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"we are expanding the distribution of our Apex Legends testing team" Goodbye US employees, welcome Asian and Eastern European employees. It's definitely not ab

"we are expanding the distribution of our Apex Legends testing team" Goodbye US employees, welcome Asian and Eastern European employees. It's definitely not about costs though (wink) "They will be provided 60 days severance, though that won’t cover the length of many people’s contracts, sources said." This I don't get: if you have a fixed term contract and they don't honour it surely you can get all your cash in court?

downvoteme1 4y ago
Almost all work contracts that I have signed have clauses to break the contract with a two week notice.
mortenjorck 4y ago
> if you have a fixed term contract and they don't honour it surely you can get all your cash in court? Two things: 1. The financial barrier to legal representation for people working in QA in the games industry is high to begin with; 2. There is a nonzero chance that people in these roles already signed an agreement with an arbitration clause, in which case they won't be going to court anyway.
- Buttons840 4y ago
  And would arbitration not work for them? It seems like if the arbiter ignored clearly defined terms in the contract, you could seek some redress from the arbitration company itself. They are regulated I presume? But yes, cost of justice is a problem.
  - whythre 4y ago
    Most arbiters are paid by the corporations that participate in arbitrage, which ‘encourages’ them not to bite the hand that feeds.
    - GavinMcG 4y ago
      Arbitration, by the way, not arbitrage. Arbitrage is done by arbitrageurs.
    - Buttons840 4y ago
      I'm sure that is a real concern, but I've run across several stories recently of people having a good experience with arbitration.
- rtpg 4y ago
  Might be worth arbitrating! I remember some story about some people actually using arbitration and companies finding out "fuck, this actually costs a lot of money".
swatcoder 4y ago
Any reasonable contract will cover how its terms can be modified/cancelled and what then happens when they need to be. Stuff happens.
biohax2015 4y ago
This outsourcing shit has to end. Americans are left fighting for scraps.
- WheatMillington 4y ago
  "We want remote work!" "Wait, not that kind of remote work"
- beebmam 4y ago
  There are tradeoffs for everything. Companies are more profitable when they cut labor costs through hiring people from countries that will work for less. Why should the owners of these companies (including everyone who owns stock in EA) pay above market value for this labor? There are consequences to this, of course. One big consequence that I can think of is that it evens out the inequalities among laborers across national labor markets. This has very serious consequences for lower skilled Americans/westerners who have relied on the wealth of their countries to trickle down to them. There are many ways to address this, like reducing labor market competition in the American labor market from less wealthy countries, increasing wealth redistribution, investing in the education/training of lesser skilled workers in the American labor market, and so on. Both left and right parties have solutions to this problem, and I personally don't really care about the chosen solution, but I hope our political parties stop forgetting about poor Americans who have been left behind for a long, long time. I hope we can all have a healthier discussion about this problem, too. We need less polarizing figures in politics and we should start treating each other in America respectfully, whether you're liberal, conservative, transgender, evangelical, poor, rich, whatever.
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  It's a global market. You just need to find a job where you being American and located in the US is an asset, not a liability.
  - bruce511 4y ago
    Not to be snarky, but minimum-wage, service level jobs, fit that bill perfectly. For 20 years I've been "against" WFH (as an employer). Employees see commute time and cost. I see ancillary benefits like team-work, informal conversations, ability to read the room and so on. [1] Most of all I've been warning people that once you've proved the job can be done remotely, it can be done very remotely. With respect, there are smarter people than you in the world, willing to work for a lot less. In other words WFH is about proving that your US location is Not an asset at all. Covid has mellowed my views. We all got to WFH for years, and it mostly worked. We are now seeing issues though. Lots of misinformation, mental health issues, rumours, conflicts and so on. I don't think we can go back to 5 days a week in the office for everyone - that ship has sailed - but folk are needing more face-time with each other on a regular basis, and zoom isn't cutting it. [1] in our context, we have nice offices, everyone had their own space with a door etc. I get that the quality of your office space has an impact on this question as well, but I'm talking about "nice offices" here.
WheatMillington 4y ago
If you resign during a fixed term contract can they force you to work til the end? No because that's indentured servitude. The idea of the asymmetry you propose is equally untenable.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> Goodbye US employees, welcome Asian and Eastern European employees. It's definitely not about costs though (wink) To any companies planning to save big bucks through outsourcing: forget it. It looks good on paper, but in practice you will regret picking your engineering talent based on how cheap you can get them. It's taken years for my company's management to truly understand that if your motivation for hiring overseas is that you can get engineers for 1/6 the price, you're going to get correspondingly poor results. Good engineers don't stay long at that price point, no matter where they live.

downvoteme1 4y ago

Almost all work contracts that I have signed have clauses to break the contract with a two week notice.

mortenjorck 4y ago

> if you have a fixed term contract and they don't honour it surely you can get all your cash in court? Two things: 1. The financial barrier to legal representation for people working in QA in the games industry is high to begin with; 2. There is a nonzero chance that people in these roles already signed an agreement with an arbitration clause, in which case they won't be going to court anyway.

Buttons840 4y ago
And would arbitration not work for them? It seems like if the arbiter ignored clearly defined terms in the contract, you could seek some redress from the arbitration company itself. They are regulated I presume? But yes, cost of justice is a problem.
- whythre 4y ago
  Most arbiters are paid by the corporations that participate in arbitrage, which ‘encourages’ them not to bite the hand that feeds.
  - GavinMcG 4y ago
    Arbitration, by the way, not arbitrage. Arbitrage is done by arbitrageurs.
  - Buttons840 4y ago
    I'm sure that is a real concern, but I've run across several stories recently of people having a good experience with arbitration.
rtpg 4y ago
Might be worth arbitrating! I remember some story about some people actually using arbitration and companies finding out "fuck, this actually costs a lot of money".

swatcoder 4y ago

Any reasonable contract will cover how its terms can be modified/cancelled and what then happens when they need to be. Stuff happens.

biohax2015 4y ago

This outsourcing shit has to end. Americans are left fighting for scraps.

WheatMillington 4y ago
"We want remote work!" "Wait, not that kind of remote work"
beebmam 4y ago
There are tradeoffs for everything. Companies are more profitable when they cut labor costs through hiring people from countries that will work for less. Why should the owners of these companies (including everyone who owns stock in EA) pay above market value for this labor? There are consequences to this, of course. One big consequence that I can think of is that it evens out the inequalities among laborers across national labor markets. This has very serious consequences for lower skilled Americans/westerners who have relied on the wealth of their countries to trickle down to them. There are many ways to address this, like reducing labor market competition in the American labor market from less wealthy countries, increasing wealth redistribution, investing in the education/training of lesser skilled workers in the American labor market, and so on. Both left and right parties have solutions to this problem, and I personally don't really care about the chosen solution, but I hope our political parties stop forgetting about poor Americans who have been left behind for a long, long time. I hope we can all have a healthier discussion about this problem, too. We need less polarizing figures in politics and we should start treating each other in America respectfully, whether you're liberal, conservative, transgender, evangelical, poor, rich, whatever.
gwbas1c 4y ago
It's a global market. You just need to find a job where you being American and located in the US is an asset, not a liability.
- bruce511 4y ago
  Not to be snarky, but minimum-wage, service level jobs, fit that bill perfectly. For 20 years I've been "against" WFH (as an employer). Employees see commute time and cost. I see ancillary benefits like team-work, informal conversations, ability to read the room and so on. [1] Most of all I've been warning people that once you've proved the job can be done remotely, it can be done very remotely. With respect, there are smarter people than you in the world, willing to work for a lot less. In other words WFH is about proving that your US location is Not an asset at all. Covid has mellowed my views. We all got to WFH for years, and it mostly worked. We are now seeing issues though. Lots of misinformation, mental health issues, rumours, conflicts and so on. I don't think we can go back to 5 days a week in the office for everyone - that ship has sailed - but folk are needing more face-time with each other on a regular basis, and zoom isn't cutting it. [1] in our context, we have nice offices, everyone had their own space with a door etc. I get that the quality of your office space has an impact on this question as well, but I'm talking about "nice offices" here.

WheatMillington 4y ago

If you resign during a fixed term contract can they force you to work til the end? No because that's indentured servitude. The idea of the asymmetry you propose is equally untenable.

rootusrootus 4y ago

> Goodbye US employees, welcome Asian and Eastern European employees. It's definitely not about costs though (wink) To any companies planning to save big bucks through outsourcing: forget it. It looks good on paper, but in practice you will regret picking your engineering talent based on how cheap you can get them. It's taken years for my company's management to truly understand that if your motivation for hiring overseas is that you can get engineers for 1/6 the price, you're going to get correspondingly poor results. Good engineers don't stay long at that price point, no matter where they live.