions.
And then you have the other problem. The job pays $29k less because it costs the company that much to avoid those costs, i.e. they're willing to pay that much more to someone in the US to do the same job. That doesn't mean you're getting $29k in value. Some of the money is going to compliance and administration rather than you.
And in general money is worth more than stuff, because if you want the stuff you can buy it with money, but if you don't want that specific stuff then turning it back into money or other stuff at best incurs transaction costs and at worst isn't even achievable.
The notion that you're not taxed on the stuff is also an illusion; the rules apply to everyone in the jurisdiction and the government needs however much money from people to provide the services it provides so if you're not paying it there you're either paying it somewhere else or getting fewer government services.
In competitive markets prices approach the cost of production rather than absorbing all of the disposable income of the customer. If you have uncompetitive markets, that is a separate problem with its own solutions.
All markets are a bit uncompetitive — if they were not, if they were perfectly elastic and frictionless cows in a vacuum, then not only would anyone making a profit be undercut by someone willing to make less profit, a cycle which would repeat until profits became zero, but so too would wages be undercut by anyone else willing to provide the labour for less, with the same cycle driving income to subsistence + internet in our present case (or pennies per kloc when LLMs get better).
Also you are not taxed on that notional 29k, of course (this is one reason that companies often offer in excess of the statutory minimum paid leave etc; it’s essentially an un-taxable benefit). Given the choice between an extra week paid leave at your 100k a year job (notional value is ~2k) or a 2k raise, you’re probably better off taking the leave.
Belgian healthcare started like that. First, workers personally kept apart a part of their wages. Then people in 1 factory pooled their money together. Then clusters of factories united into 'verbonden', a union-like construct . These where, like a lot of things at the time, grouped by world view:. Christian, socialist, ...
After a while, the governement wanted in, joined the verbonden to landsbonden (Country level insurers grouped by world view) and put themselves in the money stream.
The end result is Belgium having a weird construction half way between private health insurance and country-level health insurance.
‘verbonden’
Co-op is the word you’re looking for. These co-ops went far beyond just healthcare after all. They owned bakeries, pharmacies, entertainment facilities for the workers, …
There isn't really a good translation, the concept doesn't really exist in other countries. They have aspects of unions, co-ops, governemental and political organisations. In the past, they had their own legal status. Today, the EU forced them to become real corporations, and e.g. had them split of the travel aspects from the health insurance aspects.
but we promise
of course, who's to say that next quarter priorities of management or shareholders shift & those "promises" evaporate?
Of course you'd want to put those terms in the employment contract, not just a verbal promise. Surely you wouldn't get exactly the same protection as in another country with a completely different legal system, but at least you could get part of it.
And yeah, they could terminate the contract, but they would still be bound by its terms that say how they can do that, with how much notice, for what reasons, and how much they will owe you.
Contract law is strong. If a company deliberately gave the employee lots of rights in an employment contract (in return for less pay), a court would hold the company to that later whilst it was solvent, even if company management later changes it's approach.
Are there any companies who do offer such things, though?
When working remotely, you're often allowed to pick between employment and b2b contracts, which is essentially the same thing.
And in countries such as Germany you are legally required to be an employee if you only work for one company. The government will sue the company or if not reachable, they will sue the employee.
So deel.com is a usual choice.
That's not true.
The higher wages in the US are not related to labour protections. They are related to vastly higher wages in tech because of big corps pushing up those wages to have the best of the best working for them.
Proof is simple: Since a lot of low paying jobs in the US have no labour protections.
Or look at what Tesla does in Texas, with the "unprotected" third party companies that don't have labour protections. They are vastly worse off than those that work for Tesla ( since the country required minimum protections and Tesla didn't apply that to contractors)
Proof is simple: Since a lot of low paying jobs in the US have no labour protections.
That doesn't follow. The low paying jobs exist because the value to the employer of hiring someone exceeds the low pay. For those jobs, if the employer is required to provide paid vacation etc. then it can push the cost of hiring someone over the cost of offshoring the job or automating it, so the alternative then isn't high pay vs. low pay, it's have a job vs. no job.
Also, many of the costs are in proportion to the pay, e.g. the cost of a vacation day is the cost of paying someone else to cover, so the difference will often be a percentage rather than a fixed amount. Then it's no surprise that skilled professionals get paid more than unskilled labor, but that doesn't mean the unskilled laborers can't still be making more than they would be in the alternative where the company had higher costs to hire them.
Or look at what Tesla does in Texas, with the "unprotected" third party companies that don't have labour protections. They are vastly worse off than those that work for Tesla ( since the country required minimum protections and Tesla didn't apply that to contractors)
They have fewer employee benefits, but in return contractors generally get higher hourly wages. One way or another they have to convince the worker to work for them instead of somebody else.
Total comp for experienced software engineers in Silicon Valley exceeded $750k/yr for several years.
Your argument makes no sense.
It was a bubble, but a bubble that has been inflated for a very long time.
No, you are not buying that in your salary. The cost of living is shared more evenly in most European countries. You may consider it an insurance, and most insurance policies don't work if there is only one buyer.
we promise
There you go.
Remember folks: a company's interests are directly opposite to yours. If it makes enough money to not hold their promise, they will.
I don't want promises from an actor that is structurally infinitely more powerful than I ever will be. This is why not only must this be on contract and enforceable at any time, but individualistic mindset is always against our interests, because it's easy to promise to one who will be able to defend themselves and plunder another one who can't.
It's not my choice, it's our choice.
The problem is that this additional salary in turns inflates the housing market or tuition fees, and at the end of the day you're not earning that much in exchange for the protection you gave up.
I'm so glad most European countries have robust labour laws which often favour the employee in case of doubt, not the employer.
This type of behaviour - unilaterally changing the employment agreement without even specifying them in their entirety! - should never be possible.
I hope other employees and EU countries follow suit and slap X with more fines, if this impacted other citizens as well.
Can't wait until the US wakes up and we get an endless 'that's why the startup/innovation culture in the EU sucks and will never be comparable to the US'
Is it wrong for people to voice views that you disagree with? The value of HN is hearing differing view points.
It would be nice if people on HN tried to engage in a good willed nature rather than treating discussions like a struggle session.
But to the topic at hand, in rapidly changing sectors, high levels of friction when it comes to employment has a cost. There is no free lunch in economics.
When hiring employees means you’re hiring them effectively for life, it creates disincentives for hiring. Maybe you hiring consultants instead. Or maybe you make do and not hire at all.
No doubt it benefits employees when it comes to job stability. But the cost can be not having those jobs at all. That’s something that has to be considered in the equation.
The other thing is the employee obligations it creates. When I worked in Europe I had to give three months notice to quit. Either that or pay the company the equivalent of the salary I made. As an employee it was a penalty I couldn’t afford and thus opportunities at start ups that needed someone now were out of reach. Employee protections had a real cost to me.
It’s pretty clear that Europe as a whole is willing to pay that cost, but it’s a choice.
Nothing wrong with that, but one can’t make that choice then turn around and wonder why your innovative sectors are lagging other countries.
The problem on such discussion that many Americans (I am not sure if you are but experience says yes you're) tend to use only straw man arguments (and that's why the reason they are ignored) "When hiring employees means you’re hiring them effectively for life, it creates disincentives for hiring. "
In Germany it is not the case.
"The other thing is the employee obligations it creates. When I worked in Europ" Europe is a big place and working law in the EU (and outside too!) is in the charge of national law. Where have you been living ?
In Germany you can talk to company to quit earlier because these quitting comworkers tend to be rather unproductive.
How is it not the case in Germany?
The only German tech company I’m aware of was a fintech which was a massive fraud that collapsed on itself.
Yeah, Such rage bait argument with no real arguments don't help to improve my perception.
Care to reply with opposing facts? Literally the only German tech firm of note I’m aware of is [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal].
Do you have some opposing examples?
What about SAP?
lol. The German cope is strong here.
It doesn’t generally get included for the same reason IBM doesn’t typically get included in list of ‘tech companies’, even if they are one of the oldest actual tech companies.
Been around forever (70’s or earlier), large multinational, more about business integration and sales than any headline tech. Frankly, their tech has been a side thought for a very long time internally. It’s a blue chip that happens to involve tech, not a ‘tech company’ like any of the FAANGs. Same issue Tata/Wipro, etc. have IMO. Arguably Oracle falls in the same class too.
A parallel comment mentioned Deutsch Telecom, but they’re really not a ‘tech company’ anymore than T-Mobile, AT&T, Comcast, etc. are.
If we include it anyway, that gives Germany 2 and the US…. Several dozen? Minimum? Maybe 50ish, actually. Even if we don’t use the same broad criteria in the US.
If we use the same broad criteria in the US, probably 1/3 of the Fortune 500 qualify, if not more. Is Bank of America a ‘tech company’?
I'm mean you can Google it. I expect more from a random HN user.
You are literally aware of a single German company and because of this you assume what is true for them is true for all German companies, nay, all of Europe?
The 6th largest Software-Provider in the World (SAP) is probably the most notable global german software firm. Deutsche Telekom, maybe. As far as I am aware, there are some bigger gaming companies as well. But this is, of course, a singular counterexample.
Germany has a large "Mittelstand", so medium sized companies and much stronger antitrust/cartell-laws. One could argue, that the lack of extremly large tech-companies is, for better or worse, by design.
Wirecard was a disaster for a multitude of reasons: The company itself [lost|stole|defrauded] a billion euros, their auditors (Ernst&Young, now "EY") failed to notice a billion euros of irregularities and lost their auditing license over the debacle. The german banking authorities failed in some capacity I cannot remember right now.
The BaFin regulatory failure was pretty spectacular too, despite the lid that the German establishment tried to put on it. Not so much has leaked out so far, mainly because prosecutors have declined to take much action against the regulator or its employees and officers, however what is known is pretty damning.
First, they ignored early - like TEN YEARS - and relatively continuous warnings about fraud at Wirecard.
Then they legally targeted journalists who pointed out misconduct at Wirecard (!!!)
Then they banned short-sellers from shorting Wirecard (!!!!!!) and indeed in internal memos mentioned that short-sellers were Israelis and British citizens in some kind of bigoted justification for the ban. Gross and disgusting, but perhaps par for the course in some levels of the government there.
They tried to cover up malfeasance within their own org, including at least one, but probably more employees undertaking insider trades on Wirecard before its failure.
But don’t be too worried about the poor chauffeur-driven bureaucrats at BaFin!
They’ve since reorganised and added more senior employees to an already bloated and ineffectual regulator who are culturally in bed with the regulated entities.
The gravy train must continue.
(Just reviewing what happened through internet searches has caused steam to come out of my ears again. What the actual fuck was BaFin doing all those years?)
I don't know why you are interested in a niche BaaS/Investment bank. The customer facing "fintech" is N26 and they used Wirecard as a BaaS(banking as a service) provider before they had their own banking license. If you are interested in another BaaS then checkout SolarisBank instead.
We also have our own fancy pants multi billion dollar delivery companies like "Delivery Hero/Lieferheld" or Zalando that Silicon Valley types are so fond of.
SoundCloud is a German startup. So is ResearchGate.
Or how about Hello fresh that so many English speaking YouTubers tend to have sponsorships with?
By the way I was mostly trying to think of Silicon Valley esque startups with a strong internet presence. The moment you talk about things like semiconductors, digital twins, robotics, basically any manufacturing related technology, Germany has a long list of major "tech" companies. I know, I know "tech" is actually American slang for software, not hardware, technology but still.
That is unbelievable to me. You always have the right to quit, and penalties are rare. The laws depend on the country you're in of course, but I've never heard of three months, and I've lived in Europe my whole life.
Would you mind sharing the country you were working in?
It's pretty common to have penalties if you quit without notice. It's also a breach of contract. Employers probably won't go after you in court though, unless your immediate departure cause them some damage larger than the lawyer's bill.
One month is common for juniors or contractors. I've never seen a contract with less than 1 month notice in tech. Three months is common for senior or management positions.
I’ve only ever seen one month in both Europe and Japan. With no stipulated penalties for leaving immediately (beyond, you know, being an a*).
In Norway, 3 months notice is the norm, and you can be expected to work it. In practice, there's rarely much value in holding people to it (though it can happen) because someone who really doesn't want to be there isn't going to be a productive employee. But lots of people do stay the 3 months because people looking to hire are also used to often having to wait 3 months to get someone on full time.
In England I had a 3 month notice period at a previous employer, luckily the employer I was going to was okay with waiting that amount of time.
In Germany the minimum time of notice for being fired scales up with your seniority (number of years employed in the company). However, many work contracts add a stipulation that the minimum time of notice from the law be applied to both parties equally, so quitting will also need an advance notice of the same length.
I am Italian and at my previous work at a bank, I had a two month notice (originally one, but increased with seniority). As far as I know, it is pretty common in Italy, and employers know that when they hire someone, the person will only join one to three months later due to this - or sometimes they offer to pay the penalty
Treating workers terribly isn't considered good startup/innovation culture by the US. It is standard practice by large non-innovative corporations though which is what Twitter is. Twitter surpassed stats that would qualify it as a startup over a decade ago long before Musk entered the picture.
Youth unemployment is a better metric to track. It’s objectively more expensive to hire/fire.
I mean, it does allow a better access to "move fast, innovate and break things", the issue being that some of things broken are people lives and careers and in the EU we more or less decided this was not ok nor worth it.
Well, stifling regulation is one problem, but the real reason the EU is behind is the lack of a single place with low taxes on investors and talent.
The effect is compounded by all the smart talent going to SV or large rich cities (London, Zurich), leaving scraps to the rest.
Unrealized capital tax gains being reinvested tax free made Silicon Valley's exponential growth possible (which is the only reason why a16z was forced to back Trump despite the Tech are being overwhelmingly democrat leaning - they're scared they'll be taxed out of existance).
Americans call it innovation I call it going back to 1890.
But I refuse to believe that every employer in the US is a piece of shit. I bet most of them are decent people.
The problem is that you can still get fooled or bullied into accepting a bad deal. I suggest everyone working in the EU to learn their rights and to consult a lawyer when something doesn't feel right, doesn't cost much here, initial consultations are often even free. Don't sign something put in front of you before you had a chance to understand your position. The person who wants you to sign it had ample time to do that, you didn't. Same goes for accepting things that seem unfair via email or verbally, that can weaken your position already.
I've been on both sides of the fence (mostly in Germany). As an employer, my approach was usually to be nice to employees I wanted to get rid of and to offer them a good severance package proactively. If you push an employee and give them ammunition to sue (and you fail to fool/bully them) it's gonna get a lot more expensive. Not to mention distracting/emotional. Just keep in mind that if you hire an FTE, you'll have to mentally put money aside to exit them at some point in the future. Hiring freelancers is more expensive, but doesn't carry these problems. I tend to mix FTEs and freelancers, partly to distribute the risks and costs.
When talking to people in bad situations with their employer, I'm always surprised how little they know and how easily they're willing to take the short end of the stick. There's a deal between you and the company that specifies what you'll do for them and what you'll get in return, with legal context surrounding it. I think it's also good to be nice and willing to compromise in that situation, but employees generally don't seem to be aware of what a powerful position they're actually in, and don't feel they "deserve" that, or don't want to upset anyone. It's business at the end of the day, contracts. Don't be a bad business person, it's not like CEOs will respect or like you more if you don't put up a fight. Typically the opposite.
The lack of these protections is one thing that, IMHO, warrants the comparatively high US salaries in tech. More risk, more reward - business 101 stuff.
> “I suggest everyone working in the EU to learn their rights and to consult a lawyer when something doesn't feel right, doesn't cost much here, initial consultations are often even free”
In many European countries unions provide free legal support.
Join the union even if things are good for you now, and you don’t have to go hunting for legal help if one day you feel like your employer isn’t being fair.
In France it's mandatory in a company to have a "company union", after 10 employee it's one representative (employee who has part of his paid time dedicated to employees support functions, and it grows to more and more the more employees there is.
Whether those representative act on their own, or join a national union or syndicate, is their own decision, and they're elected every 4 years.
Any meeting or importance between an employee and his employer, he can request one of the representative be present to assist him (and in some type of meeting, it is pretty much mandatory to avoid employer pressuring against).
Etc etc ...
Our system is far from perfect, but at least having SOMEONE in the company to turn to seem to make sense to me.
In France it's mandatory in a company to have a "company union", after 10 employee it's one representative (employee who has part of his paid time dedicated to employees support functions, and it grows to more and more the more employees there is.
In Germany, that's called "Betriebsrat" (something like "company council") with pretty much the same purpose.
And then there's the "Gewerkschaft", which are unions not for one company but for entire sectors of the economy who - through their numbers of members - are able to do collective bargaining for the employees of their fields of various companies. E.g. "IG Metall" being the industrial union of metalworkers, which considering Germanys large manufacturing background is the largest union in the country.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Metall
I think that the standard translation into UK English of “Betriebsrat” is “Works Council” [1].
I’ve never been highly convinced by these organs, since they seem to be colonised by folks who want to become Very Difficult to Fire, and who ultimately fold to any poorly thought-through management decision that impacts the lives of employees.
I’ve come to that both as an individual contributor and as a senior manager, but YMMV.
In the UK ACAS provide free support as well.
ACAS are terrific....
...a government body providing impartial advice for employers and employees to improve industrial relations. I can't recommend them enough.
You don't even need to join to get access to the support.
Not sure about germany or other countries but in France any contractual change that specifically make the employee position worse without any clear return is essentially voided in "prud'hommes" (the workers/companies justice court) unless they were warned in advance of a negociation meet and brought their representative with them (any company above 10 must have one, and more and more as the company grow).
Also, any major change need to be in counter signed writing, it cannot be a one way thing, not even a "we both agreed" even if it's true.
As an employer myself it sometimes lead to seemingly absurd situation where you need heavy procedures for a simple change, but the end result is that no worker is screwed this way in a way that would stick in court (it still does happen, mostly in areas where people don't go to court after, of course).
A specific kind of deal is the "the company is going south, we make a collective agreement like eg no firing and no dividends and workers agreed to reduced hours or salary for X months" things like this, and in Twitter case it could be what they should have used, but again these have clear procedures and steps to be considered legal and not abuse by the employer, and as you can imagine a middle of the night email with no representation does not fit at all.
I know Musk is a know it all that believe he is so smart and better that he doesn't need to listen to the competent persons around, but I wished I could be a fly on the wall in the company's lawyer room that day, just for the absurdity of it (I imagine it was sort of "we can pretend it's ok, or we can tell him and be fired too").
Oh we don't appear to have that level of protections in Germany. If you accept, for example, a demotion (that one could argue is still in line with the job title and description in your contract) via email, it's difficult to contest later. If you do want to contest it, you have to be quick and do it in writing. For something like reducing salary or other benefits, or changing your job title, those need to be counter signed. Problem is, quite often promotions are (deliberately) not offered with contract amendments, so when you're demoted later, the company can argue you've never legally been promoted in the first place. Sounds like a drag, but it's incredibly useful to describe your role and responsibilities in the employment contract, and to insist on an update once promoted.
As for Musk's lawyers, I'd also love to know how exactly that played out, I can imagine all kinds of scenarios, some hilarious. The most likely to me seems that he wasn't exactly involved in this particular case, or any of these cases. People handle it based on what they think he'd want to do, then pass on the bad news if their plots fail somehow. I'm assuming this might be net positive for him in the end: He got away with the forced, incredibly quick culture change and workforce culling and was able to move forward with his strategy immediately. Delaying problems seems to have worked out for him quite a bit in the past.
The problem is that you can still get fooled or bullied into accepting a bad deal. I suggest everyone working in the EU to learn their rights and to consult a lawyer when something doesn't feel right,
If you've been forced to make a choice with an incredibly short timescale, many tribunals/courts (in Europe anyway) will put aside your choice if it later turns out to be detrimental. It's a bit like forcing someone to sign a contract at gunpoint.
The issue in Europe is that in many countries the law goes to the opposite extreme. The level of 'protection' and rigidity is so high that it actually utimately hurts people because there are fewer opportunities and lower growth as a result.
Unemployment is low, rapidly aging society. Any company that treats it's people this way will find their workers looking for greener pastures.
BTW in Germany, if a company decides to lay off people just to save money, they have to coordinate with some government agency -- and if the company doesn't have financial trouble, those layoffs can be blocked.
This happened to Alphabet/Google when they wanted to lay off 6% of their workforce, but were wildly profitable. They couldn't in Germany.
(This probably wouldn't have applied in the Twitter case, because Twitter wasn't profitable, but it illustrates that there are processes and rules around employment that might seem very unusual to others).
I know the subtext of this comment is "European labor laws are good."
But it seems you've cited an example of something ironically very anti-labor. This means your government has codified into law the false idea that all human employees are undifferentiated commodities (like cattle). So as an employer, if there's no ability to remove underperformers every year, you've turned employment into a market for lemons, and created a classic adverse selection problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
A market for lemons 1) suppresses prices [wages in this context] 2) decreases price variance and 3) creates inefficiencies. As 50% of workers are actually above average (statistics!), you've created a negative feedback loop hurting workers wages and ultimately growth in the economy.
So as an employer, if there's no ability to remove underperformers every year, you've turned employment into a market for lemons
You can fire someone, but not on a whim*. You need to build a file, build history, give chances for one to improve their behaviour and performance.
*in some cases you can, like grave errors, like ignoring safety regulations, endangering others, etc.
But it seems you've cited an example of something ironically very anti-labor. This means your government has codified into law the false idea that all human employees are undifferentiated commodities (like cattle). So as an employer, if there's no ability to remove underperformers every year
No, that is not the case. You can still fire people and you can do so especially if they are underperforming. You just can't do it as a mass layoff.
If you fire someone then you need a reason to do so. If you fire people because of a layoff then you need to show that the layoff is legitimate.
You can not just group underperformers and let them go as a layoff because you are circumventing labor law. You can not lie about the reason why you are letting someone go.
No one would care if you fired 99% of your company IF you are prepared to show they were underperforming and that was the official reason given.
This is a great way to cement inefficiencies and create pencil pushers.
Germany in a nutshell.
German here. I would be very interested in the government agency you are alluding to.
There are laws regulating layoffs due to operating conditions (Kuendigungsschutzgesetz). But these laws do not allow the government to intervene directly in company affairs - that would be communism! If a company wants to restructure "for internal reasons" (rationalizations are specifically mentioned) it is allowed to do so. This includes offshoring, moving workload to contractors, or simply getting rid of a department.
However: many of the large companies (eg. SAP, BASF, carmakers,...) have collective labor agreements. These agreements often exclude layoffs due to operational conditions within a certain period. Under very special circumstances layoffs are still possible in such arrangements, but the companies have to prove their economic hardship and the layoffs often end with a sort of golden handshake. If they happen at all :)
It's nice to have these labour laws, but they only help if you find yourself in the right situation, like this guy, a somewhat senior employee who stands to get a nice payout, and can therefore afford to engage in a legal battle.
But the most vulnerable of us are new grads or people with little experience, and most of the time the abuse from the bosses falls in a gray zone, where it is not clearly illegal, but still very damaging for the future of our careers. And no laws or unions will protect you from that kind of environment.
It's also worth mentioning, with respect to Germany specifically, that there are a lot of anti-worker customs that would make Americans gasp. For example, the quasi-requirement of having pictures and other personal information on your CV, the fact that racial discrimination is an open secret even though there are laws against it, the requirement of a reference letter from your previous employer, the glass ceiling that you will encounter frequently unless you are part of the right demographic to break into management ... I could go on.
As an employee in Germany, I feel abused and helpless. Most of the laws on the books are not written to protect me. The only thing that really protects people like me is a competitive job market.
For example, the quasi-requirement of having pictures and other personal information on your CV
Picture was a requirement, but that is slowly becoming less popular. Especially in Tech. Leave it off if you don't feel like including a Picture. I stopped including a Picture as well some years ago and it has not harmed (or improved) me yet.
Which other personal information is required? I would expect contact information and Name. Of course also your Work History and Education. Which personal information do you have a problem with?
the requirement of a reference letter from your previous employer,
Yes, they are required to give you a reference letter when you leave the company. Honestly, I have never been asked to provide said letter to my new employer in the 15 Years I have worked in Germany.
Most times I don't even have one during the hiring process since I am still working there. So, even if asked about a reference letter, I would just reply that I do not have one. Which, again, has not happened to me yet.
>As an employee in Germany, I feel abused and helpless.
It's worse in Austria where you have at will employment with a notice period and can be laid off without any reason so many companies can subtly force you to accept a new contract or just get laid off.
In Germany, every large company is required to have a worker's committee, elected by the employees. They have the ability to block certain kinds of company actions, and negotiate all kinds of policies with the company. They would probably have your back in a situation like the one described in this article.
In the US, you usually don't have a work contract. In many states the employer can fire you for any reason except for being a member of a protected class. Or change the terms of working there.
In such states, employees can also leave for any reason, but the asymmetry of the power dynamic means the "at will" laws are generally more beneficial to the employer.
Must be nice to live in a civilized society like that.
I am in Australia. We are somewhere in between, not as strong as Germany or Western EU countries but infinitely better than US. When some of us were laid off by a US tech firm in 2023 they had to give us prior notice for consultation and not cut off our access immediately like they did in US. This allowed us a week to understand our rights and find out the mistakes in their offer. They had to go back and come back with a new better offer as per Australian laws.
In Australia we have codified National Employment Standards which are strictly enforced. https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/national-e...
Ireland has an organisation called the Workplace Relations Commission, anyone can log a complaint against their current or former employer without getting the lawyers involved. The case gets reviewed and if warranted a payment can be required. I believe this case was their highest ever award.
My German co-workers have the healthiest relationship with work in the company because it seems they feel empowered to set boundaries. I often wonder if it's a commonality in Germany? It doesn't seem like perfection, they complain about things too, but it seems healthier to a degree from this vantage.
And it's amazing how much nonsense they don't have to deal with just because The business will make the Americans do it so as to avoid a works council hassle :P I'd like a works council that makes my management pause before they load me up with extra work on top of my normal tasks.
What's sad is the people who get frustrated by the German's not having to deal with the bullshit and instead of thinking "we should have that!" they think "They should NOT have that!"
humans are weird.
The number of US tech businesses that are surprised they need, or think they can ignore the need, to obey employment and data protection laws when working in other jurisdictions is simply bonkers.
If this is allowed, the concept of a contract is meaningless, as all terms change whenever one party feels like it.
So Musk feels to be above contract law. The whole basis for law based commerce goes out of the window. Musk's world view is incredibly dangerous for a law based country.
This means €550k is a way to low number as punishment. It might be enough as restitution for the employee, but an additional, much stronger and personal punishment should be given to anyone who agreed with this way of working.
Well, to me as a European, this feels like a very high number already.
Wages in America must be truly incredible for this to seem normal. I know so many full time developers on a tenth of that.
Wages in America must be truly incredible for this to seem normal
They indeed are for a very small subset of people, who are overrepresented on this website.
I really don't think you can generalize that wages o/a are incredible in the US.
The wages in the US are incredible while still being much less than 500k
This is someone who’s worked for Twitter, which at least historically paid Big Tech(tm)-ish wages, for over a decade, and is in a pretty senior position.
Median wage is only about $50k in the US. Tech compensation is just really high.
Also note that salaries are rarely that high even in tech. Usually a big part of compensation is stock grants which are taxed differently.
It's even worse, he can get out of paying that in a number of ways. If he simply refuses to pay, the employee needs to sue. He can play for time and later declare bankruptcy in the European subsidiaries that have too many legal costs racking up. IANAL, so I might be wrong about some of this, but I did see things play out like this. The employee OTOH has probably had to deplete quite a few savings to afford to go through with this.
I think you’re wrong there. Once the company is out of appeals (which should be soon for labour stuff), it will AIUI have a debt to the employee. The employee can then ask a court to enforce the debt, after which they can instruct a sheriff to seize goods (a sheriff in the Irish system is pretty different to a US one). However in practice most companies, unless they’re basically already dead, are going to pay a relatively small creditor, because they presumably need credit to operate normally.
He can play for time and later declare bankruptcy in the European subsidiaries that have too many legal costs racking up.
Indeed, but payments awarded by courts generally rank very high in priority in bankruptcy proceedings, and he can also apply for garnishment against Twitter's bank accounts in the meanwhile.
Intentionally draining money to force a bankruptcy and void debt is a felony in most places. Of course an army of lawyers might make that case go away.
€550k is just the compensation. But for such a behaviour, there should be an actual punishment involved.
Exemplary damages are awarded only in exceptional and extremely rare cases in Ireland, and the WRC (which issued this ruling) cannot levy them.
I would say it's not Musk's view itself that is dangerous, more the fact that this clown has a horde of fans.
Given that neither he (to the best of my knowledge) nor the general population have any formal legal training, I think that most people have views which are as sensible and well-informed as Musk's: barely at all — ChatGPT sure knows more than I do and I don't trust it either.
I think the problem is that wealth disparities make anything involving expertise (including but not limited to legal battles) increasingly one-sided as the disparity increases. This is where unions, public prosecutors, wealth taxes, class action suits, and the idea that contracts can be voided in part or in whole by courts, all play a part.
Most European countries, including Ireland, are not terribly keen on punitive damages as a concept. In this case the 550k was compensation, not punishment; any punishment would be separate, and likely by the regulators and not the courts.
Musk feels to be above contract law
And he hasn't made it ABUNDANTLY clear that he doesn't give a shit about laws, regulations or conventions?
Musk's world view is incredibly dangerous for a law based country.
Murdoch, Musk, Thiel, Trump et al are doing their level best to convert the US into a banana republic.
As far as I understand, because employment is at-will and firing is trivial, most employees in the U.S. do not even have a job contract! This was very mind-blowing to me when I took my first U.S. job, where there was no contract (!!), only a 500-word "offer letter". I guess the reasoning is that if there ever were to be any conflict between employee and employer, the conflict would be settled by ending the employment relationship. So there is no point in the employer promising anything (e.g. number of vacation days) since the employer can costlessly renege on any such promise.
Good luck collecting: X is notorious for stiffing on debts.
I'd assume Ireland has something like bailiffs in the UK.
Delta tried not paying around £3000 owed to a customer. He got a court order and sent bailiffs who went to the airport, closed the checking and said they were going seize the plane to pay for the debt.
There's a good short documentary about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QSj9odUD_c&t=320s . This link starts at 320 seconds, where the action starts. Start from the beginning if you want the back story.
Spoiler: Delta called the police who explained to them that they were about to pay up or lose the plane. Delta paid up. Actually, the managed used her personal card to pay I'd assume Delta paid her back.
What physical assets does X have in Ireland to seize? The Fenian street office in Dublin is leased and TikTok took over most of that space anyway.
Well, what about bank accounts then? Can be seized too.
Not sure how many staff there are left in IE, but if we assume 200 and with a laptop resale rate of maybe ~€1K that’s a third of the way towards the repayment.
If X owns the building they can seize that, tennants be damned.
Twitter are very likely to use some payment providers in the EU, I imagine those can be ordered to withhold part of the money owed.
That video is also a great example of just how abusable the bailiff system is.
All the "agents" care about is getting the money for their client. For this, they're willing and apparently able to abort at least one flight, and possibly others, costing people on those flights possibly thousands each with rebookings etc, all for £3k.
I've only has the displeasure of interacting with a bailiff once, when I was a naive student. The guy knocked on the door asking after a previous tenant. We went through for any mail addressed to the guy he was after, and while doing so seemed to revel in explaining how he had the power to barge in by force and arrest me if we wanted. In the moment I was slightly incredulous but nodded along. Was only after the fact I researched to find you're within your rights to turn them away unless they're accompanied by actual police.
Seems like the perfect job for power-tripping sods.
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
That was amazing, and we absolutely need this kind of enforcement of court ordered judgments in the USA. It's mind-blowing 1. that Delta fought/ignored to the point where police had to shut down their operations, and 2. how much they even fought back when their counter was already closed down! This corporate mentalities of "We'll do anything except pay what we owe." and "We should always be able to throw more lawyers at a problem to delay it."
Not to mention having the manager pay the police out of her own pocket. Doesn't Delta have a petty cash policy giving discretion to managers around payments of small amounts like this? The whole thing was both bonkers and very entertaining!
This is one of those “left hand doesn’t talk to the right” situations. Delta has an arm of the company that only deals in disputes and has another arm that does check in and routine services. I think the manager did a good job here - I highly doubt there is a listed provision for allowances like this, but she paid anyways because she understood what the right thing to do was after confirming everything was legit. Unfortunately, companies have to play so defensively because they hold so much power, otherwise people will take advantage and bleed them dry. Note that this isn’t a political comment, I’m not interested in what should be, rather what is. If a company makes an honest mistake, courts will typically side with the less powerful party when possible. For example, JCPenney did a promotion with Firestone back in the day where you could get your car battery replaced for life. The intent of the promo was life of the car, ie 8-12 years, but the language really said “basically forever.” There are people to this day, decades later, still getting free battery replacements[1]. Hell, there are people who even hunt for the batteries and make good money when they find them in scrapyards. This promo turned into a perpetuity JCP did not want or intend to have on its books. That mistake went all the way to the top of the company and caused real change in how they did cross promos. I’m willing to bet this delta fiasco went to the CEO’s desk and the company addressed it, one way or another.
[1] https://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/threads/jc-penney-lifet...
This is the greatest thing i've ever watched. thank you
I want to say the Daily Show had an episode about someone calling the sheriffs on Bank of America, and them visiting a local branch to enforce a court judgment
Collecting debts from a delinquent company is generally easier in Ireland than the US.
There are two Irish state departments that are hyper competent. The IDA and Revenue. This can involve both. I'm not at all worried or the political blowback will see them functionally banned from Europe and an acceleration of the social media regulation and hate speech laws introduction.
Oh man I almost hope that they try not paying. The consequences will be fun to watch.
If they fail to pay they will have their assets seized.
This employer behavior is a result of the business model of collecting a critical mass of the users and later cutting operation costs.
It's viable because Twitter/X controls the access to the audiences of their users - if you leave, you lose your network.
I'd like next gen social media platforms to allow transitions from one provider to another. While related, I think this is a different topic than centralized/federated.
I think you should look at the facts and that is that X is both way more in the media than before - both in a good and a bad way - and the userbase has grown while a significant portion of operational expenses have been cut.
And revenue has dropped through the floor:
https://fortune.com/2024/08/15/elon-musk-tesla-stock-sale-tw...
https://mashable.com/article/twitter-x-revenue-falls-x-payme...
That's one error it can survive, given who owns it.
He can afford it as long as the stock market remains convinced Tesla deserve to be the most valuable car company in the world while being outside the top ten in sales ...
Even then; so far as I can see (which is limited) he's also making bank from SpaceX.
How do you figure? SpaceX needs about a billion dollars of new capital injection every 18 months or so..
Last I heard, it was making a profit despite spending about 5bn on Starship:
https://archive.ph/20230817224420/https://www.wsj.com/tech/b...
(I count "can make Starship on the side" as a QED of "making bank").
Regardless of how Starship concludes, when it does so it saves them ongoing costs, and turns "small profit" into "huge profit": either Falcon becomes redundant, or the R&D team does.
Tesla is a battery company that sells cars.
Profit is the whole point of owning a company, unless it's run by an oligarch, like is the case with Twitter. Not too dissimilar from Abramovich or another Sheriff from Moldova owning a sports club.
That first article entirely revolves around some random finance bro’s idle speculation in a YouTube comment. It blows my mind that people are so trusting of obvious guess work given that it’s a privately held company that’s not disclosing their financials.
That first article entirely revolves around some random finance bro’s idle speculation in a YouTube comment.
I'm not sure that's a wholly accurate description? The article appears to point to sources beyond that singular comment - in particular, ostensible internal financial information:
Ferguson based his assessment on internal second-quarter figures recently obtained by the New York Times. According to this report, X booked $114 million worth of revenue in the U.S., its largest market by far. This represented a 25% drop over the preceding three months and a 53% drop over the year-ago period.
That already sounds bad. But it gets worse. The last publicly available figures prior to Musk’s acquisition, from Q2 of 2022, had revenue at $661 million. After you account for inflation, revenue has actually collapsed by 84%, in today’s dollars.
and the userbase has grown
Most of those 'users' are probably bots though. The bot activity has increased massively since Musk has bought the company (just look at all the like-bots nobody seems to do anything about).
Yeah, I get new bot followers nearly every day, this rarely happened in pre-Musk Twitter.
The X user base has shrunk dramatically, which is the main reason major consumer companies have dropped their ad spend there. They were getting far less for their money and effort and hassle. It’s also why Trump has not bothered to come back to his (now un-banned) account there.
X also receives far less media exposure than Twitter used to. For example in the U.S. about a decade ago, it was common for every ad and news broadcast to include the Twitter icon with their Twitter handle on the screen. Entire movies were made with Twitter as a central plot element (e.g. Jon Favreau’s Chef). Reporters were hired and fired based on the size of their Twitter audience.
None of that happens anymore. X gets a bit of news coverage primarily from random controversies and that’s it.
the userbase has grown
Do you have a source for that? Many of the accounts that I follow on twitter are now completely dead. I think most of them are not deleted, but they have basically no activity. This is of course very subjective, but is there any reliable data how many active user x now has?
How would you determine if the userbase has grown when by most accounts there has been an explosion in the number of bots while advertising revenue has plummeted by 80%?
It’s really hard to know what to think about Elon Musk these days. At a surface level he’s acting a real asshole in a bunch of ways, but he’s surprised us with some seriously useful stuff on a number of occasions and so I’m always still hoping that there’s got to be a method to the madness.
I sure hope there is because the guy is in the running for most powerful man in history.
I think it's pretty easy, he's obviously a far-right libertarian that rejoices at the riots in England, posts antisemitic tropes on the social network he bought for some dozens of billions of dollars so that he could keep other far-right bigots online for reasons of "free speech", he's a rich, dangerous racist with a deep coffer.
I take a pretty dim view of the stuff you’re alluding to, I hope I was clear that he’s coming off as kind of an asshole from where I’m sitting. It’s got kind of a Tech Kanye vibe and it’s a bad look in 2024.
But certainly I’ve posted some stuff online I wish I could take back, I suspect most have, and given the cool stuff around renewable energy and rockets I’m rooting for a good outcome.
But certainly I’ve posted some stuff online I wish I could take back
He really doesn't look like someone who wants to take anything back. In the past couple years he basically doubled down on everything unpleasant about him, sadly.
How one can go from having interesting opinions on all sorts of scientific topics to being able to entertain Trump's rumblings for an hour is beyond me, but that's what happened.
The "pedo guy" incident was the turning point, at least publicly. Before that he was eccentric and an emitter of a lot of flowery bullshit ("full self driving next year!") but mostly harmless, and probably doing more positive than negative.
After that it was just one unhinged incident after another, growing worse and worse.
I think the biggest difference between you and Musk is that you wish you could take stuff back, and Musk appears not to share that desire. And continues to express them. The rockets and energy stuff will keep going for now no matter who's at the helm.
I mean, possibly the American definition of ‘libertarian’ has finally been diluted to ‘literally nothing’, but I’d find it hard to call Musk’s embrace of Trump, the authoritarian, particularly libertarian.
Yes. Like Trump, Musk isn't a libertarian - he's an opportunist who espouses pop-libertarian ideals when it suits him. Musk's leadership style is typical of an autocratic dyed-in-the-wool capitalist, and by accounts Trump is the same.
It’s really hard to know what to think about Elon Musk these days
Doesn't seem that hard, tbh
I’m worried that I might have unintentionally created scope for a flame war.
I’d like to invite you to clarify why what seems a difficult topic to me seems a simple one to you?
From where I’m sitting it seems nuanced and complicated and involving decades of history.
It’s eminently possible that I’m missing key information on this, but I can’t glean a “no-brainer” from the above comment.
It seems the vast majority of people have an opinion on musk, thus it can’t be too hold to have an opinion.
This opinion is not nuanced though, because nuance is tricky and requires more effort than simply categorising into a tribal viewpoint
He can be both an excellent business/technical mind, and a massive asshole with a fragile ego. Hell, you could argue those things go together more often than not!
High IQ, Low EQ.
My interpretation is he just cares a lot more about tech than people, for better or worse.
I can think of two positive achievements: Pushing electric cars to the main stream (Tesla, he didn't found it, but I do believe he impacted its success dramatically) and pushing for space exploration (Space X). I find both important. Did I miss some other positive impact he's had?
I've never been a fan to be fair, and he surely didn't make it easier for me the last few years. But I think some of his potentially negative traits, incredible risk taking appetite and stubborness, propelled these two fields forward. Faster than they would have been if he wasn't around. Perhaps someone else would have done it with the same effects, I don't know.
I used to think there _must_ be method to the madness. But since the Twitter takeover and subsequent right wing transformation, I don't see it anymore. He seems way too smart to fall into a silly us-vs-them mentality. I refuse to believe he doesn't see "left" and "right" policies in a nuanced light. My only explanation is that he's going through some severe personal issues, and we're witnessing the symptoms in public. I don't like him, but I hope he can work through them and find happiness. Not just for his sake.
At a surface level he’s acting a real asshole in a bunch of ways, but he’s surprised us with some seriously useful stuff on a number of occasions
These aren't mutually exclusive.
Fwiw...
As a tendency, Irish labour courts tends to find in favour of employees... but also tend to award relatively small compensation.
A headline making award is pretty rare. Judge must not be a Twitter fan.
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.
The judge is biased by social media?
It wasn't a court case so they're were no judges, per se. The WRC is a state agency who presides over industrial relations.
More likely that the offense by twatter was more egregious than what the courts are used to.
They have to pay compensation based on salary and tenure time. Most likely the salary in this case was higher than an average Irish salary. Moreover firing without warning tends to increase the severance benefits even more, which is also why it is relatively rare.
Good. The richest man in the world doesn't get to be above the law on account of being rich.
If you own a company, that comes with responsibility and if you shirk those responsibilities the law will come for you; as it should.
Consider that the commission is also pushing US companies to avoid Ireland.
Pushing US companies that don’t follow local laws to not operate there?
Something tells me they’d be okay with that.
That's an incredible leap.
The commission is pushing US companies to avoid breaking employment law in Ireland. Companies that believe the law is unfairly attacked against them or who were planning on ignoring the law might be deterred from opening up shop in Ireland, but how many companies does that describe?
I think this is one of the very few times I've seen Elon Musk's companies lose a lawsuit.
With all the jockeying in the US, I wonder if this is a sign of more, meaningful, legal trouble to come.
Technically, this was not a lawsuit.
It was an enforcement action from the Workplace Relations Commission, and can be appealed in court.
Has he won any significant ones? He’s likely losing his pay package in court and had to buy twitter because his lawsuit wasn’t going anywhere.
I'm assuming because a lot of the time when it's clear that he's going to lose, he just pulls out of the case. Just like how he filed paperwork to get out of purchasing twitter but when it became clear that the ruling would be against him, he cancelled it says before it was about to be heard
Ireland doesn't deserve fast companies like X.
If you can't hire / fire companies will be reluctant to move their and rightly so.
The Irish tax advantages may or may not be worth it to deal with so much red tape.
You're right, Ireland doesn't deserve that trash fire.
You can hire and fire, but you'll have to follow local laws.
Sorry, but bozos like Musk bank on being able to bend the rules, and changing the system. They're used to operating in places with either lax laws, or where enforcing the laws is too cumbersome, and think it same applies everywhere else.
Then they come to countries with rock solid workers rights and completely different cultures, act like clowns, and wonder why they're getting shot down in court.
it's surprising how often saying nothing works out well.
Now do Covid vaccine-or-resign ultimatums.
It's absurd. It's infuriating how stupid this is.
The system is designed to turn the economy into a monopolistic ponzi scheme but instead of fixing the flawed incentive structures at the root, they implement bandaid patches to provide 'financial security' in other ways like making it harder for the corporate monopolies to fire people... So basically, if you happen to be lucky enough to work for a taxpayer-supported corporate monopoly, you're set. You can be a dumb, lazy, greedy, entitled jerk and the cronies who run the crony-corporate monopoly can't fire you to make room for more deserving candidates.
The system just creates counter-productive monopolies, picks out winners randomly (optimistic take), then provides them complete future security. Everyone else who wasn't chosen is fucked and have zero chance... But it's OK because at least the lazy, greedy jerks who work for big corporations have more than enough financial security to make up for your complete lack of it. One of you is very happy so if you average it out, clearly everyone is happy.
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.
There are also very few places providing leave (outside of white-collar positions). For example, my wife was given two weeks off from her job after having my son. The state we lived in only required maternity leave to be implemented at companies having more than 50 employees. Oh, and those two weeks were unpaid.
In some places, taking a vacation longer than three weeks requires the company to stop paying your salary and consider you "abandoning" your job, or submitting special paperwork.
I do not miss the US; moving to the EU was the best decision I ever made.
"Unpaid two weeks of matternity leave" are you nuts? Holy sh..
"vacation longer than three weeks requires the company to stop paying your salary" What? Why is it called vacation then, I cannot comprehend this at all, heh.
Don't tell them some EU companies even give unlimited PAID vacation, lol. Never experienced this myself, because I usually have "only" 5 weeks paids vacation, but unlimited HO. Of course in practice this means I have main job and also doing self-employed contracts, if work in my main job is done.
I have "unlimited" vacation here in the states. If you go over three weeks, they still require special paperwork, but they allow it if you are tenured enough.
What unlimited means is "as long as your manager is decent, you will maybe get your days off" vs accrued vacation where you may be forced to take vacation to not lose it.
I don't look at it that way. If you have accrued vacation, you "earned" your vacation and they can't take it away from you without compensation. Thus, you are guaranteed your days off. If they fire you, they should even have to pay you your salary for those vacation days.
"Unlimited" vacation just gives all the control to your employer: the right to deny you vacation, the right to dictate how long your vacation is, etc.
This is the law in California but not most other states.
In most states, vacation time is a benefit that can expire, evaporate, or be rescinded. The company is just deciding not to assign you job duties during your time off. How generous of them! But it's totally their right to decide not to do that, or to put a bunch of boxes around how they will do that. So it's legal, and common, that unused vacation time will actually be lost.
In CA, accrued vacation time is classified as "deferred compensation." It is legally money that is owed to you. It will be paid at a later date, but it must be paid.
It strikes me as no coincidence that the "unlimited vacation" fad started in tech companies with a large chunk of their workforce in California.
Bingo: unlimited vacation is a scam
It's highly dependent on company (and team) culture. If you can actually take a generous amount of vacation, personal, and sick (if you need it) time, I have no real problem with it. (Then, I haven't moved around a lot--I know some people who move jobs every year or two count on a payout from accrued vacation when they do.)
Someone I know who retired from a fairly senior position at Netflix rather liked it and took some fairly long vacations but said there really was a good tradition of umplugging at least as he observed that came from the top.
Minimum / mandatory PTO is the answer.
https://namely.com/blog/minimum-pto-what-is-it-why-you-shoul...
It really depends. The company I work for - doesn’t even have a time-keeping system. Taking vacation is a matter of sending a slack or email, or simply verbally letting your manager and team mates know that you won’t be available. So far this year I’ve taken more than 3 weeks at least. I know it’s not a ton, but the point is - that I don’t know the actual exact count, I strongly suspect that nobody really tracks it in any way, and I am planning to take few weeks more before the next year.
I replied to the sibling comment, minimum vacation policies are more employee friendly and can offer the same flexibility as "unlimited".
Nebraska goes a step further. Lots of companies have a "use it or lose it" policy for vacation time, so they won't have a ton of liability on the books. Nebraska courts have declared that vacation time is compensation that can't be taken away from you, so "lose it" isn't an option. I worked for a company with half its workforce in Nebraska even though I'm in Minnesota. To comply with the law, the company didn't pay out your vacation at the end of the year - they locked you out and forced you to take it, now.
This is required in the US. That's the point of unlimited vacation - since it doesn't accrue, the company doesn't have to pay it out when you leave.
It is not required in the US as it varies by state.
Enough states require it that most companies large enough to be multistate in employment go ahead and standardize it into their policies.
This is indeed the law in Israel. What happens is that people are allowed to accrue a number of vacation days up to a limit, typically however many days of vacation you earn in a year, times two. Then the company forces you to take, at the end of the year, a number of vacation days down to the limit.
Companies where this limit wasn't put in place introduced a moral hazard, whereby people would wink-and-handshake with their superiors when they would take a reasonable amount of vacation without actually reporting the vacation days to HR, wherein HR didn't really have the means to detect and enforce against the fraud. Thus people would work for decades, retire, and take compensation for decades of "untaken" vacation days, on top of the normal retirement packages. These policies represented usually $1+ million in obligation per worker and thus were clearly unsustainable without some kind of enforceable limit.
Why would a company allow that, can't they put a limit on that themselves? All my employment contracts in the Netherlands had a clause about that.
Since everyone’s discussing the inverse, I shall mention that long ago I worked for a 100 person, 5 year old, startup who's policy was: your vacation is your year-end bonus. No one could take vacation ever, it just got paid out in December. They did give you Christmas and New Year’s off.
Getting sick was jokingly referred to as a firing offense, though people did take sick leave. Burnout was a real thing – and I barely lasted a year, though that may well have been unrelated.
Assuming it is paid vacation, why is the special paperwork required? Governments over here require minimum amounts of vacation out of health concerns, but I can't imagine how giving away more or even infinite vacation days would concern them as long as the employer is happy with it.
I could see each stint being off for more than 3 weeks would require something from the manager to confirm enough handover has happened. Waiting too 3 weeks is normal each time, but if you’re a project manager and vanish for 5 weeks at a critical part of the project then someone needs to know.
Yeah but why would there be paperwork mandated by law?
My last office job had unlimited vacation and I never used it (not did most of my coworkers) and at the end of the year you neither had the days taken off nor had you accrued any credit for I taken time.
At the job before that I had accrued 6 weeks of PTO, which was the max. I took every other Friday off after that and was paid out a month and a half when I left the company. Everyone understood the situation, so it wasn’t looked down upon when I was gone every other week.
My perspective was that unlimited PTO was a scam to reduce vacation time. Most people are not going to take advantage of it, so the company benefits.
In addition to not having to pay out at the end of employment, they also do the "unlimited vacation" thing to reduce the liability of unpaid PTO on the books. When our revenue was hit hard in the early days of covid, the company I work for asked everyone to take a week of their PTO to help the financials look better.
I used to work at a place like that. I should make some inquires to see why they stopped paying me.
And when you quit you don't get unused vacation days paid out! Unlimited PTO is worse for employees than a prefixed number of days per year.
There's a new law still in committee:
https://www.scstatehouse.gov/billsearch.php?billnumbers=4226...
Having more than two weeks off in a year is pretty strange. I worked at a place with "unlimited vacation" once, and you weren't allowed to take off more than two weeks at a time until someone took off two weeks every three weeks ... and that ended that policy. They made it about 4 months before getting fired though.
I mean, not that strange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...
Yeah, I took July off this year and last year. Obviously that needs some up-front notice to ensure there's cover, but I tell my manager in the spring and it's fine.
Americans are very, very strange and the fact they think they're normal is part of that.
Americans are not “strange”, whatever that means. The US has overall worse protections than the EU, that’s it. It sucks, we all know that. There’s no need to appeal to some weirdness argument.
I guess people in Europe find it strange that people in the US are willing to accept the status quo there?
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. Maybe its success is primarily due to resources and geography and maybe the US would be even more successful with a more European style system.
[EDIT: it's should have been its ;) ]
The fact that this is not happening at a grassroots level in the US would suggest that it's not as big a deal to Americans as the Europeans in this thread think it should be.
Speaking only for myself, I've found that when I joined a company whose time-off policies I didn't like (only one so far), I just asked for more time off as part of the deal. The response I got was "sure. It's easier for us to give you more paid time off than more money."
Exactly. It's not a matter of accepting or not accepting. There's practically nothing that can be done about it.
At the federal level, no major presidential candidate supports EU-style worker protections and mandatory benefits. And not enough congressional candidates support it, not even remotely enough to change anything. In fact, the vast majority are outright hostile to worker rights due to lobbying/capture by corporate interests.
At the state level, there is lots of variance, but even in the states most friendly to workers, it's not remotely possible to reach Europe's level of benefits around vacation, sick leave, maternity leave, let alone the right to organize for these things. There is no political will, and any political candidate who actually has the will could never win a statewide election.
There are plenty of US companies that have 4 week vacation policies. There are also plenty with "flexible" time off where in theory you can take more (but tends to converge on some common number).
Probably other US organizations (universities?) also have fairly good vacation policies.
I think what's different about the US is that the country and states tend to not mandate this stuff. This does lead to people getting exploited under certain situations where the employer has more power in the relationship. I think the US is wrong on this but seems to work for them?
2 weeks "in the US" -- too late to edit the comment.
In most EU countries it is mandatory minimum to give 4 paid weeks off per year, otherwise the company is breaking the law. And maternity leave obviously is almost a year, paid, not 2 weeks unpaid. I find it hard to justify living in a place that cares so little about its people. I get its your home country, but I mean, if your home country is actively hostile towards you, why stay?
Make that five weeks for France plus up to 11 days of public holidays. That's a minimum too, we have a whole bunch of additional stuff that can stack on top of that, so many I can't even make a complete list from memory.
One of the many reasons my current s&p500 company will no longer actively hire in France other than to support specific big sales
As per the saying: "The French copy no one and nobody copies the French". If we were carbon copies of the British or the Americans, life on Earth would be just a little bit more boring.
We're not better or worse, we're just different. Deal with it or leave us be.
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.
I worked at a place where there was a gradually-increasing amount per year you could earn, implemented as a fraction of a day per paycheck. I was earning 5 wks a year when I left. I went on a two-week cruise, and with the usual travel buffers it took three weeks. So now mention of two-week vacations makes me a little nervous.
It should be straight up illegal to use the word unlimited in any sort of advertising, marketing materials, job offers etc... if it's not actually unlimited.
Unlimited paid vacation is simply not a thing that is offered by any company anywhere in the world.
Unlimited vacation was actually pioneered in the U.S., and spread from there. Most famously popularized by Netflix in its early days, but popular in law firms before that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/nq2ph2/i_r...
It's not actually unlimited. In fact, by not providing a fixed amount, and calling it unlimited, it lets managers put peer pressure onto people into taking less vacations than if they'd made a fixed amount!
To add to that: it also can't be "banked" (and thereby paid out after departure). Companies give free PTO because real "paid time off" has to be tracked as a liability on their books; if you haven't "earned" anything and they don't "credit" you, you aren't "owed" you anything when you leave/are terminated.
What does PTO mean here?
Personal time off (or maybe sometimes paid time off)
It should be called unknown vacation. There’s a limit, you just don’t know where it is.
I assume if you took the UK legal minimum of 5.6 weeks for example, you would get fired.
It is unlimited if the employee is talented and good at advocating for themselves.
It isn't if they are meek or mid.
In general: it's good to let your employer know that you value your time. If you don't suck, they'll respect you more, not less.
I’ve experienced unlimited PTO myself and have yet to see any kind of pressure. YMMV obviously but it’s not as universal as people say it is.
Americans are assumed to not make use of much of any of that unlimited vacation, whereas in europe it's actually ok to
Unlimited paid vacation days are for the employers benefit not employee.
For those who may not yet know why: US companies must pay out vacation time when employment terminates, meaning unpaid vacation affects liabilities and thus the balance sheet and thus stock price.
Doesn't that depend on the state?
It does, but I've never seen any company that doesn't pay for accrued time.
As I understand it, the company merely needs to be consistent. Either they pay everybody for their accrued time, or they pay nobody.
That's a choice the company makes in most states, though, meaning they can just as easily choose not to as choose unlimited vacation.
It does; didn't realize that but it makes sense
The basic principle is --- you work, you get paid. If you're not working, you're not getting paid. Anything additional is a bonus at the discretion of the employer.
That's where I suppose the US and EU truly differ. The US generally goes for the "the market will solve it" approach. If you're a bad employer, nobody wants to work there, the company goes down and the competition wins. It's a beautiful theory IMHO.
The EU approach is sort of the same, but to add regulation on top to steer the market towards specific goals, like having a strong middle class. If, for example, a company doesn't suffer from being nasty to their employees (e.g. because they're a monopolist), regulation will be put in place to create that dynamic. I personally find this approach more feasible, but regulation can be worked around and sometimes backfire, it's not easy to get right.
Back to your point: It comes down to how much you get paid. If you work full time and can't afford vacation or sickness, is that OK?
If you think that's OK, we just disagree I suppose. There's a power imbalance between employers and employees that favours the employers. They have more money, expertise, legal counsel, negotiation power etc. Given the chance, they will pay as little as they can for labour, crush competition etc. I don't believe that's good for a country in the long run.
If you think it's not OK, something has to happen. Paying people more so they can save up money to deal with this is one approach. Assuming the risk of them not working (with paid vacation and sick days) is another one. In the EU, we tend to go down the latter route. I guess you could see it as patronising, but there is beauty in sharing and distributing personal risks. I'm personally fine with both solutions. I'm running a consultancy right now, so I've decided to take the first route, assume and manage my own risks.
I am not sure all these rules are for stronger middle class. I have always thought these are for low-paid workers at a warehouse, cleaning the streets, or alike. They are way more replaceable than some specialist. Yet the state offers protection for their time off which they deserve.
A company having a monopoly on the labor market wouldn't be called a company, that's a collectivist state.
A company having a monopoly in the regular market doesn't really matter for employment: if you're terrible to your employees, it's not your customers you have to fear, it's the employees. They will leave and no new ones will join and you won't be doing any business if you don't have any employees to actually do the work you'll get paid for.
But that's quite literally what insurance is made for. The only difference is that insurance adds some amount of accountability.
Unlimited vacation is a marketing bullshit. Can I work for 3 months there and go for vacation for another 9 months? Not really. Then it not unlimited.
To have it really unlimited you need a special position, like be a relative of CEO. But in that case you can have the same even with limited vacation policy.
Yeah, it's just a scam so companies don't have to keep vacation on their books. It just means if you give your boss enough notice, maybe you'll get some time off, as long as your project is progressing well.
My brother in New Zealand only got two weeks off no pay for their baby.
Paternity != maternity but that's still awfully short IMHO.
We really do not care about caregivers - or kids for that matter - in the US. It’s sad. A lot of talk about “family” and how wonderful kids are yet many companies and politicians fight tooth and nail to make sure people don’t spend time with newborns and otherwise don’t have access to childcare. I don’t have to tell parents in this thread about the “July to August gulf” when all the summer camps end and school is a few weeks away. I am not the only one reading this burning precious PTO just to take care of my kids right now.
Sure. It's great when people have kids, but the whole scam run by society is to offload most the costs on the parent then tax the shit out the kid once they're raised, effectively creating a massive wealth transfer system away from working families. Much of the societal issues of how they deal with parents traces back to tragedy of the commons IMO since the kids are future tax stock.
This is nonsense in general. I've taken month-long vacations and never had to do anything special so long as I had the time and, obviously, told my manager.
I agree. I work for a FAANG and could ask for a transfer, but I'm worried about the risks that come with the US labor law and the lack of paid holiday too. Also the waves of lay off were much harsher in the US. That being said, it's fun to live in a different country (I lived in the US in the past) and there are more opportunities in tech in the US so I'm still contemplating it.
EU lifestyle with a US salary is the perfect combination. I don’t know if you have that, but if you do, keep it! :)
Do you get a US salary? What I’ve heard is that the same company pays much lower wages in the EU than in the US. (With the EU job coming with more non wage amenities like paid vacation, maternity leave, as discussed, and guaranteed healthcare and better public infrastructure.) But I have no personal data point.
levels.fyi contains salary information for comparison.
Take a Google L4 - $280K US, $190K UK, $160K DE.
But when you include the regulatory protections and benefits, the differences in living standards, etc. the US salary is probably still higher but these salaries are certainly nothing to balk at.
Yes, these numbers seem accurate. In my personal case, I could save a bit more (very roughly 20%?) in the US, but I've concluded that it wasn't worth it.
However, for higher levels (L6+), I think the difference becomes more important. Also, in US tech centers, there are many more opportunities than in Europe. If I were to lose my FAANG job, there would be no way I'd make the same amount of money in a different company in my country. On the other hand, being on a transfer visa in the US can make it hard to switch to a different company too.
In the end, there are pros and cons, and not a definite answer as to where it's best. It depends highly on individual circumstances.
I wonder if the development of maternity leave sort of happened backwards from how we typically think of it happening.
Like most people talk about it as if culturally we used to expect 0 accommodations for working mothers, which was bad, and the expectation has increased over time.
But, actually in the past the mother would have spent many dedicated years with the infant/baby/toddler/child, until they entered school. If the mother has multiple children, it’s not really practical for a company to hold their spot open for like 8 years and I don’t think this happens even in the most progressive of European countries.
So, culturally speaking, does the rise of maternity leave actually come from an increasing cultural tolerance for the mother spending less time with the child via daycare?
Almost no one in Europe has 8 children but I know women who went on maternity leave 3 times. Generally kills your career as you don‘t advance during those years (and most only work part time afterwards) but the original job is still there.
Especially in very large companies, it‘s not too big of a burden. Just some extra slack in headcount planning. It‘s pretty rough in smaller companies. I used to sit on the board of pre-school. 5-6 employees, all women, lots of pregnancies and with the added twist that if they didn‘t have certain childhood diseases or vaccinations, they weren‘t allowed to work the entire pregnancy. We had to hire a lot of folks on temporary contracts.
Worth pointing out, while we had to pay the salary in case of work not being permitted and the time no work is allowed for anyone pregnant (6 weeks before birth and 8 weeks after), this is fully reimbursed trough insurance schemes every company has to pay into.
You don’t need 8 children to get to 8 years of dedicated child care with the pre-daycare-normalization worldview. You only need 2 children with an offset of 3 years, or 3 children with less offset.
Fair point, I‘ve been considering todays standard of one year off for each child.
That said, at least in Germany, you can‘t get to 8 years with 2 children as the maximum time for parental leave is capped at 36 months per child.
Yeah the "at will" employment. It's terrible. I could never deal with that. I'm really glad for all our social protections here and it's worth the money.
Also socialized healthcare <3
Bear in mind that it works both ways. I can be offered a new job tomorrow and give my current employer immediate notice that I'm never coming back.
Regardless of at-will employment, the vast majority of employers will still give you plenty of warning before you're fired for performance reasons. It's mainly an issue when a company suddenly has large layoffs. And despite what you see in the media, most people are employed by smaller companies that are generally not laying anyone off.
IOW, the negative aspects of at-will employment really don't have much impact on the average techie's life.
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 and left. And right now the biggest party is even extreme right (and supported by the neolibs) so I'm extra glad I left.
But I'm happy in Spain. People enjoy life much more. There's no calvinist influence. Not to mention the climate.
My god, what a horrible life.
My wife currently has 18 months fully paid maternity leave, and we’re having tons of family adventure with our little one who is already 9 months old.
I couldn’t imagine not having that family time.
Yeah, I think people forget that when you are employed you are not the owner, you are sacrificing your freedom to serve someone else’s enterprise.
I think its very healthy and human to understand people have phases in life where they need to be cared for.
It’s very easy to have a narrow view of the world where everything would be fixed by the ‘market’.
Something to keep in mind on the maternity leave front…
Most short term disability insurance actually covers maternity leave for about 6 weeks. It’s really easy for employers to make sure this is part of their benefits package these days.
While that might seem generous in the US that is not universal and still woefully minimal. All fathers in Canada are entitled to a minimum of 5 weeks of leave let alone the maximum of 18 months leave mothers
Can you explain more about your experience with this? I’ve never heard of it.
You begin by referring to at-will employment, which has a long history in state laws. This context gives the impression the “what” that is doing the “requiring” is the state and its laws.
I’m wondering if this “long vacation” thing has a basis in law or possibly originates from individual company or union contracts.
Or if this is a cost savings measure for business services which are paid on monthly basis. Most insurances are based on employee count and earnings, but are calculated yearly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
Likely the only reason for this minimal amount of statutory leave is a federal law:
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla
Though it does mandate twelve weeks of unpaid leave, not two, but it only kicks in if you've worked there for a year already.
One caveat: at will employment doesn't allow a company to fire you for "any" reason. It allows you to be fired for "no" reason.
So, if a company says "we're firing everyone wearing red shirts", then you can potentially contest that. If they fire you without a reason, then it's legal. If you can prove there was actually a reason, and that the reason was illegal, then you can sue them for wrongful termination
IIRC it's much safer not to provide any either — except in Montana which I believe requires Just Cause after probation, as there are only a handful of statutory exceptions to at-will employment, and most of them are very, very hard to prove without an extensive paper trail... or the employer spelling it out when they fire you.
I believe this stunt by Elon still doesn't work in the states. It's true that if you don't sign, they are entitled to fire you, but their line that it's a voluntary resignation is still bullshit. The consequences are smaller, but they've managed to do something that doesn't even make sense in terms of US labor law.
so now you’ve taken your savings from higher American income and lower taxes and are feeling and bidding up prices for European locals?
Yes, you can be layered off a lot easier in the USA, but you also can jump around and chase higher income that isn’t regulated by the government.
The problem with your perspective is that people in America still want to make 30-50% more than in Europe for the same job and they want to pay 20% less taxes, but they also want all kinds of services and protection.
So I will go out on a limb and guess you are so self-righteous because you have a large savings pool, so you tell yourself “I don’t mind paying higher taxes and making less money because I have security” … largely because you have your savings, which you are also using to make life for Europeans unaffordable but bidding up prices.
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 can fire you for wearing a red shirt, but they cannot fire you for being too old (well, too old is defined as above 40…if you’re 35 they can legally fire you for being too old if they want).
Man this is fucking terrible. Despite what someone’s ideas about work might be, this is just not right unless you put work above literally everything else.
From everything I read, in US, in general, outside of specific list of protected reasons, or a contract specifically describing conditions for contact termination, one can be fired at any time. This works both ways - employee can quit any time too. I wouldn't be surprised musk just applied the same logic worldwide and let lawyers deal with consequences
"This works both ways - employee can quit any time too."
I think employees have been allowed to quit at any time since the early 20th century in most western countries. Of course there is a probationary period involved, but it's nothing like earlier times when police would possibly come and take you to your place of work, or it was illegal to be unemployed in several jurisdictions up to 20th century (e.g. USSR) etc.
So discussing this as "feature" rather than tablestakes in any modern society is somewhat misleading IMO.
I don't know if there are some professions where it's a bit more complicated than this and am happy to be corrected.
When I worked in Europe I had to give 3 months notice. If I left before that I had to pay the company the equivalent salary.
So let’s say I leave after 1 month of giving notice. I now owe the employer 2 months salary.
I've had a month of notice in Germany for the past 13 years so YMMV.
It is 3 months notice for me (also in Germany) for either side to quit the contract. However, there are no real consequences if I would just leave without notice. Other than my employer having a bad opinion of me afterward of course.
Like, I could just stop showing up and they would fire me for cause without notice, but that matters only if I needed unemployment pay. If I already had a new job that I would like to start immediately, I could just do that.
N=1, here. Where i am it's 2 weeks and has to be declared online (so the employee can't withdraw it, without the boss agreeing to keep them on).
2 weeks in der EU is common, 1 month rarer...3 is a lot and leads me to believe there's a lot of € at stake in this case.
Three months notice is usual for long term employees in both Norway and the UK in my experience. The employee can of course give notice without any reason but the employer generally has also to demonstrate cause, they can't fire you just because they feel like it.
For employees that have not been working for the firm very long the notice period will be shorter on both sides. What the exact rules are I'm not sure.
Which country was that (as it doesn't feel real)? Due to power imbalance the employee is virtually never obliged to pay anything aside cases of disciplinary actions/malpractice.
It's a month here and generally you use up your holidays during this period so it's generally only 2 weeks or less (we get about a month's worth of holidays per year here)
Yes this is by law but if the employer is willing it's always possible to agree to immediate termination. The law is there to protect both sides in case of disagreements only, does not limit otherwise.
How is it the same if there's a probationary period?
I can quit my job today with absolutely no consequences beyond not having an income. Can I do the same where you are?
Not a lawyer but broadly most forms of employment in the US is considered to be 'at will' and can be terminated by either party at any time for most any reason (excluding membership of a protected class). If you were fired for failing to respond to the yes-or-resign I believe you would be able to claim unemployment because they can't force you to resign and changing the terms of employment to force a resignation is a 'constructive dismissal'. American employers tend to be big fans of lying and hoping you don't know your rights though, or denying valid unemployment claims because they know not everyone will contest it.
Some people do have employment contracts with more consideration but as I understand it that mostly applies to union work and C suite executive positions.
What does "claim unemployment" mean in this context?
Unemployment insurance is a form of insurance in US that pays you if you lose your job due to layoffs and other conditions. It is paid by you so it is not “welfare.” It is managed by each state independently and has some rules. For example, if you lose you job today and “don’t claim” unemployment insurance for two weeks, those two weeks are not paid out to you (this is in Texas). Every week, you must show that you are “actively” looking for a job. You may lose the benefit if you are not, or if a job is available but you decide not to take it. You must report on your efforts to find a job (interviews etc), and must attend some state class about looking for work.
Most states’ unemployment insurance covers up to a maximum benefit per week, and a maximum number of weeks. When I lost my job once, I was paid $325 per week.
At least in my state, the employee does not pay unemployment insurance tax, but the amount the employer pays is usually reported on the paystub. That is, if you are paid $85,000 salary it won't be reduced by the unemployment tax. However, some economists treat all payroll taxes as effectively paid by the employee out of "total compensation".
To claim unemployment is to take advantage of Unemployment Insurance. Companies pay into that and when you are terminated (doesn't count if fired for cause) you get some predefined amount of money for a period of time to help while job searching. The amount is dramatically less than your normal pay.
no, it's actually the polar opposite of that. either party is free to end the relationship at any time. there is essentially what is a long term contract (may not be called a contract), but one which either of the two parties can terminate. it's halfway between being a european style employee and being a truly independent contractor. an indentured servant is certainly not free at all to end a bad relationship or to seek a better job or more pay - totally the opposite thing.
and i don't think there's anything wrong with it. in fact, i personally strongly want to move more toward becoming a true independent contractor someday, but the culture of engineering strongly favors employees for what i prefer to do. i'd rather pay my own taxes and handle my own retirement and medical insurance and other "benefits", many of which do not benefit me at all.
when you say "click-or-be-fired" it seems shocking. rephrase it into "agree to our new terms going forward, or we will not renew". i have zero problem with that if that was the situation that was originally agreed to.
now, i don't know what those new terms are or whether they were fair, and that might have been a problem. but simply the at-will employment system isn't wrong on it's own. but in our jurisdiction, not ireland (which is how X appears to have got itself in trouble).
If this was a conversation between equals, I think you might have a point, but the balance of power between employee and employer (especially when it’s a huge corporation) lies firmly on the side of the employer.
An employee has needs that sometimes cannot go untended, s/he has rent/mortgage payments, s/he may have family to take care of, loan repayments, children at non-free school, etc etc. This is normal, and the paraphernalia of living a life. They are long-term commitments.
So if the employee is presented with an ultimatum like this, it really amounts to “rip up your life, or take the new (worse) offer we are giving you”. It smacks of Vader’s famous line: “I am altering the deal. Pray that I don’t alter it any further”. You may prefer living in a world where corporations can wreak havoc with employees lives without consequence (like Vader) but I don’t.
Leaving the country at the end of this year and returning back to the UK. I came here for the money and the weather. The weather is now too damn hot, and I’ve made enough money to retire (in the UK at least) and look after my wife after an American hospital utterly destroyed her life, putting her into a coma after trying to “turn beds” like restaurants “turn tables”. I so much wish I’d done this 2 years ago, life would have been very different if I had.
An interesting facet of a universal healthcare system is how much it could increase competition due to relieving healthcare costs for SMBs and for manufacturing industries like automotive by removing their healthcare obligations.
You actually net increase the ability of people to work for themselves. Healthcare is often cited as one of the primarily reasons people don’t take the step to found their own business.
Not to mention that if you want more equity between employer / employee relationships we need more ways to break up the asymmetric leverage of the relationship and this is a major one that traps folks
Indentured servants are not paid for their labor. Americans are paid.
The contract is between two parties until a new contract is proposed. If a party declines the new terms (by not clicking) then the past contract becomes void.
There's a bug in your logic. Yes, if a new contract is proposed and a party declines the terms, there is no new contract. But that has no impact on the old contract.
So the old contract is still in effect, as it was not replaced by a new contract. So who terminated the old contract? That's the question here, and the conclusion seems to be that the employer is the one who then fired the employee, the employee did not quit by refusing the new contract.
Right to Work laws, despite the name makes pretty much any firing legal. Unless an employer says something like "You are my least favorite race and for that reason I'm firing you" they're in the clear.
"Right to work" is an anti union provision and has nothing to do with being fired.
You might be thinking of "at will employment" - which is the case in 49 of 50 states.
Welcome to “at-will” employment. On the flip side, this also means an employee can quit at any time.
From Wikipedia:
In a lot of US jurisdictions there are rules that you have 21 days to review a severance agreement. My guess is that a "you have three days to agree" type notice may run foul of that.
In (parts of -- often state-defined laws) the US it might or might not.
- Generally, you can be fired without any particular reason.
- Outside of a few whitelisted reasons (like being fired "for cause"), when fired, you can collect unemployment (a system where the employer self-insures, sending money into a governmental pool to payout in such cases) for O(1 yr), with caps in the $900/mo.range, depending on the state. Not clicking on the link would likely not count as "cause," but Twitter might try to argue it does (not that it necessarily matters since the severance package is probably better and probably precludes filing for unemployment).
- Other labor laws exist, like requiring some sort of notification period for mass layoffs. If this were found to be a mass layoff in disguise, there'd be additional penalties.
- Similarly with race or any of the things you can't fire a person for (e.g., if a person didn't see the email because they were pregnant and doing something medically relevant, a lawyer might be able to say something about the firing being structured in a way that discriminates against pregnant people, which is not legal).
- If the link had any attached terms and conditions, those likely would not be enforceable since the contract was agreed to under duress.
- Any other contracts between Twitter and the employees might matter. Perhaps the firing is allowed, but there are other constraints on the exact manner (e.g., having previously negotiated a better severance package).
- If the link had any specific terms involving lower pay or reduced benefits or whatnot, there's a decent chance that it was criminal extortion or blackmail in various parts of the US.
And so on. We can start tacking on hypotheticals which might apply, but I'll stop there.
There's no need to be so hyperbolic when bagging on the US. It's bad that we don't have great safety nets for people, but forcing individual employers to take up the slack isn't an ideal solution either (still no protections when the employer goes bankrupt or when a crisis hits somebody like a college student, and it disproportionately impacts the smallest businesses because you can't spread the risk out across a lot of employees and revenue -- an imperfect but almost strictly better solution is just raising the unemployment rates to match the real inflation we've seen), and it's nothing like indentured servitude which allows the working conditions to degrade nearly arbitrarily without a chance to leave and go someplace better.
I think this is probably legal in the US, since most employment is "at-will," meaning both parties can terminate it at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all (with some specific exceptions that probably wouldn't apply in this case).
Your employment contract may have terms that override the at-will relationship, in which case the employer has to follow the contract's terms. You may also be unionized, in which case the union will have negotiated termination procedures with your employer. And you may live in a State that has additional rules for terminating contracts.
But as a general rule, I believe this is legal in the US in most cases.