Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees
cnbc.comThe 'big tech' calculus to suddenly antagonize their workforce to eek out marginal 'efficiency' gains is going to backfire. People may not leave right away but a demoralized fearful workforce isn't going to innovate, or really even give a shit about the work. Teams basically haven't done anything for three months because all the work needs to be reprioritized and that can't even be done when teams still don't know who is walking dead and who isn't.
Ïs this a "big tech" issue or a "USA employment laws" issue? Dosent all comapnies do this in america?
In Scandinavia this is regulated by law. Being on leave does not protect against dismissal in Norway. But the Working Environment Act states that the notice period does not start to run until the leave period has expired. And, the fact that you are on leave cannot in itself be used by the employer as a reason for dismissal.
So, if Google had laid off a worker in Norway who was on leave, they wouldn't have much choice but to stand by their obligations.
Not only that. I'm assuming that in Norway you have a notice period which is tied to how long you work there.
Not the case here.
I could sign a mortgage Monday and be laid off Tuesday.
So then my income and insurance just stop.
Companies have no obligation to give you notice. Anything they do is literally out of the good of their PR people. Some states require payout of accrued vacation days (notice the government doesn't mandate any amount of vacation days, it's all up to negotiation).
Then you can go on unemployment, but for some reason it's capped in amount per month, so even if I make $200,000/year, which after taxes becomes $11,000/month. I live in a HCOL, my unemployment would be ~$450/week, so ~ $2,000/month. Which is less than my rent. And I pay A LOT of taxes.
Sounds like things are broken.
We have a minimum notice period of three months in Norway, and many have a contract that give them more than that. This is a mutual obligation, so if you want to quit your job for a new one, you will have to stay in your current for the notice period.
How much unemployment support you get depends on your salary level, and it has an upper cap, but it should be sufficient enough to keep you floating while you seek for a new job. It is not a sleeping pillow, though. You do not get a full compensation.
You get the support until you get a new job or for 12 months. If you are still without a job after 12 months you can apply for another 12 months period. If you are not able to get a new job within this period you will have to rely on other types of public support if you are entitled to any of them.
You might think that this would lead to people not wanting to get a new job immediately. However, the unemployment rate is currently at 3,4 percent.
California, where Google is headquartered, has the WARN act, which kicks in in for big layoffs (> 10%), which requires 60 days notice to affected employees. So sign mortgage on Monday, laid off 2 months from Tuesday.
I think that's a reasonable act, but it should be a general act not only for big layoffs. Loosing your job is the same whether you are alone or part of a larger group.
Laws are relative to the society they regulate, but I believe the important thing is to give employees at least a minimum of time to get a new job. I also like the mutual obligation connected to the notice requirements we have in Norway. Also companies needs time to replace people when someone quits.
OTOH, the pay in US is 2 to 3 times than in Norway. Does that mean the risk is taken into account in pay?
no
Isn’t the whole point of severance compensation for terminating your employment and other prior agreements, given that you are not at fault?
It doesn’t really make sense for one to demand both severance and their leave.
From my understanding the Google severance effectively pays you more than maternity leave anyways unless you were at Google for less than 3 years. I wonder how many are in that situation.
One example in the article involved a person who had been at Google for 10 years. They would receive 36 weeks severance. More than the 24 weeks they would receive as maternity leave.
It seems that person is arguing they should receive 60 weeks severance.
Most of the folks laid off aren't on any sort of maternity leave. Of the tiny fraction on maternity leave few logically will have just gone on leave the day they get laid of. Statistically if you pick a random time in a 24 week period the average remaining duration is 12 weeks. Its also meaningless to add the severance that google already agreed to pay and maternity together to decide if the total is reasonable, even more so when you are picking the edge case on an edge case of a long term worker laid off right after going on leave. It's not even clear more than one person in the whole cadre actually meets those criteria.
We are talking about presumably a fraction of 1% of laid off workers receiving an average of 12 additional weeks of pay which for google is a rounding error. Most wont be receiving this benefit and of those that will the majority will have closer to 30 than 60 weeks of pay total.
This is the kind of petty behavior that shows there is no leadership at the helm. The CEO should be fired, not because of these specific actions, that are likely to be legal according to the US almost non existing labor laws. Instead, because of the lack of management skills and smart company leadership expected from company executives handsomely paid. As a leader, manager or CEO, you choose your wars, and your battles. This shows incompetent execution at the minimum and at worst, a hands off type of leadership only seen in the times of WeWork.
Shareholders, take notice.
OK, I'll take a stab at defending Google's policy here. Not necessarily because I believe they're 100% in the right, but because I see so many of the arguments on the other side completely failing to address some issues of fairness, and of leaning solely into the emotional aspects of this issue ("Person <in heart-tugging situation X> was laid off!"), or just spitting out lazy comebacks ("Google is evil now!!!")
I don't really see this as "Google won't honor medical leave" any more than I see this as "Google won't honor employment agreement". That is, people on medical leave get paid while they're not working but still employed (and, mind you, this is not something that's a legal requirement, but something Google does with their largess - the vast majority of companies, in the US at least, without monopolistic businesses are way less generous), and I'm not sure why being on medical leave should automatically put you in the "you can't be laid off until your leave is over" bucket. After all, tons of people who were laid off who were not on leave had plenty of important reasons they shouldn't be laid off (e.g. I'm sure lots of people had spouses or dependents on Google's health plan who were wholly dependent on it). I just see some fundamental fairness issues that aren't even commented on by people insisting Google is evil.
More importantly, the root cause issue (in the US) is that so many critical benefits are linked to employment. I know that other countries have stricter laws around this (e.g. you can't be laid off on maternity leave), but that's kinda the point - with a broad legal framework of what's required, and especially with many benefits being ensured by the state (especially healthcare), it means that the individuals are not dependent on the generosity (and huge profit margins) of their particular company. I mean, the FAANGs especially like to talk about how generous they are with things like unusually long parental leave (again, relatively in the US), but that's only because they make so much money. There is a reason that restaurants, for example, could never begin to offer this level of leave, and it's not because restaurant owners are inherently more cruel.
If we believe the benefits are important for societal function and fairness, we should pay for them at the societal level, instead of depending on the whims of individual employers to guarantee them.
Yes, the root cause is that the U.S. barely has any labor laws, and this puts people in cruel situations that are inconsistent with the level of economic development achieved by this nation.
Many knowledge workers expect stronger guarantees for earned benefits, out of an intuitive sense of ethics and commitment, but those expectations are more in line with labor laws found in European countries. In the U.S., workers often have no recourse or leverage against even small companies, let alone Google. "Earned" benefits evaporate once the employment contract is void.
My PTO is an earned benefit (legally). I’m sure Google is paying those out. Free meals or free office printing are not earned benefits (legally). I’m sure Google is not paying for 30 weeks of meals or printing for laid off workers.
If you agree with the above, the challenge becomes figuring out whether a benefit is more like the legally earned or more like those provided as a courtesy and convenience.
But it should seem pretty obvious that something like maternity leave couldn't, and shouldn't, be an "earned benefit" - should everyone except to accrue a month of "maternity leave benefit" through the ages of 20 and 40 or something?
It's good that we do have benefits that only apply to subclasses of people (i.e. parents), but how those benefits are structured shouldn't be at the whims of a company if we feel, as a society, that they're important for people generally.
I think it would be reasonable for an employer to make some benefits, including certain paid leaves, subject to some minimum tenure. How an employer chooses among those options tells you something about them, but I don’t think a blanket “you cannot offer any benefits subject to tenure” makes a better world.
I do agree with you that if society thinks a benefit is important, society can pay for it directly. Or pass a law to mandate employers (or certain employers) to provide it.
Why is it good that we have benefits that only apply to a subclass of people?
> My PTO is an earned benefit (legally)
Your case does not generalize. In the U.S., there is no federal law requiring the payout of unused PTO.
Absolutely correct, though Google is headquartered in California which does have such a law.
Agreed. All this talk on how Google was supposed to be different, not evil etc etc. Well, are they breaking any US law? No? Okay then, when push comes to shove it won't matter.
USA needs some laws lol
Related (may break american minds): https://imgur.com/a/dAo1D6Q
So, can someone clarify: if a laid off Googler is in hospital bed and they stay there after the deadline, they might go into debt (due to hospital prices)?
No. Here are the options:
1. Google is continuing to pay full health care for 6 months, for all laid off employees, as part of their severance.
2. In addition, in the US, workers at decent-sized companies have the option to get COBRA for up to 18 months. COBRA basically says you can stay on your employer's group health plan, but you have to pay the full premiums out of pocket (usually companies pay most or all of the premium). This can be particularly expensive for a family (e.g. $1500 a month or so).
3. After that, if you haven't gotten another job that offers insurance, you can get an individual plan through Obamacare. Again, the cost of these plans can be expensive depending on your circumstances and level of coverage.
Nothing in your last 2 points disproved the original comment. In fact... the opposite.
It is extremely, extremely doubtful that someone who was a Google employee, who gets a minimum of 4 months severance plus 6 months of paid insurance coverage, couldn't afford cobra or Obamacare.
A new college hire, who already has other debt obligations (student loans)? I guess that's unlikely since Google doesn't hire people in that group... oh wait...
Someone who just made another large purchase, like a house and had an unexpected medical injury?
These aren't hard scenarios to construct. Google employees making more money than the average person doesn't shield them from large unexpected/costly life events. But also, you're assuming a Software Engineering Salary, and not a different salary that's more likely to be lower (Sales, Marketing, etc.)
Not just might go into debt, they might go bankrupt.
In America, illness, including terminal illness, are a leading cause of bankruptcy.
America is a win-lose rat race scam where the rats are too docile.
realistically the googler will have the option to continue their health coverage (at the FULL price) using what we call COBRA. So no, they won’t go bankrupt unless they are in the hospital for many months. But it would still be stressful because COBRA doesn’t last forever, and they will want to eventually get another job. good employers like google pay for most of the insurance cost each month, and the employee pays a small “premium” that is deducted from each paycheck.
Generally no. That's misinformation that's frustratingly persistent.
Here is a direct, reliable source of truth straight from the official government website in case my comment gets buried by downvotes: https://www.healthcare.gov/unemployed/cobra-coverage/
You can stay on the existing healthcare plan you had from your former employer, switch to your spouse's plan, or start a new individual plan. By default, Cobra is automatic and retroactive, so you could continue your hospital stay unchanged and then at the end of the following month pay the monthly premium to stay on the plan.
Technically of course anyone could "go into debt" for any purchase, so in a certain pedantic sense, sure you could go into debt for healthcare costs, but it's not like anyone is suddenly becoming uninsured. You have weeks to figure out which health insurance plan going forward is the best option for you. The severance payments should be enough to cover the gap until new employment begins, even for the most irresponsible people who had no savings despite drawing a Google salary.
"Don't be evil."
Google has done a lot of less than good things recently. This is honestly probably the first thing I’d classify as evil with no nuance.
The only possible way I’d think this is justified is if Google would have to file bankruptcy if they didn’t do this.
Why do you think Brin and Page put Sundar Pichai as front man of Google _with an additional layer of discrepancy_; Alphabet.
That's one of key differences between Europe and the USA. What a big company advertises as a big privilege (that you can lose at their whim) is just one of basic human rights here.
Why should Google pay maternity leave for laid off workers? They are no longer employees once they're laid off. At the very most they deserve a severence.
Because while you are on a medical leave or a maternity leave it’s especially difficult for you to sort out things, or to find another job? “I laid you off while you’re lactating, please find another job in 60 days or leave US”.
In most places in EU it would be illegal to layoff people in those situations, that’s not a US thing of course, but just asking the already-approved deal to be honored seems just obvious.
Aren't they getting 16 weeks of severance + 2 weeks per year. Say an average of 2 years of work. Most people at Google are making at least 150k. That's almost 60k. That's more than the median U.S. worker makes in a year. And more than the median household income in almost every EU country.
Not to mention no one Google lays off is going to have any trouble finding a job paying at least the median wage.
> Not to mention no one Google lays off is going to have any trouble finding a job paying at least the median wage.
While feeding a newborn or dealing with serious illness?
That’s the point. You’re on a leave for a reason. You don’t expect the leave to be unilaterally canceled.
Not to mention that, if you’re an immigrant, you have visa problems as well.
Most Google employees do not have median expenses or a clear path to getting there without drastically upending their lives.
It's even illegal in China...
- Laying off somebody on maternity leave and then not paying them for that leave is exactly what you would expect from a company laying somebody off _because_ they're on maternity leave, which would be strikingly illegal (IMO not immoral per se -- that burden should be averaged across all of society rather than localized to each employer -- definitely illegal though). At a minimum they'd want their ducks in a row to ensure those layoffs were legitimate.
- Promising a person a particular thing (approving maternity leave, for example) goes above and beyond the ordinary employment contract, and cutting the duration of that promise short doesn't sit well.
- Google offers (offered?) a variety of specialized healthcare plans that you can choose _instead of_ a standard PPO or whatever, and those require you to move to doctors in a very small network. Cutting off those services and saying "LOL, have fun with finding new doctors on top of figuring out Cobra" with less than a day of warning is a bigger inconvenience than you'd expect from comparable layoffs elsewhere.
Isn’t the entire point of Cobra that you can keep your previous healthcare plan?
Yep. That didn't stop Google from denying that coverage to the people laid off in the article though, and the fact that it's some sort of custom/in-house thing means they probably have the power to cause that sort of disruption regardless of any eventual legal outcomes.
G attracted workers by offering this baby bonding leave and increased it recently from 12 weeks to 18 weeks. Even amazon is letting people on leave finish it before their severance starts according to the article. This whole layoff round at G looks extremely rushed and someone probably didn't think through all the edge cases, such as people already on leave. For 20 years, G's main advantage was top of market perks and culture (comp was good, but not the top). These layoff rounds have permanently hurt Google's reputation IMO. When the tech hiring market gets competitive again, they will either have to raise comp significantly once everyone realizes the culture has changed or they won't be competitive to attract the top talent.
I see a recurring pattern of chief people officers and their minions totally destroying company brands and internal morale. This isn't traditional HR nonsense but pure Peter Principle. It really must be too much run plans and messaging through a comms or marketing team first. As a manager, this stuff pisses me off to no end because it seeds worry in the minds of team members that are in no way at risk.
Yep. I know so many people that joined google from other places because of the culture and perks. I certainly chose not to leave because of those things. That calculus is clearly changing.
Cynically, because the cost of paying out what they promised these workers is less than the goodwill they'll lose.
Optimistically, because it's the right thing to do.
This is your brain on america
The blame of the recent layoffs lay not with the employees but with the managers who had miscalculated their prospects in the midst of the covidic plague.
It's more than just Covid. When interest rates are 0 it makes sense to spend a lot on R&D that will pay off in 10 years. When interest rates are 7% suddenly that might not make as much sense.
It's true Google management didn't foresee this issue but it's not like Google was an outlier. Everyone in the economy thought the same thing.
Why is it the company's responsibility to keep employees that are no longer necessary? I don't understand that. Did Google or any other company promised these people that they will be hired forever? Google hired them and paid them very cushy salaries. What am I missing? I really don't understand the discussion around those recent layoffs.
And people wonder why birth rates are falling and people are afraid to make long term commitments.
Corporations like this don't deserve any loyalty. If I worked there and anybody offered to pay me even a few percent more, I'd leave in a heartbeat. I probably wouldn't even work hard, only the bare minimum to not get fired, because why should I? In conservative media this this is being spun as "nobody wants to work anymore because millennials and gen Z are lazy" but the real reason is very obvious for anybody under 30: as a corporate employee hard work doesn't pay off most of the time, instead you will be fired when shareholders are in danger of losing a few dollars.
People by and large do not exercise loyalty to their employers. This is why companies pay "sign up" bonus, so people could switch jobs over a relatively small bump (otherwise you'd lose a month or two of salary, which would push you into a net negative for almost two years over a 10% bump), and why the bonuses/RSU grants vest on a schedule (so you always have some money to lose when you resign).
Companies that work on loyalty do not have anything of the above, as their loyal employees won't be persuaded by a bigger TC number. Their TC is not high and they are not public too. It would be bizarre for somebody who went to Google or other such company because of the TC (likely applying to multiple jobs out of school or resigning from the previous job) to expect loyalty from the employer.
Do you keep paying a plumber once they complete their job? As employee I enter into mutually beneficial (and in case of IT and FAANG - extremely beneficial) contract knowing that I can be fired once the company deems my services no longer necessary.
The backlash comes from highest educated, best skilled people who received high salaries and who have great prospects of being hired again quickly. Why they suffer?
Should these companies not hire those employees in the first place? The employees would be jobless then, our would be hired by companies witch they previously rejected in favor of FAANG.
To me it all seems like reality check for people who for years were bit out of touch with, well, reality. This is what regular people deal with all the time.
Regarding your argument about falling birth rates - education, career, job stability etc. are all negatively correlated with birth rates. I'm pretty sure that FAANG employees have one of the lowest birth rates in society - I admit, I have no data to back this up.
If you hire people as disposable automatons and show no goodwill or loyalty, they will naturally do the minimum necessary not to get fired. So you need to add managers on top to make sure automatons don’t slack. But managers also cost you, and they will try to game the system all the same. So you add cameras and build butt detectors into chairs to see how much time people spend away.
For an employee, it is an arms race to dystopia slowed down by mountains of government regulation. For your business, it will never benefit from any employee’s full potential.
Free market only works if people value good will, good faith, reputation. Embracing a lack of these values puts you on a road that one way or another leads to authoritarianism or oppression.
[EDIT to remove the pot shot in the first paragraph but I still think OP has got to be trolling. But in case you really aren’t…]
Layoffs are bad because they are deceptive and cruel to those laid off and further erode trust from those not yet laid off. They are deceptive because being hired as an employee traditionally carries with it implied permanence that being hired as a temp or contractor (like your plumber) does not. You have a job unless and until your performance provides cause to fire you. They are cruel because they take advantage of the inherent power imbalance between employer and employee. The employee may be here on a visa, or just moved their family across the country, or has debts and obligations where he requires employment. He is harmed if the company suddenly and unilaterally ends the relationship. The company on the other hand is not materially harmed if the employee unilaterally decides to leave.
You can argue that a company is legally allowed to act in bad faith, but “barely within the law” is not a high ethical bar.
Who told you that you'll have a job until your performance drops? Was that the contract? You'll have a job for as long as you're needed to the company. Once your services are no longer required you'll be laid off. Why should anyone pay you if they no longer need your services? Is this the social contract in USA?
I see nothing deceptive nor cruel in it, unless Google promised not to fired these people
Now, Visa workers and people who moved should be taken care of separately, I agree. Firing them is not ok, at least not without extra compensation. However, are they a big percentage of those laid-off? Centering discussion about minority like if they are majority isn't helpful.
As for power imbalance.. Those hired at FAANG are one of the smartest people in the population. They should have known all of this and factor in all of this. It's hard to treat seriously people who make $300k/year and say they were cruely harmed because they were fired and now they may need to apply to another job.
I wrote this elsewhere, but I do not support Google. I view them as amoral, they make whatever is necessary to maximize profit.
People do make plans based on continued employment. Like, people move across the country and sign a year long lease for a job. There’s no avoiding that.
"Full time perm" means that the employer does not know for how long the job is needed, not that the job will be needed forever.
If there is no obligation for the employee to work forever, then there should not be an obligation for the employer to provide work forever too.
Unnecessary first paragraph on an otherwise great comment.
A better analogy is you pay your nanny to fly to Australia with you. You lay her off in Australia and get a refund on her return flight since she no longer works for you — she can find her own way back to the US.
And key here IMO is she is laid off without cause.
That would be true, if majority of those fired were visa workers, or people who moved across country. Is this the case?
No, it is still a good analogy. Going full time has a huge opportunity cost. Have you seen a typical employment contract? You assign all rights for anything you make during the employment to the employer. You cannot do open source stuff under your name unless you give up ownership. You are not free to build your business or gig on the side, at a sufficiently big company lawyers can always claim it is something that the company considered doing so you are competing with your employer and can be sued. Once you are fired, all you have is a name on the resume and hopefully savings.
And here the person in the middle of childcare leave additionally has no time to research job alternatives in job market where thousands are being laid off, so in addition to stress during already stressful time (how much sleep did you get for months after you had a baby?) there is now a hole in the resume that is always a red flag for HR. They are left out in the cold like your nan in AU.
The idea that the laid off people “completed their job” is just false.
> Do you keep paying a plumber once they complete their job?
The analogy is flawed.
You pay him until he completes his job. Or he will be pissed.
Google is telling the plumber to leave before the agreed upon work is done.
The plumber analogy is flawed but yours is not much better. When is the agreed work done for an employee? Employees are not hired to complete a specific job like a plumber is.
> Do you keep paying a plumber once they complete their job?
What an utterly stupid analogy. You never hired the Plumber as an Employee in the first place.
They layed off female employees on maternity leave just as they gave birth to children. No payout for the remainder of their maternity leave. That also contradicts your assertion of whether FAANG employees were making children btw. Google was horrendously cruel here.
A company has a basic obligation to only do what makes sense, not what is superfluous.
Mis-hiring a ton of people to only let lots of people go shows a untrustworthy dishonest shallow character.
Maybe in some cases companies honestly fuck up, but most of the time it just looks like the idiotic cancer of growth at all costs attitude, a delusional nature. The infinite quintupling down that seems to be the one & only move business-types so often seem to have, a pattern of relentless self-promotion in all conditions.
The genuineness of a company that can tap a wider base, to make calibrated decisions upon, is rare. And instances like this just show how much disdain there is from the top to everyone below. Utter disrespect, no acknowledgement that the org was being false, no try to do right., just letting trust in the org fail.
Business is not your friend, it's not your family. The only goal of business is to make profit. If they can make something good along the way - great, but don't expect them to do it.
At this scale it seems very hard to make good decisions. It looks like a lot of companies overestimated their long term needs. Also, they might have hired those employees to prevent competition from hiring them,and it might have been a good business decision. What people fail to understand is that corporations goal is not to maximize well-being of their employees.
I wonder if this is a result of liberal movement that allowed those companies to leech to various causes (LGBTQ rights,gender equality, etc) and allowed them to spread image of friendly, responsible, good, family-like image. I 100% support those movements myself, but I also have seen this coming for years. As soon as it no longer pays off to be friendly, corporations stop be such.
The best way to fight this is to educate people that corporations are not your friend, family, they don't care much about you.
If businesses did try to align to & respect their workforces these dont-trust-anyone sentiments wouldn't be necessary. And I contend, the business would likely behave much smarter, make less f-ups, make better products and decisions.
Accepting merely a fait-accompli that there is misalignment & operating in negative prisoners-dilemna non-cooperative modes forever is just a shit play. Both sides need to show up & power-share to actually make anything work.
> Business is not your friend, it's not your family. The only goal of business is to make profit. If they can make something good along the way - great, but don't expect them to do it.
Yep, this is what the robber baron capitalists of the USA also used to believe - profit at the expense of human life. You are simply proving the point here that the only way to win is civil dis-obedience. Boycott, blockade, unionize and make these modern robber barons pay. Unless they feel the pinch they will not change.
Believing in profit at the expense of all other considerations only kick-starts a revolution.
I view this behavior as an emerging property, and I don't think you can get rid of it.
What we as a society can do is educate people that companies are not your friends, that they are amoral, and they exist to maximize their profits. I think we shouldn't allow them to make political donations or support any charity or social movement because this makes them seem "friendly," - which is a net negative for society.
Can you elaborate on why civil disobedience is the only choice? I don't think it is. We haven't tried other solutions. I would love to see a global agreement to cap the wealth of any individual at $1 billion dollars and the total market value of any company at $100bn (those numbers are arbitrary).
how would you get any country to agree to such a thing?> I would love to see a global agreement to cap the wealth of any individual at $1 billion dollars and the total market value of any company at $100bn (those numbers are arbitrary).I'm terribly sorry, I can't describe my idea and expect to stay anonymous. If I would ever describe it again I could be linked to the account, which defeats purpose of creating the throwaway account.
One day I hope to be a billionaire and at least try to change the system. I would gladly spend nost of my wealth to see this happen.
Comments like yours is why I'm afraid to hire anyone to begin with. The moment I do I'm automatically an enemy.
Once an employer has explicitly approved an employee's maternity leave, then the notice period of termination should begin from when the leave has expired. This is basic, common sense and is also law in many European nations.
It's regulated by law in my country so yes, but that's not what I'm talking about. Once your revolution kicks off the mob won't care a single bit that I'm a "good" employer. No, I rather keep working on my own even though I could and should employ someone.
And that is your free choice. I am sure they were many employers in the days after the union movement who decided not to hire because they believed in making employees work 20 hours a day and they were afraid of retribution if they pushed the line. And that is fine - these folks would have lost out business to other employers who appeased the "mob" as you call it. There is only so much a single person can scale out to, after all. Other employers will fill the vacuum.
It is interesting you haven't responded to the guy who believes in profit at all costs. If you truly believe that, then yes, its best not to hire people.
Responded to who? I don't believe that and I also don't plan to treat any employee badly. My point is that it doesn't matter. Once your proposed civil war happens I will automatically be the bourgeoisie class that needs to be crushed, tortured and killed.
Perhaps both you and the strawman you are lugging around in this comment chain deserve to go then? If you're really at fear for this I think it indicates that
1. You're in the wrong line of work 2. Maybe you aren't treating employees right and realize it
> Responded to who?
The guy with a throwaway account who supports Google's policy. You have responded to his objectors several times but not to him which indirectly states where you actually stand.
A civil disobedience movement becomes utterly necessary when employers cross the line of human dignity again and again. It is in everyone's interest to make sure that doesn't degrade to a civil war of-course. It will not just be the bourgeoisie class that is effected here. I will correct my post.
I do not support Google's policy. I view USA's labor laws as barbaric. In EU paid leave and paid maternity leave is standard, nobody even view them as extra benefits.
I just don't understand why very intelligent people are surprised by all of this, and why they expect to never be laid-off.
> Mis-hiring a ton of people to only let lots of people go shows a untrustworthy dishonest shallow character.
How many people in HN do you think have moved out of gmail/google ? The answer is obvious - very few have. So, we have two theories:
* Either, most people don't think what you said is true.
* Alternately, people think what you think is true but don't care enough. This is like workers in china etc. This is just moral high standing. Expecting great character but not making a change oneself.
So, yeah, nothing will change. 100% sure.
Absurd & bizarre connection you draw. Companies that wish to continue forever face rot. Sometimes it's from over-retaining. But usually IMO it's from under-valuing & under-attending to the people making the meat.
The impact won't show up in a quarter, or maybe even 4, but the hollowing out & disenfranchisement of your workforce has real impact, is what makes you a lumbering husk, that might not be in visible decline, but it does make you weak & fragile & with muted senses, makes you less attuned. The cost of being a shit adds up.
Yes, if the worker was on maternity leave when laid off. What I have noticed about American culture, despite having money they are extreme penny pitches in the oddest of places.
I am the parent of this thread and been heavily downvoted for my initial comment. I agree with you. If the worker was already on maternity leave they should get stay on maternity leave for the duration of the leave regardless of layoffs. What I was referring to an employee that had been already laid off by google, and at some point after needs to go on maternity leave. I'm not sure google should be obligated to support maternity leave in that case as the employee is no longer subject to company benefits (with the exception of access to COBRA/health insurance)
because people plan their family around things like maternity leave and rely on these actually being honored. what should they do now, get un-pregnant?
They deserve the whole of the product of their labor.
This is one of the reasons why maternity leave compensation is paid by the government in Germany. But to American ears that's socialism or something, I guess.
This comment is probably the best explanation of how American capitalism is effective at self-propagate its tenets through the confidence of those it screws over the most.
Can someone argue convincingly that this is ethical?
Layoffs suck.
I think I would be upset if I was laid off but those on medical or baby leave were specifically given a pass. It kind of feels like a slap on the face for those whom are unable to have kids.
Layoffs should be focused on performance, cost of salary, team business utility, etc.
That said, if layoffs disproportionately hit those on that are on medical leave, that would be pretty cruel.
Moreover, I think those laid off during leave should be given additional severance due to the incredible imposition.
Everywhere I've worked has stipulated that leave, sabbaticals, etc. were still subject to layoffs.
If you ever find yourself wishing for A not to have more than B in order to be "fair" to B wherein what is given to A doesn't directly detract from B you are practicing childish emotional thinking and should strive to be more rational. This is made blindingly obvious when you use emotional language like a "slap in the face".
If a company must select whom to layout it would seem logical to pick those who presently aren't contributing because they just had a kid and are on leave and yet we don't really want to live in a society where people are worried about having kids because they might be punished for it by being fired not least of which because we need a next generation and don't want the entirety of it to come from less intelligent people in lower performing households.
To take away the incentive and ensure at least the appearance of objectivity—different from emotional nonsensical fairness—its wise to decouple layoffs from maternity by dealing with any change in employment status after the end of maternity leave. If it still makes sense to lay them off or fire them after the end of their leave.
We're only human.
I think it would be incredibly difficult not to feel slighted and go through a whole range of emotions when laid off.
Furthermore, most people will naturally compare themselves against others. It's how we navigate society.
It's one thing to live and let go, but it's another to understand why things are happening and why certain treatments or gradients exist. It's logical to recognize and perfectly natural to have feelings about.
Layoffs shouldnt be focused on anything. Corporations shouldnt be at liberty to drop workers as it suits them, their need to be stronger worker protections so that preventative action is mandatory.
It sounds like you're in favor of the types of laws that led to Spain having unemployment rates between 30-50% for young people. If you make it so that hiring someone is entering into a lifelong marriage of responsibility to keep paying them even if doing so is losing the company money, you end up with companies afraid to hire and/or going bankrupt.
Losing a job sucks, but as someone who's lived and worked on both sides of the Atlantic, I appreciate a lot of elements of American work setup that few dare acknowledge. Way more opportunities to get jobs in "risky" startups or "risky" expansions of bigger companies than the European companies that are forced to be more conservative about expansion due to their inability to contract. And less likely that your workday involves dealing with deadweight coworkers who are drawing your same salary despite not contributing, or dealing with overly risk-averse management who have an excessive bias towards the status quo.
Keep in mind the laid off folks are getting severance, will get unemployment payments after that runs out if they haven't started a new job, can choose between staying on their existing healthcare plan or switching to a new individual plan or switching to a partner's plan (and can do so retroactively- you're covered for free automatically for the month following layoff, if you need healthcare during that time you can choose to stay on the former employer plan even weeks afterwards). It's not like anyone is going to be homeless and hungry because they got laid off, they have months or years of support to find a new opportunity.
> Corporations shouldnt be at liberty to drop workers as it suits them
Why not? If a business is facing headwinds, should it be forced to pay all its salaries and put everyone at the enterprise at risk? What about the investors, which also include employee shareholders and pension funds?
The economy is large and there are lots of jobs. Unemployment is low. Companies are literally waging a Darwinian battle for survival. Why should they be artificially shackled to past business decisions?
Companies aren't feel good communities. They try to be, but the reality is that it is blood sport that temporarily makes people income and wealth. Employment at lower ranks shields you from the realities of the competition and market dynamics.
If these people want severance on top of maternity leave, it’s not really fair to the other people laid off.
I’m not sure how you can conclude that, unless you’re just saying that parental and medical leave is inherently unfair. If that’s your position, feel free to argue it separately (strong “only in America” vibes, but whatever).
The issue here is simply whether Google should honor the commitments Google already made. If Google approved your leave, I’d say you’re entitled to it, no different than if you had accrued paid vacation time per Google’s vacation rules.
Howso? Medical leave wad available to all employees, including those who were laid off.
Especially with modern family planning, it is possible to be strategic about when to use such leave, and natural to include the expectation of continued employment upon return into the decision to use such leave.
I’m not claiming there’s a simple answer - I understand the point that it seems unfair that an employee on leave will “get more” than an employee who wasn’t, but at the same time, this is the commitment that Google made, and I can’t shake the feeling that a mother giving birth and then using the resulting benefit that she was promised should be entirely unrelated to any notions of severance.
If anything, it makes it look like Google is taking advantage of people on leave, not somehow leveling the playing field.
Where I am, a long time ago, it was a unwritten rule to leave people on medical leave employed. Then I suspect when they are back at work maybe they would be let go. Back then I never knew anyone in this situation. I do know a few that were fired while on leave in the past few years.
But with how the US medical system has pretty much transitioned from non-profits to profits, I doubt there can be any argument saying doing this is OK. Money now talks more than it did years ago.
No. It’s pure greed. Move with your feet people. Sign petitions, form unions, quiet quit.
Why not loud-quit?
Harder to affect change outside the company
You don't get paid
Medical leave is heavily abused at companies like Google, to the point where people use it as an easy way to rest and vest while not actually being sick
Nothing about firing 12K people while doing hundreds of billions of dollars in share buybacks is ethical, yet here we are.
This should not be a matter of ethics. Then it becomes up to individual companies. In Sweden, this is in law.
“The most ethical action a company can take is to maximize the shareholder’s value, no matter the long term cost.”
/s (for me at least)
Google is a shitty company, TBH.
They laid off senior GCP techs because they didn't want to promote them.
FTA: Google has decided to not honor pre-approved leave
Basically, going back on your word. No honour.
"It's just a tiny tiny change. We just dropped the "Don't ". The shorter phrase better reflects our new streamlined business practices to better suck shareholder d*ck."
The motto is now
Don't!
Be Evil
Works on contingency? No! Money down!