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> She wasn’t invited to watch her boss’s presentation, and he got the last word. Hearing the argument of your accuser and being given time to rebut with eviden

> She wasn’t invited to watch her boss’s presentation, and he got the last word. Hearing the argument of your accuser and being given time to rebut with evidence contradicting it is a critical part of a justice system.

walshemj 8y ago
And in the UK this would be an automatic lose in court - even if say the employee was found bang to rights. And best practice is to have an appeal stage so you can appeal the verdict to a manger completely outside of your reporting chain.
- kevin_b_er 8y ago
  This is the United States. One of our two political parties is vehemently opposed to workers rights on the claim that it inhibits profit/greed.
  - jstanley 8y ago
    That's a complete strawman. Nobody is claiming that workers' rights should be limited so that employers can make more money. People are claiming that workers' rights should be limited to the same extent that employers' rights are limited (i.e. that either party can end the relationship at any time and without any specific reason) so as to avoid giving excess power to one party or the other.
    - prolikewhoa 8y ago
      Who does all of the work? That's right, the workers. The workers should have the excess of power in all circumstances. The only reason we have weekends and the "40" hour work week is because of workers and left wing movements. Corporations would have never let such happen, and are historically against the worker & only in favor of raking in profit at the expense of labor. Edit: point proven, HN doesn't care about labor rights and prefers rights for corporations over the actual workers who make the corporation.
      - twblalock 8y ago
        > Edit: point proven, HN doesn't care about labor rights and prefers rights for corporations over the actual workers who make the corporation. There is plenty of room for disagreement among people who accept that workers should have rights -- for example, what should the rights be, how should those rights be balanced against the rights of management, etc.
        lovich 8y ago
        There is room for disagreement but there is certainly a strong anti labor sentiment on this board. There's a strong pro labor group as well, but I have seen people on here state outright that unions are inherently immoral and not just that unions as they have turned on in specific situations are bad.
    - hackbinary 8y ago
      The employer inherently has more power than the employee. That is why worker's rights are important.
      - adventured 8y ago
        The business belongs to the employer typically, they should have far more power over their own business than an average employee does. Inverting that is crazy. I take a job at your 30 year old business that you've run for your entire adult lifetime, now I have more power over it than you do, all because I took a job = perpetual stagnation ala France.
        lazyasciiart 8y ago
        Ok, now do "I took a job at a huge multinational that you've worked at for your entire adult lifetime, now I have more power over your job than you do, all because I graduated with a minor in HR last month".
        bena 8y ago
        And? That's the decision of the person who owns the business. Not yours, and not the HR person's. The person who owns the business has decided that this is the process by which he wants employees vetted because they do not have the time to personally oversee every decision. See, you've actually moved the goalposts here and you may not have realized it.
        lazyasciiart 8y ago
        I'm not sure if you read the comment I was responding to, but it sounds like if you had, you would agree that it was presenting a totally irrelevant argument.
        bena 8y ago
        No it's not. He was talking about the owner losing power over his own business due to hiring an employee. That is not comparable to two employees with different responsibilities.
    - s73v3r_ 8y ago
      "Nobody is claiming that workers' rights should be limited so that employers can make more money." I mean, no one would come right out and say that, because it's a pretty stupid thing to say. There are, however, plenty of actions that have that outcome, without having the optics of coming right out and saying that you're favoring employers over employees. Being friendly to "job creators" and all that.
  - prolikewhoa 8y ago
    Hacker News is not a place to come to talk about labor, labor rights, or left wing ideas. It's very hostile to non-right wing ideas as most of the people here are working cushy remote & wfh jobs making oodles of money and don't live in any type of labor reality. I voted you up, but people are not very logical about politics & labor rights here.
    - sanderjd 8y ago
      > don't live in any type of labor reality If we are living this, it must be some type of reality, right? I mean, if something is the reality for lots of people, you can't just claim it is not a reality. I think it weakens the argument to ignore the kinds of work lots of people are actually doing when discussing this stuff; it needs to be incorporated into the intellectual structure of the philosophy if it is meant to be useful.
- duxup 8y ago
  In the US it could be too. While many companies in the US can fire an employee for "no reason" that doesn't mean ANY reason or any process. If the company has a process that isn't fair, an employee could potentially sue over that. Granted other factors come into play but if a company sets up a system like this they still have to do it fairly, a judge could potentially decide the process is unfair.
  - jasode 8y ago
    >While many companies in the US can fire an employee for "no reason" Side note since you mentioned "firing". The article's title ("facing firing") may unintentionally overstate what Amazon's appeal process is actually appealing. Based on the text, Amazon's "appeal process" is to challenge the status of being put on PIP - the Performance Improvement Plan. It isn't to appeal a firing. (Although I understand that some see that as no difference if a PIP is ~99% equivalent to getting fired eventually.) If the employee wants to keep working (at least temporarily) for Amazon, he/she doesn't need to appeal. What a successful appeal does is let them work without PIP targets hanging over their head.
    - mikeryan 8y ago
      PIPs are basically a nice opportunity to look for another job while still at your current one.
      - duxup 8y ago
        I've had to explain this to coworkers in the past, kinda awkward but at the same time I wanted them to not be surprised....
        erric 8y ago
        PIPs, at least from what I’ve seen in 12 years at DoE, are a way for managers to retaliate against employees without raising the ire of the (completely useless) union.
- inopinatus 8y ago
  In my country this procedure could be deemed a tribunal. Tribunals, like many legal objects, are duck typed and don't have to be created by legislation; any extrajudicial arbitration process that has the form of a tribunal may qualify. Under such circumstances the rules of natural justice must still be observed: most significantly, a fair hearing with rights of reply, and an unbiased adjudicator. Failure to adhere to those rules is the basis of an appeal to a real court.
  - aerotwelve 8y ago
    If we had a similar setup in the United States, we'd have much fewer wrongful termination tort lawsuits. In the long term, it would be cheaper in almost every respect. The problem with a system like Amazon's (or internal appeal processes other private companies use) is that they are often so blatantly biased towards management that their results would be legally meaningless in the context of a trial. It makes me wonder why they bother at all.
dbg31415 8y ago
> Workers who lose still get to choose between severance pay or a performance-improvement plan. I'd agree, except it really doesn't doesn't cost anything to appeal. The appeal seems more like a cultural evaluation to see if they can go to another team or not. Not so much a real chance to keep your job. Working under a manager who wanted you gone... that's a recipe for disaster anyway. Unless your manager has done something that warrants his termination, workers would be better off just finding another role in the company or finding a new job. Most terminations, in my experience, have been due to poor cultural fit... not job performance. Unless someone is grievously slacking at work, generally speaking the only time someone gets fired is when they fail to build rapport with their boss and coworkers. That being the case, a "trial" like this seems like a good way to see if the worker just has a conflict with his boss, or if he's really a pain in the ass to work with.
- warrenm 8y ago
  I'll take a severance over a PIP any day of the week PIPs exist entirely to build documentation to fire the employee
- brandonjm 8y ago
  > The appeal seems more like a cultural evaluation to see if they can go to another team or not. Except this article suggests that those the interviewee spoke with who won the appeal were kept in their current position with the current manager.
Sangermaine 8y ago
You're under the mistaken assumption that Amazon is actually trying to set up a fair system with this, instead of creating something they can point to when they're criticized for hasty firings.
paulcole 8y ago
Should go without saying but this is not a justice system.
- balthasar 8y ago
  It is a system that isn't just, impartial or fair? Isn't that the point of appointing jurors.
- deckar01 8y ago
  Not all justice systems are for the public or for criminal offenses. This is a private appeals court for employment contract enforcement. I would qualify that as a justice system.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
makoz 8y ago
Disclaimer: Work at Amazon and participated in the appeal process as one of the jury a while back. The article clearly doesn't go into the process beyond what's on surface. When I participated both the manager and the employee wrote an initial document that would be shared with each other. These documents are the basis for the presentation. The employee had time to go through the manager's document and rebut each of the points their turn (as did the manager), so it seems slightly disingenuous to suggest that neither party has access to the other's claims. During each parties presentation, they would go through the document and bring in supplemental evidence (which the other doesn't have access to). The format I went in was: Employee presents their document -> Employee rebuts manager's document / Q&A -> Manager presents their document -> Manager rebuts other presentation / Q&A The panel then has the option to bring back the employee for additional questions. I'd be interested if/how the ordering of the presentations affected the panel.
- thedz 8y ago
  If it still gives a manager the last word though, and requires the employee not be present, that hardly seems fair.
  - makoz 8y ago
    It might be slightly mitigated since the panel has the opportunity to bring back the employee if they have follow-up questions but I'd agree and would want to experiment with the ordering. The manager isn't present during the employee's presentation either though, and I'd imagine it would devolve into a circus if both parties are present during both presentations and able to interrupt/rebut directly. (Might also not be beneficial to the employee)
    - aerotwelve 8y ago
      If these were real grievance hearings, both parties would be able to be present during each other's presentation, cross-examine witnesses, and present (and/or challenge) evidence used to make a decision on what to do with the employee. Could it become a circus? Yes, if procedural ground rules are not well-defined and enforced by the moderator of these sessions. One of these should be the obvious "don't interrupt each other while one side is speaking". I know these aren't supposed to be formal legal proceedings by design, but if the parties cannot question each other -- or even hear what the other has to say! -- then there seems to be a strict upper bound to the degree of "truth" that a jury could uncover during this process. EDIT: I didn't notice your disclaimer when I wrote this; I absolutely did not mean to give off the impression that you or your colleagues @ Amazon didn't take your responsibilities as appeal committee members seriously or didn't do your job properly. Hopefully you didn't take it that way, but re-reading this thread made me want to clarify.
warrenm 8y ago
>Hearing the argument of your accuser and being given time to rebut with evidence contradicting it is a critical part of a justice system. Since when did companies become "justice systems"?
- deckar01 8y ago
  > Not all justice systems are for the public or for criminal offenses. This is a private appeals court for employment contract enforcement. I would qualify that as a justice system. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17396140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17396140

walshemj 8y ago

And in the UK this would be an automatic lose in court - even if say the employee was found bang to rights. And best practice is to have an appeal stage so you can appeal the verdict to a manger completely outside of your reporting chain.

kevin_b_er 8y ago
This is the United States. One of our two political parties is vehemently opposed to workers rights on the claim that it inhibits profit/greed.
- jstanley 8y ago
  That's a complete strawman. Nobody is claiming that workers' rights should be limited so that employers can make more money. People are claiming that workers' rights should be limited to the same extent that employers' rights are limited (i.e. that either party can end the relationship at any time and without any specific reason) so as to avoid giving excess power to one party or the other.
  - prolikewhoa 8y ago
    Who does all of the work? That's right, the workers. The workers should have the excess of power in all circumstances. The only reason we have weekends and the "40" hour work week is because of workers and left wing movements. Corporations would have never let such happen, and are historically against the worker & only in favor of raking in profit at the expense of labor. Edit: point proven, HN doesn't care about labor rights and prefers rights for corporations over the actual workers who make the corporation.
    - twblalock 8y ago
      > Edit: point proven, HN doesn't care about labor rights and prefers rights for corporations over the actual workers who make the corporation. There is plenty of room for disagreement among people who accept that workers should have rights -- for example, what should the rights be, how should those rights be balanced against the rights of management, etc.
      - lovich 8y ago
        There is room for disagreement but there is certainly a strong anti labor sentiment on this board. There's a strong pro labor group as well, but I have seen people on here state outright that unions are inherently immoral and not just that unions as they have turned on in specific situations are bad.
  - hackbinary 8y ago
    The employer inherently has more power than the employee. That is why worker's rights are important.
    - adventured 8y ago
      The business belongs to the employer typically, they should have far more power over their own business than an average employee does. Inverting that is crazy. I take a job at your 30 year old business that you've run for your entire adult lifetime, now I have more power over it than you do, all because I took a job = perpetual stagnation ala France.
      - lazyasciiart 8y ago
        Ok, now do "I took a job at a huge multinational that you've worked at for your entire adult lifetime, now I have more power over your job than you do, all because I graduated with a minor in HR last month".
        bena 8y ago
        And? That's the decision of the person who owns the business. Not yours, and not the HR person's. The person who owns the business has decided that this is the process by which he wants employees vetted because they do not have the time to personally oversee every decision. See, you've actually moved the goalposts here and you may not have realized it.
        lazyasciiart 8y ago
        I'm not sure if you read the comment I was responding to, but it sounds like if you had, you would agree that it was presenting a totally irrelevant argument.
        bena 8y ago
        No it's not. He was talking about the owner losing power over his own business due to hiring an employee. That is not comparable to two employees with different responsibilities.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    "Nobody is claiming that workers' rights should be limited so that employers can make more money." I mean, no one would come right out and say that, because it's a pretty stupid thing to say. There are, however, plenty of actions that have that outcome, without having the optics of coming right out and saying that you're favoring employers over employees. Being friendly to "job creators" and all that.
- prolikewhoa 8y ago
  Hacker News is not a place to come to talk about labor, labor rights, or left wing ideas. It's very hostile to non-right wing ideas as most of the people here are working cushy remote & wfh jobs making oodles of money and don't live in any type of labor reality. I voted you up, but people are not very logical about politics & labor rights here.
  - sanderjd 8y ago
    > don't live in any type of labor reality If we are living this, it must be some type of reality, right? I mean, if something is the reality for lots of people, you can't just claim it is not a reality. I think it weakens the argument to ignore the kinds of work lots of people are actually doing when discussing this stuff; it needs to be incorporated into the intellectual structure of the philosophy if it is meant to be useful.
duxup 8y ago
In the US it could be too. While many companies in the US can fire an employee for "no reason" that doesn't mean ANY reason or any process. If the company has a process that isn't fair, an employee could potentially sue over that. Granted other factors come into play but if a company sets up a system like this they still have to do it fairly, a judge could potentially decide the process is unfair.
- jasode 8y ago
  >While many companies in the US can fire an employee for "no reason" Side note since you mentioned "firing". The article's title ("facing firing") may unintentionally overstate what Amazon's appeal process is actually appealing. Based on the text, Amazon's "appeal process" is to challenge the status of being put on PIP - the Performance Improvement Plan. It isn't to appeal a firing. (Although I understand that some see that as no difference if a PIP is ~99% equivalent to getting fired eventually.) If the employee wants to keep working (at least temporarily) for Amazon, he/she doesn't need to appeal. What a successful appeal does is let them work without PIP targets hanging over their head.
  - mikeryan 8y ago
    PIPs are basically a nice opportunity to look for another job while still at your current one.
    - duxup 8y ago
      I've had to explain this to coworkers in the past, kinda awkward but at the same time I wanted them to not be surprised....
      - erric 8y ago
        PIPs, at least from what I’ve seen in 12 years at DoE, are a way for managers to retaliate against employees without raising the ire of the (completely useless) union.
inopinatus 8y ago
In my country this procedure could be deemed a tribunal. Tribunals, like many legal objects, are duck typed and don't have to be created by legislation; any extrajudicial arbitration process that has the form of a tribunal may qualify. Under such circumstances the rules of natural justice must still be observed: most significantly, a fair hearing with rights of reply, and an unbiased adjudicator. Failure to adhere to those rules is the basis of an appeal to a real court.
- aerotwelve 8y ago
  If we had a similar setup in the United States, we'd have much fewer wrongful termination tort lawsuits. In the long term, it would be cheaper in almost every respect. The problem with a system like Amazon's (or internal appeal processes other private companies use) is that they are often so blatantly biased towards management that their results would be legally meaningless in the context of a trial. It makes me wonder why they bother at all.

dbg31415 8y ago

> Workers who lose still get to choose between severance pay or a performance-improvement plan. I'd agree, except it really doesn't doesn't cost anything to appeal. The appeal seems more like a cultural evaluation to see if they can go to another team or not. Not so much a real chance to keep your job. Working under a manager who wanted you gone... that's a recipe for disaster anyway. Unless your manager has done something that warrants his termination, workers would be better off just finding another role in the company or finding a new job. Most terminations, in my experience, have been due to poor cultural fit... not job performance. Unless someone is grievously slacking at work, generally speaking the only time someone gets fired is when they fail to build rapport with their boss and coworkers. That being the case, a "trial" like this seems like a good way to see if the worker just has a conflict with his boss, or if he's really a pain in the ass to work with.

warrenm 8y ago
I'll take a severance over a PIP any day of the week PIPs exist entirely to build documentation to fire the employee
brandonjm 8y ago
> The appeal seems more like a cultural evaluation to see if they can go to another team or not. Except this article suggests that those the interviewee spoke with who won the appeal were kept in their current position with the current manager.

Sangermaine 8y ago

You're under the mistaken assumption that Amazon is actually trying to set up a fair system with this, instead of creating something they can point to when they're criticized for hasty firings.

paulcole 8y ago

Should go without saying but this is not a justice system.

balthasar 8y ago
It is a system that isn't just, impartial or fair? Isn't that the point of appointing jurors.
deckar01 8y ago
Not all justice systems are for the public or for criminal offenses. This is a private appeals court for employment contract enforcement. I would qualify that as a justice system.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

makoz 8y ago

Disclaimer: Work at Amazon and participated in the appeal process as one of the jury a while back. The article clearly doesn't go into the process beyond what's on surface. When I participated both the manager and the employee wrote an initial document that would be shared with each other. These documents are the basis for the presentation. The employee had time to go through the manager's document and rebut each of the points their turn (as did the manager), so it seems slightly disingenuous to suggest that neither party has access to the other's claims. During each parties presentation, they would go through the document and bring in supplemental evidence (which the other doesn't have access to). The format I went in was: Employee presents their document -> Employee rebuts manager's document / Q&A -> Manager presents their document -> Manager rebuts other presentation / Q&A The panel then has the option to bring back the employee for additional questions. I'd be interested if/how the ordering of the presentations affected the panel.

thedz 8y ago
If it still gives a manager the last word though, and requires the employee not be present, that hardly seems fair.
- makoz 8y ago
  It might be slightly mitigated since the panel has the opportunity to bring back the employee if they have follow-up questions but I'd agree and would want to experiment with the ordering. The manager isn't present during the employee's presentation either though, and I'd imagine it would devolve into a circus if both parties are present during both presentations and able to interrupt/rebut directly. (Might also not be beneficial to the employee)
  - aerotwelve 8y ago
    If these were real grievance hearings, both parties would be able to be present during each other's presentation, cross-examine witnesses, and present (and/or challenge) evidence used to make a decision on what to do with the employee. Could it become a circus? Yes, if procedural ground rules are not well-defined and enforced by the moderator of these sessions. One of these should be the obvious "don't interrupt each other while one side is speaking". I know these aren't supposed to be formal legal proceedings by design, but if the parties cannot question each other -- or even hear what the other has to say! -- then there seems to be a strict upper bound to the degree of "truth" that a jury could uncover during this process. EDIT: I didn't notice your disclaimer when I wrote this; I absolutely did not mean to give off the impression that you or your colleagues @ Amazon didn't take your responsibilities as appeal committee members seriously or didn't do your job properly. Hopefully you didn't take it that way, but re-reading this thread made me want to clarify.

warrenm 8y ago

>Hearing the argument of your accuser and being given time to rebut with evidence contradicting it is a critical part of a justice system. Since when did companies become "justice systems"?

deckar01 8y ago
> Not all justice systems are for the public or for criminal offenses. This is a private appeals court for employment contract enforcement. I would qualify that as a justice system. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17396140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17396140