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Stripe clawed back pension contributions after staff cuts
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- darth_avocado 4y agoStripe has pension?
- bradleyjg 4y agoThis is an Irish article, the system is different over there.
- nivenkos 4y agoIs this legal? Is there no trade union negotiation either?
- JimDabell 4y agoFrom the article: > The pension clawbacks, which are legally permitted under Irish pension rules, only applied to staff who had been working with the company for less than two years.
- Macha 4y agoMost industries in Ireland are pretty unionised, but tech is one of the exceptions here.
- ergocoder 4y agoNot only it is legal, it is also a standard practice. Everyone is doing it. There is an argument where Stripe should have gone above and beyond. But maybe Google/apple/ Microsoft who are 100x richer (maybe) than Stripe should have spearheaded that first.
- mariambarouma 4y agoThey were being applauded a few months ago as to how to make people redundant. As if there's a good way. It was just a cheap shot at Musk.
- MarkSweep 4y agoIs this article talking about 401k in the the US? If so, it’s fairly common for a 401k match to vest over two years.
- rcme 4y agoIt’s fairly common, but also insane in a world where the average tenure at a company is a few years. Basically a way to say you contribute to a 401K without actually contributing anything.
- dv_dt 4y agoIt’s a way potential employees will understand as devaluing the benefit. Basically making it likely a pointless inducement to join. About 50/50 of the companies I joined offered 401k matching vested immediately.
- DangitBobby 4y agoThe first company I worked for started offering a 401k about 1 year into my employment there. I remember seeing the low percentage match and 2-year vesting schedule as kind a bit of cheap-skate middlefinger, and declined the benefit. Probably did more harm than good to offer it.
- dv_dt 4y ago2-5% match is pretty good imho. Any match percentage is basically doubling your savings. If the vesting is good, save up the the limit of match. With tech industry salaries higher 401k matches would just hit the max limit for 401k frequently. The vesting time is the cheap thing. Though once for me, the vesting was still valid if you left the company - it was just delayed.
- MobiusHorizons 4y agoSounds like it could be viewed as a small incentive to stay, which given the short average tenure is probably a good thing. High churn rate is not generally a good thing for businesses or products regardless of the individual benefits.
- oxfordmale 4y agoThe Tech industry is very cyclical. In two years Stripe, and other companies that handled redundancies badly, will be asking themselves why they struggle to recruit top talent.
- arkitaip 4y agoUnfortunately this is almost never true because of the endless supply for desperate, gullible or just arrogant people who are ready to work for top tech companies.
- sja 4y agoI’m not sure your statement and the parent comment are in conflict. What percentage of “ desperate, gullible or just arrogant people” are top talent?
- rightbyte 4y agoDunno about exact numbers but there were some HN commenters when the layoffs started 2022 writing about "cutting fat" and "low performers" who thinks layoffs happens to others and not them I guess and that their bosses know who the lowperformers are.
- oxfordmale 4y agoThere are genuine low performers, however, based on my personal experience, they generally only constitute 25% of the people laid off for low performance. If management has overinflated expectations of your project, you will be a "low performer". If you happen to do badly on a project with high visibility to senior management, you will be perceived to be a low performer too, even if your delivery on other projects was brilliant. If your last project failed, often because of external factors, you will be deemed to be a low performer.
- rightbyte 4y agoMy favorite ranking dysfunction is that people who do the bear share of work or the hardest work also cause the most problems (bugs, rereleases etc), making them look bad if the judge have no clue how much they have done or how hard the task were.
- rvz 4y ago[flagged]
- PopAlongKid 4y agoIt is about a small number of employees in Ireland. Maybe "Ireland" should be added to the title? In the U.S. (I'm not familar with Ireland), vested benefits, whether defined or contributed, cannot be "clawed back". But unvested ones can, that's what "unvested" means.
- sharkweek 4y agoHelpful information because as someone in the US I assumed the idea of a pension (outside of government jobs) had all but disappeared.
- etothepii 4y agoThese won't be "defined benefit" schemes but defined contribution schemes much more akin to your 401(k)
- lotsofpulp 4y agoIn the UK (and I assume Ireland), the term pension is used for more than just defined benefit pensions.
- astaunton 4y agoCorrect, most pensions in Ireland (these days) are defined contribution. Even within the civil service / government roles it is becoming extremely rare to see defined benefit schemes.
- drbeast 4y ago[dead]
- loeg 4y agoThis sounds exactly like the equivalent of unvested matching.
- michpoch 4y agoI think it should not be added. There are so many US-only news and we’re not adding the “in USA”. Please do not assume default = USA.
- bazzert 4y agoIt would be the equivalent of a US company clawing back a 401k contribution match, which is kind of crappy imo, especially if after a year.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoIt would be the equivalent of a U.S. company clawing back a not yet vested 401k contribution, which can happen. It is the whole point of vesting.
- smca 4y ago(I work at Stripe and live in Ireland.) This article is written about Irish pension schemes. The mechanic that the article is talking about is standard practice in Ireland. And, in particular, it only applies to contributions by Stripe for employees who have worked less than two years. Framing it as "clawing back" pension contributions is disingenuous (IMO). Stripe applied its stated pension plan policy. It would have been news if Stripe had deviated from its policy.
- secfirstmd 4y agoNo it's not standard practice. It's done in some companies but not that many. For those firms that do this, most waive it for redundancies.
- Macha 4y agoIn all four large tech companies I've worked for, and my father's factory job, this is the up front stated policy on pension contributions.
- anonymousiam 4y agoI've worked in a few places with similar policies. Lots of companies will match your 401k contributions (up to a limit), but the matching funds have a "vesting" period (typically a year or two). Stock options are often offered under similar terms. I don't see any reason for this article to exist other than to try to "shame" Stripe for doing what many other companies also do.
- te_chris 4y ago[flagged]
- pinkcan 4y ago[flagged]
- NreItardGGERS 4y ago
- techireland 4y agoEvery company pension in Ireland has this as standard, it’s from the pension provider. Hilariously, the Business Post pension provider will have it too. You can’t clawback something that people never had. It’s also good for the employee as if you’re out (voluntarily or otherwise) within 2 years you can get your own contributions back out vs locked in a tiny fund. On one hand they got the redundancy package that far surpassed statutory, and then on the other they’re looking for something that they were never entitled to. Seems a small bit strange that we’d cry a river for well paid tech workers “losing” a small amount of money versus what they’d have gotten out of the process. There’s other people we should be looking out and fighting for.
- mugsie 4y agoI mean, just because someone is well paid doesn't mean they deserve to have money taken from them? Every company has this as standard, but a lot have waived it for redundancies, so let's not let stripe off the hook.
- astaunton 4y agoJust a clarification. If they were in the role for less than 2 years there is no legal reason to provide a redundancy package (statutory redundancy). The fact that employees are getting a payment even if they were there less than 2 years should show that Stripe are not "clawing back" contributions but that the refund is due to a stadard mechanism within the pension scheme. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/unemployment_and_redundancy/redundancy/redundancy_payments.html#l46bc0 https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/unemploymen...
- tqwhite 4y agoIf some one leaves the company or is fired for cause, claw back the contributions. If the company "makes them redundant", claw back is nasty and immoral. People joined the company with a fair expectation that they would get benefits. It's cheating to do this. I now consider Stripe to be a gonif company.
- thriftwy 4y agoYour first sentence does not make much sense to me. If somebody leaves your company for any reason, they should get to keep everything they earned to date.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoI classify compensation that has not yet vested as not yet earned.
- thriftwy 4y agoThat is correct, then the article should also mention it.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago> The pension clawbacks, which are legally permitted under Irish pension rules, only applied to staff who had been working with the company for less than two years.
- DangitBobby 4y agoLegally permitted doesn't really mean anything when talking about ethics or morals.
- cookingrobot 4y agoI’m not familiar with Irish pensions, but in general if the benefit has a vesting schedule that means you earn it over time. If you leave the company for any reason you get to keep the part that’s vested, and not the remaining unvested part.
- _trackno5 4y agoDisclaimer: I work at Stripe in Ireland. This article is completely misleading. In Ireland, if you leave your employment before the 2 year mark, you can lose your employers' contributions. Not the ones you have voluntarily put in. This is pretty standard here (at least as far as tech companies go). It's literally written in the freaking contract. It sucks, but we all read our contracts when we signed. The reason I can see an employer doing this is to serve as a retention mechanism. But it obviously doesn't work when people get laid off.
- skellera 4y agoThis isn’t that different from US 401k vesting. Like Amazon has a 3 year vesting period for 401k matches. If you leave before then, you lose all the matched funds but keep your direct contributions. Not sure why this is news other than trying ride the “big tech bad” viewpoint.
- bradly 4y agoAmazon takes back all 401k matching if you leave before three years? That is very different from my experience at large tech companies. Edit: just looked it up and it is three years. Brutal. https://www.amazon.jobs/cs/landing_pages/benefitsoverview-us https://www.amazon.jobs/cs/landing_pages/benefitsoverview-us
- skellera 4y agoYeah, Amazon has the worst benefits for big tech. They started “considering” improving things before the economy was going down but seems like all that stopped. It’s more in line with “traditional” companies. Amazon is going more down the IBM route everyday. For any Amazonians, it’s day 2.
- teg4n_ 4y agoDamn, i guess that’s another reason to avoid working at Amazon. That is ridiculous.
- pinkcan 4y ago
- NreItardGGERS 4y ago[dead]