4 ms·

Let me get this straight: Potential hires were offered an employment contract with terms that included the settling certain disputes through arbitration. They

Let me get this straight: Potential hires were offered an employment contract with terms that included the settling certain disputes through arbitration. They accepted the offer and signed the contract. Now these people are not only are trying to nullify that clause, they’re adopting an air of moral superiority because they think that clause should never have existed. Not only does this seem unsympathetic to me, it seems impractical. Why would you go work for a company that seemingly doesn’t share your values only to later take an activist stance to try and change said company?

Sir_Substance 7y ago
Contracts are a negotiation. There's nothing wrong with one side or the other asking for a negotiation or renegotiation in good faith. Contracts are not immutable, they get amended all the time for all sorts of reasons. Choosing to withhold your labor until a renegotiation happens is an extreme tactic that is likely to generate bad faith from the other party long term, but it's always legal and always moral because our society considers slavery unacceptable. Contracts are an important part of working conditions, as are workers perceptions of self-worth. If your contractual working conditions are demeaning such that you're prepared to not get paid and potentially risk being terminated in order to protest the demeaning conditions, no reasonable person would attempt to force you to work. It is to the companies benefit in these cases that knowledgeable employees attempt to solve the problem rather than simply leaving. It is much cheaper to amend contracts than train new workers. This is a classic case where amending relevant contracts benefits everyone. Is that does that help you straighten this out?
- unseenbastiat 7y ago
  Appreciate the reply, but we may be talking past each other here. Note I didn’t take the position of “you signed the contract, suck it up”. Renegotiations can and do happen. Like you point out, people could get potentially be fired for walking out. At that point, those employees have demonstrated that having this clause changed is worth potentially not having this job. If that’s the case, why didn’t they negotiate on that clause before they were hired? Same things at stake, same gambit, just more direct. Furthermore, now that these employees are trying to renegotiate after having worked with such terms in place for a time, what prompted this change? Were they once accepting of such terms but changes their mind? Or did they not object when that clause was only in their own contract, but now that they see it in other peoples contracts they are inspired to make some company-wide change? The motivations are far from clear. The other part of the above comment left unaddressed is the implicit demonstration of priorities seems strange. The games industry has plenty of turnover, burnout, and rough conditions. So when some people choose to work in the games industry, presumably out of passion, their opportunity cost is substantial. Meanwhile, Riot Games has had a history of bad/abusive behavior within the company. So what kind of person does it take to go work at Riot but later decide “this is the issue where I’m taking a stand.” If they cared that much about working some place they like, and Riot already has this history, it seems strange to later be indignant about their workplace.
  - zimpenfish 7y ago
    > If that’s the case, why didn’t they negotiate on that clause before they were hired? One employee has much less bargaining power than 100, especially in the wildly asymmetric dynamic of the hiring process.
  - EliRivers 7y ago
    If that’s the case, why didn’t they negotiate on that clause before they were hired? Are you going to lend them your time machine so they can go back and change mistakes they made in the past? If not, I guess all they can do about mistakes made in the past is take action here in the present.
harimau777 7y ago
There is often a significant power difference between an employer and someone seeking employment. Once the seeker becomes the employee they have more power and can band with other employees to pool their power. Therefore, there's not a particularly realistic way for someone to negotiate these sorts of things before they are hired.
- unseenbastiat 7y ago
  Sure. There’s still some missing pieces of the motivation puzzle missing here, such as why this issue, why this point in time, why don’t employees exercise this option more often if this is a legit negotiating tactic, etc. At the risk of being cynical, my guess is that this is a PR stunt as much as it’s an employment negotiation. We the outside observers would be the pawns of this tactic that can produce public sentiment to influence Riot. That’s why I’m not so quick to categorize this as simply another contract negotiation.
  - tomnipotent 7y ago
    > There’s still some missing pieces of the motivation puzzle missing here No there's not, you just haven't bothered to read up on the issue. Rioters wanted a toxic senior leader fired for well-documented lapses in judgement. Instead he was given 3 months off and re-hired when the dust settled. The employees personally impacted by this are unable to pursue legal recourse thanks to forced arbitration.
    - unseenbastiat 7y ago
      If you take what people say at face value, then sure, the issue is simple. I think that’s an unwise presumption to always make, but YMMV. But even assuming your explanation is correct, it is incomplete. Why now? This guy has been with the company for a while. He is hardly the only bad actor at the company, so why does his case merit more focus? Have a confluence of factors reached a tipping point? Do employees feel secure enough about their status that they can make this move?
r00fus 7y ago
Sounds like a contract of adhesion to me.
SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
OT, but when a statement begins "let me get this straight" you just know that an uncharitable interpretation of events will immediately follow. Is there a name for this phenomenon?
- johnday 7y ago
  I think it's just a variant on the all-time classic, "I'm not a racist, but...". People try to pre-empt the obvious response (in this case, "you are being uncharitable") with a basic retort ("I'm just trying to get this straight")

Sir_Substance 7y ago

Contracts are a negotiation. There's nothing wrong with one side or the other asking for a negotiation or renegotiation in good faith. Contracts are not immutable, they get amended all the time for all sorts of reasons. Choosing to withhold your labor until a renegotiation happens is an extreme tactic that is likely to generate bad faith from the other party long term, but it's always legal and always moral because our society considers slavery unacceptable. Contracts are an important part of working conditions, as are workers perceptions of self-worth. If your contractual working conditions are demeaning such that you're prepared to not get paid and potentially risk being terminated in order to protest the demeaning conditions, no reasonable person would attempt to force you to work. It is to the companies benefit in these cases that knowledgeable employees attempt to solve the problem rather than simply leaving. It is much cheaper to amend contracts than train new workers. This is a classic case where amending relevant contracts benefits everyone. Is that does that help you straighten this out?

unseenbastiat 7y ago
Appreciate the reply, but we may be talking past each other here. Note I didn’t take the position of “you signed the contract, suck it up”. Renegotiations can and do happen. Like you point out, people could get potentially be fired for walking out. At that point, those employees have demonstrated that having this clause changed is worth potentially not having this job. If that’s the case, why didn’t they negotiate on that clause before they were hired? Same things at stake, same gambit, just more direct. Furthermore, now that these employees are trying to renegotiate after having worked with such terms in place for a time, what prompted this change? Were they once accepting of such terms but changes their mind? Or did they not object when that clause was only in their own contract, but now that they see it in other peoples contracts they are inspired to make some company-wide change? The motivations are far from clear. The other part of the above comment left unaddressed is the implicit demonstration of priorities seems strange. The games industry has plenty of turnover, burnout, and rough conditions. So when some people choose to work in the games industry, presumably out of passion, their opportunity cost is substantial. Meanwhile, Riot Games has had a history of bad/abusive behavior within the company. So what kind of person does it take to go work at Riot but later decide “this is the issue where I’m taking a stand.” If they cared that much about working some place they like, and Riot already has this history, it seems strange to later be indignant about their workplace.
- zimpenfish 7y ago
  > If that’s the case, why didn’t they negotiate on that clause before they were hired? One employee has much less bargaining power than 100, especially in the wildly asymmetric dynamic of the hiring process.
- EliRivers 7y ago
  If that’s the case, why didn’t they negotiate on that clause before they were hired? Are you going to lend them your time machine so they can go back and change mistakes they made in the past? If not, I guess all they can do about mistakes made in the past is take action here in the present.

harimau777 7y ago

There is often a significant power difference between an employer and someone seeking employment. Once the seeker becomes the employee they have more power and can band with other employees to pool their power. Therefore, there's not a particularly realistic way for someone to negotiate these sorts of things before they are hired.

unseenbastiat 7y ago
Sure. There’s still some missing pieces of the motivation puzzle missing here, such as why this issue, why this point in time, why don’t employees exercise this option more often if this is a legit negotiating tactic, etc. At the risk of being cynical, my guess is that this is a PR stunt as much as it’s an employment negotiation. We the outside observers would be the pawns of this tactic that can produce public sentiment to influence Riot. That’s why I’m not so quick to categorize this as simply another contract negotiation.
- tomnipotent 7y ago
  > There’s still some missing pieces of the motivation puzzle missing here No there's not, you just haven't bothered to read up on the issue. Rioters wanted a toxic senior leader fired for well-documented lapses in judgement. Instead he was given 3 months off and re-hired when the dust settled. The employees personally impacted by this are unable to pursue legal recourse thanks to forced arbitration.
  - unseenbastiat 7y ago
    If you take what people say at face value, then sure, the issue is simple. I think that’s an unwise presumption to always make, but YMMV. But even assuming your explanation is correct, it is incomplete. Why now? This guy has been with the company for a while. He is hardly the only bad actor at the company, so why does his case merit more focus? Have a confluence of factors reached a tipping point? Do employees feel secure enough about their status that they can make this move?

r00fus 7y ago

Sounds like a contract of adhesion to me.

SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago

OT, but when a statement begins "let me get this straight" you just know that an uncharitable interpretation of events will immediately follow. Is there a name for this phenomenon?

johnday 7y ago
I think it's just a variant on the all-time classic, "I'm not a racist, but...". People try to pre-empt the obvious response (in this case, "you are being uncharitable") with a basic retort ("I'm just trying to get this straight")