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I agree with the idea that all accrued PTO should be paid out, if the release of the employee was the decision of the company. I also would like to add, that B

I agree with the idea that all accrued PTO should be paid out, if the release of the employee was the decision of the company. I also would like to add, that Buzzfeed did not simply throw these people out the door and into poverty, they did provide severance and benefits through April, which should be plenty of time to find another source of income (hopefully). "BuzzFeed’s laid-off employees received a severance of a minimum 10 weeks pay, and benefits through April. Taylor’s response to the petition’s organizers said the company wants to meet with staff to discuss the issue"

sverige 8y ago
So basically BuzzFeed could just do the math on the ten weeks of severance by subtracting each employee's PTO, calling the remainder 'severance.' I don't think they are obligated by law to pay any severance, though I could be wrong about that.
- kevindong 8y ago
  I don't know about Buzzfeed in specific, but some established companies have a formally stated severance benefits (i.e. if you're laid off for non-performance reasons, you get x weeks of severance).
  - dudul 8y ago
    That doesn't make it required by law though. I don't think "at will" employment comes with any legally enforced severance requirement.
    - kevindong 8y ago
      At the company I was at, the severance benefit was a part of a contractually promised benefit package. I could definitely be wrong, but I do believe that if it's promised (even in a 'at will' employment), it can be enforced.
      - PascLeRasc 8y ago
        You're missing the point. Not all of us work at your company, and yours could discontinue that benefit anytime.
        magduf 8y ago
        They could, but a lawsuit against them would be an easy slam-dunk. When a company signs an employment contract with you, they're bound by the terms of that contract, until both parties agree to amend it. They can't just discontinue some benefit at any time without subjecting themselves to a possible lawsuit.
        astura 8y ago
        This isn't how it works in the United States. Assuming benefits are actually written in a contract (and they aren't, not that I've seen anyways), if you're "at will" then they can terminate you for not signing a new employment contract with the new benefits when they feel like changing the benefits. Therefore, in practice, they have complete unilateral control over benefits. But they aren't going to write your benefits in a binding contract, because that's just not standard practice and there's no upside for them to do so and just creates more paperwork. When unions are involved, however, there's real contracts. However, unions are very uncommon in the US.
        magduf 8y ago
        What are you talking about? Yes, in "at will" states (which is 49 of them), they can fire you if you refuse to accept the new contract. However, this does not mean they can just ignore the old one: they still have to follow its terms, and if that means paying out your PTO when they fire you, that's what they have to do, or else you have a slam-dunk case for unlawful dismissal. Of course, this means you're getting your PTO paid out while simultaneously being laid off, but I never said the situation was perfect, just that they can't arbitrarily ignore their own employment contract. >But they aren't going to write your benefits in a binding contract, because that's just not standard practice Every professional job I can remember absolutely did come with written policies about things like vacation and PTO, and this stuff was written right into the offer letter. The offer letter is absolutely legally binding. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.
    - Consultant32452 8y ago
      The WARN act applies to most companies with 100+ employees and legally mandates 60 days notice.
      - logfromblammo 8y ago
        I had an employer flout the WARN act. We all had 3 days notice. When I got another job about 2 weeks later, they wanted me to give them a written statement saying that I resigned. As politely as possible under the circumstances, I instead wrote a statement saying that the company laid me off on the day they stopped paying me, collected all my badges, and told me not to report for work unless someone called me to say where. I most emphatically did not resign, and if the company wanted to resume the working relationship that they unilaterally interrupted, all they had to do was start paying me again. The only reason I came in at all is so that they'd transfer my clearance to my new employer. If they wanted me to write some bullshit resignation letter, they had best be prepared to deal with the consequences of me not having been laid off, which is to say the salary I hadn't been paid while "benched". But with the small numbers involved, they only needed a handful of people to say they actually resigned, or that they got laid off at a different time, so it wasn't really worth fighting. And here I am, technically working for them again, after they got bought by a company with better cash flow. They certainly had an opportunity to read that letter in the old HR file before rehiring me. You can't count on the labor laws to protect you. Keep a 6-month savings buffer, update your resume every year, and try to make sure that it would hurt a little, but not too much, if you suddenly disappeared without wrapping up loose ends. The company should be able to survive if you got hit by a bus (or otherwise separated on zero notice), but it should also have to cry a little. And ask for more money than you think you're worth, to account for the chance that they'll screw you over without any warning.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  Severance is the same for all laid-off employees. You wouldn't individually calculate it per employee like that. What they could do is have severance for all employees be N days, where N = 10 weeks - (avg # PTO days), and then also pay out PTO individually per employee. The company ends up paying out the same amount overall, but employees who had more PTO days stored up than average get paid out more and vice-versa for those with fewer. In that sense it is more fair, and this whole brouhaha started because the existing policy isn't perceived as being fair.
  - nostrebored 8y ago
    How is it more fair that people who had days which they were not compensated for are paid the same amount as people who took days off which they were compensate for?
    - dpark 8y ago
      The parent comment specifically addressed that concern. Everyone gets the same severance (reduced by average accrued PTO) plus whatever their individual accrued PTO is. In this scheme no one gets uncompensated PTO.
    - CydeWeys 8y ago
      The comment I replied to suggested doing that. I corrected it and proposed the opposite in my comment. Hopefully it wasn't too unclear.
    - muro 8y ago
      That's Matthew 20:1-16. :) Edit: I assume of course that the proposed severance is at least as big as the PTO.
- notjesse 8y ago
  Almost all states are at-will. So severance isn’t required. But it’s usually for the employer’s peace of mind, it can prevent class-action lawsuits as well as former employees speaking negatively about them. Given they are a media company, a lot of the people laid off would be fairly good at getting lots of eyes on anything they say about Buzzfeed. It definitely makes sense for them to offer reasonable terms in the agreement to shut everyone up.
  - Consultant32452 8y ago
    If your employer is large, greater than 100 full time employees, you are probably protected by the WARN act which guarantees 60 days notice. BuzzFeed employees probably qualify.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Almost all states are at-will. So severance isn’t required. The former doesn't imply the latter; all (not almost all) US states have at-will employment, but that just means good cause is, by default (i.e., absent specific contract terms), not needed to sever an employment relationship; some states, and the federal government, nevertheless require notice or payment in lieu of notice and for some states additional post-layoff benefits (e.g., paying continued health benefits for a certain period) for certain large layoffs.
- mywittyname 8y ago
  Severance is intended to offset unemployment costs. Companies don't want to pay increased unemployment insurance premiums due to layoffs, so they give employees some token amount of cash that should cover them for just long enough to find another position.
dudul 8y ago
Useful precision yes. 10 weeks is a very generous severance package, especially if it includes continuation of benefits. They may have been clumsy there. They could have avoided this bad PR by just paying the PTO and giving 5 weeks of severance or something like that.
ohyes 8y ago
Pto is part of your compensation. It goes on the books as a liability, which is why a lot of companies are doing ‘unlimited vacation’ now. (And why others don’t want to roll vacation from one year to the next). If they don’t owe you a certain amount of vacation, they don’t have to pay it out when you quit. But if they do owe it, they do have to pay you.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  In some states, the laws are as you say. In others, PTO is not considered part of compensation and is not owed to you when you quit or are fired.
- Pinbenterjamin 8y ago
  | But if they do owe it, they do have to pay you. That should be true, I agree, however it is not. Here is a source outlining the laws in each state. http://ask.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.info/cc-nto-vacation-rolling-pl http://ask.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.info/cc-nto-vacatio... For example, in my state, the law is; Unused vacation will not be not considered wages unless an employment agreement, union contract, or company policy provides that vacation will be cashed out on termination of employment, in which case an employee may have a claim for vacation pay if the terms of the agreement, contract, or policy are not followed (Chrin v. Cambridge Hydrodynamics, Inc., 2003 WL 25754809 (N.J. App. Div. Dec. 30, 2003); see New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development: Wage and Hour Compliance FAQs).
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Sounds like if you think your company might do layoffs soon, take all of your PTO right now.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - radicaldreamer 8y ago
      It's a good idea to take PTO regularly anyway, for health reasons and to prevent burnout (although people vary about this), but especially so if you're in a state where it isn't compensated or you're in one of those "unlimited" PTO companies.
guytv 8y ago
"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." - John Kenneth Galbraith
reaperducer 8y ago
should be plenty of time to find another source of income Are you under the impression that journalism is a hot job market?
- jawns 8y ago
  I think that's why they wrote "another source of income" rather than "another job in journalism."
  - ghaff 8y ago
    So Starbucks. 10 weeks is not a lot of time to find a new professional job. I'm guessing it's not incredibly difficult to find a low-paying contract job going writing of some sort. But editor-level jobs in the writing field? Probably a lot harder--journalism or otherwise.
- shard972 8y ago
  I hear quite a few of them are picking up coding.
  - kamaal 8y ago
    Doesn't work for almost everybody. You are under estimating how hard it can be for people from non-STEM areas or even inclination to jump to something like programming. Sure every once in a while some one will, but most can't. My company routinely runs coding classes and bootcamps to help people from marketing, advertising, accounting, payroll etc to transition to a software career. Mostly women attend. I don't know of one single person who was able to make the shift. It's hard to do a 40 hour work week(Most have to put in more than that). Then learn something totally obtuse to what you've been doing all life. And most people get into non-STEM professions, because they don't like STEM much. You have to overcome biases, mental inertia and mental training worth decades, this is after your regular work. And there is an endless stack of books and reading resources to get to doing something decent. All the while you have a full time job, commute, family and other commitments. Most of them quit because they know they have to level down a mountain, and it still wont be worth it, because you will never catch up with the main stream ever. You need to be motivated and need to work beyond belief to break through. It's not that people are stupid. But it's really like equivalent of a life long couch potato waking up one day and wanting to run the Bad water ultramarathon. There is simply too much of a gap to make up. These days swim lanes get set early in life. Note there is another story on HN going on about a 64 year old man reading a semester worth books and still unable to land a job(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19022000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19022000).
colinprince 8y ago
Offtopic: Great commentary in the form of a quiz here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/jsweeten/do-you-still-have-a-job-at-buzzfeed-3htxk https://www.buzzfeed.com/jsweeten/do-you-still-have-a-job-at...
grecy 8y ago
> I agree with the idea that all accrued PTO should be paid out How this isn't law in a Developed Country is beyond me.
raarts 8y ago
I heard they all had unlimited vacation. In which case you don't accrue PTO.

sverige 8y ago

So basically BuzzFeed could just do the math on the ten weeks of severance by subtracting each employee's PTO, calling the remainder 'severance.' I don't think they are obligated by law to pay any severance, though I could be wrong about that.

kevindong 8y ago
I don't know about Buzzfeed in specific, but some established companies have a formally stated severance benefits (i.e. if you're laid off for non-performance reasons, you get x weeks of severance).
- dudul 8y ago
  That doesn't make it required by law though. I don't think "at will" employment comes with any legally enforced severance requirement.
  - kevindong 8y ago
    At the company I was at, the severance benefit was a part of a contractually promised benefit package. I could definitely be wrong, but I do believe that if it's promised (even in a 'at will' employment), it can be enforced.
    - PascLeRasc 8y ago
      You're missing the point. Not all of us work at your company, and yours could discontinue that benefit anytime.
      - magduf 8y ago
        They could, but a lawsuit against them would be an easy slam-dunk. When a company signs an employment contract with you, they're bound by the terms of that contract, until both parties agree to amend it. They can't just discontinue some benefit at any time without subjecting themselves to a possible lawsuit.
        astura 8y ago
        This isn't how it works in the United States. Assuming benefits are actually written in a contract (and they aren't, not that I've seen anyways), if you're "at will" then they can terminate you for not signing a new employment contract with the new benefits when they feel like changing the benefits. Therefore, in practice, they have complete unilateral control over benefits. But they aren't going to write your benefits in a binding contract, because that's just not standard practice and there's no upside for them to do so and just creates more paperwork. When unions are involved, however, there's real contracts. However, unions are very uncommon in the US.
        magduf 8y ago
        What are you talking about? Yes, in "at will" states (which is 49 of them), they can fire you if you refuse to accept the new contract. However, this does not mean they can just ignore the old one: they still have to follow its terms, and if that means paying out your PTO when they fire you, that's what they have to do, or else you have a slam-dunk case for unlawful dismissal. Of course, this means you're getting your PTO paid out while simultaneously being laid off, but I never said the situation was perfect, just that they can't arbitrarily ignore their own employment contract. >But they aren't going to write your benefits in a binding contract, because that's just not standard practice Every professional job I can remember absolutely did come with written policies about things like vacation and PTO, and this stuff was written right into the offer letter. The offer letter is absolutely legally binding. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.
  - Consultant32452 8y ago
    The WARN act applies to most companies with 100+ employees and legally mandates 60 days notice.
    - logfromblammo 8y ago
      I had an employer flout the WARN act. We all had 3 days notice. When I got another job about 2 weeks later, they wanted me to give them a written statement saying that I resigned. As politely as possible under the circumstances, I instead wrote a statement saying that the company laid me off on the day they stopped paying me, collected all my badges, and told me not to report for work unless someone called me to say where. I most emphatically did not resign, and if the company wanted to resume the working relationship that they unilaterally interrupted, all they had to do was start paying me again. The only reason I came in at all is so that they'd transfer my clearance to my new employer. If they wanted me to write some bullshit resignation letter, they had best be prepared to deal with the consequences of me not having been laid off, which is to say the salary I hadn't been paid while "benched". But with the small numbers involved, they only needed a handful of people to say they actually resigned, or that they got laid off at a different time, so it wasn't really worth fighting. And here I am, technically working for them again, after they got bought by a company with better cash flow. They certainly had an opportunity to read that letter in the old HR file before rehiring me. You can't count on the labor laws to protect you. Keep a 6-month savings buffer, update your resume every year, and try to make sure that it would hurt a little, but not too much, if you suddenly disappeared without wrapping up loose ends. The company should be able to survive if you got hit by a bus (or otherwise separated on zero notice), but it should also have to cry a little. And ask for more money than you think you're worth, to account for the chance that they'll screw you over without any warning.
CydeWeys 8y ago
Severance is the same for all laid-off employees. You wouldn't individually calculate it per employee like that. What they could do is have severance for all employees be N days, where N = 10 weeks - (avg # PTO days), and then also pay out PTO individually per employee. The company ends up paying out the same amount overall, but employees who had more PTO days stored up than average get paid out more and vice-versa for those with fewer. In that sense it is more fair, and this whole brouhaha started because the existing policy isn't perceived as being fair.
- nostrebored 8y ago
  How is it more fair that people who had days which they were not compensated for are paid the same amount as people who took days off which they were compensate for?
  - dpark 8y ago
    The parent comment specifically addressed that concern. Everyone gets the same severance (reduced by average accrued PTO) plus whatever their individual accrued PTO is. In this scheme no one gets uncompensated PTO.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    The comment I replied to suggested doing that. I corrected it and proposed the opposite in my comment. Hopefully it wasn't too unclear.
  - muro 8y ago
    That's Matthew 20:1-16. :) Edit: I assume of course that the proposed severance is at least as big as the PTO.
notjesse 8y ago
Almost all states are at-will. So severance isn’t required. But it’s usually for the employer’s peace of mind, it can prevent class-action lawsuits as well as former employees speaking negatively about them. Given they are a media company, a lot of the people laid off would be fairly good at getting lots of eyes on anything they say about Buzzfeed. It definitely makes sense for them to offer reasonable terms in the agreement to shut everyone up.
- Consultant32452 8y ago
  If your employer is large, greater than 100 full time employees, you are probably protected by the WARN act which guarantees 60 days notice. BuzzFeed employees probably qualify.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Almost all states are at-will. So severance isn’t required. The former doesn't imply the latter; all (not almost all) US states have at-will employment, but that just means good cause is, by default (i.e., absent specific contract terms), not needed to sever an employment relationship; some states, and the federal government, nevertheless require notice or payment in lieu of notice and for some states additional post-layoff benefits (e.g., paying continued health benefits for a certain period) for certain large layoffs.
mywittyname 8y ago
Severance is intended to offset unemployment costs. Companies don't want to pay increased unemployment insurance premiums due to layoffs, so they give employees some token amount of cash that should cover them for just long enough to find another position.

dudul 8y ago

Useful precision yes. 10 weeks is a very generous severance package, especially if it includes continuation of benefits. They may have been clumsy there. They could have avoided this bad PR by just paying the PTO and giving 5 weeks of severance or something like that.

ohyes 8y ago

Pto is part of your compensation. It goes on the books as a liability, which is why a lot of companies are doing ‘unlimited vacation’ now. (And why others don’t want to roll vacation from one year to the next). If they don’t owe you a certain amount of vacation, they don’t have to pay it out when you quit. But if they do owe it, they do have to pay you.

umanwizard 8y ago
In some states, the laws are as you say. In others, PTO is not considered part of compensation and is not owed to you when you quit or are fired.
Pinbenterjamin 8y ago
| But if they do owe it, they do have to pay you. That should be true, I agree, however it is not. Here is a source outlining the laws in each state. http://ask.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.info/cc-nto-vacation-rolling-pl http://ask.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.info/cc-nto-vacatio... For example, in my state, the law is; Unused vacation will not be not considered wages unless an employment agreement, union contract, or company policy provides that vacation will be cashed out on termination of employment, in which case an employee may have a claim for vacation pay if the terms of the agreement, contract, or policy are not followed (Chrin v. Cambridge Hydrodynamics, Inc., 2003 WL 25754809 (N.J. App. Div. Dec. 30, 2003); see New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development: Wage and Hour Compliance FAQs).
- mikeash 8y ago
  Sounds like if you think your company might do layoffs soon, take all of your PTO right now.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - radicaldreamer 8y ago
    It's a good idea to take PTO regularly anyway, for health reasons and to prevent burnout (although people vary about this), but especially so if you're in a state where it isn't compensated or you're in one of those "unlimited" PTO companies.

guytv 8y ago

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." - John Kenneth Galbraith

reaperducer 8y ago

should be plenty of time to find another source of income Are you under the impression that journalism is a hot job market?

jawns 8y ago
I think that's why they wrote "another source of income" rather than "another job in journalism."
- ghaff 8y ago
  So Starbucks. 10 weeks is not a lot of time to find a new professional job. I'm guessing it's not incredibly difficult to find a low-paying contract job going writing of some sort. But editor-level jobs in the writing field? Probably a lot harder--journalism or otherwise.
shard972 8y ago
I hear quite a few of them are picking up coding.
- kamaal 8y ago
  Doesn't work for almost everybody. You are under estimating how hard it can be for people from non-STEM areas or even inclination to jump to something like programming. Sure every once in a while some one will, but most can't. My company routinely runs coding classes and bootcamps to help people from marketing, advertising, accounting, payroll etc to transition to a software career. Mostly women attend. I don't know of one single person who was able to make the shift. It's hard to do a 40 hour work week(Most have to put in more than that). Then learn something totally obtuse to what you've been doing all life. And most people get into non-STEM professions, because they don't like STEM much. You have to overcome biases, mental inertia and mental training worth decades, this is after your regular work. And there is an endless stack of books and reading resources to get to doing something decent. All the while you have a full time job, commute, family and other commitments. Most of them quit because they know they have to level down a mountain, and it still wont be worth it, because you will never catch up with the main stream ever. You need to be motivated and need to work beyond belief to break through. It's not that people are stupid. But it's really like equivalent of a life long couch potato waking up one day and wanting to run the Bad water ultramarathon. There is simply too much of a gap to make up. These days swim lanes get set early in life. Note there is another story on HN going on about a 64 year old man reading a semester worth books and still unable to land a job(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19022000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19022000).

colinprince 8y ago

Offtopic: Great commentary in the form of a quiz here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/jsweeten/do-you-still-have-a-job-at-buzzfeed-3htxk https://www.buzzfeed.com/jsweeten/do-you-still-have-a-job-at...

grecy 8y ago

> I agree with the idea that all accrued PTO should be paid out How this isn't law in a Developed Country is beyond me.

raarts 8y ago

I heard they all had unlimited vacation. In which case you don't accrue PTO.