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One of the most frustrating things I’ve seen during any period of layoffs including this one is seeing people that have just moved for a new position get laid o
by spacemadness 3y ago
One of the most frustrating things I’ve seen during any period of layoffs including this one is seeing people that have just moved for a new position get laid off soon after. Especially so if they’ve moved overseas. Like you said, culturally we’ve decided that the newly laid off and relocated took the risk and it’s their fault for taking that risk. Companies apparently share no part in the burden even while trying to lure folks to work for them.
- zxcvbn4038 3y agoI had a boss who moved a guy from Russia to the US just so he could fire him. He was gone ten days after he arrived and all the paperwork was done. I guess that worker protections in Russia were really strong at the time, the guy was untouchable while he was there.
- busterarm 3y agoI hope you got a different boss soon after.
- junon 3y agoYeah exactly. Stop being a bystander to shitty company practices. A lot of them have forgotten that their employees make them profitable and scalable.
- EatingWithForks 3y agoI agree we shouldn't stand for shitty employers. But, especially right now, it can be hard for a dev to find a job. Especially if the dev has dependents taking up time for take home tests etc. Or if they have a visa the employer needs to manage. I suggest we should have something like an actor's guild instead, where a floor of basic protections are necessary but there's no ceiling on payment and benefits.
- atlasunshrugged 3y agoWhat's the difference between that and a union?
- snowwrestler 3y agoNothing, it is a union.
- slg 3y agoThere isn't any. The Screen Actors Guild is a union that merged with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union to make what the grandparent comment is likely referring to as the "actor's guild". They are a traditional labor union and member of the AFL-CIO. They are also seemingly poised to go on strike at the end of next month. Often times when someone criticizes the idea of unions, it is because they don't fully understand their purpose, flexibility, and flaws. For example, that comment could imply that unions somehow cap payments and benefits, but that isn't some universal truth of unions (that person also could just be using guild as a synonym for union, but that isn't necessarily true and it doesn't appear to be how they're using it). Unions negotiate on behalf of their members. If the union members don't want caps on compensation, the union can negotiate for no caps.
- ghaff 3y agoAnd it may be worth noting that "aspiring actor" is probably not considered the epitome of someone on a guaranteed safe and lucrative career path. But it does guarantee that if they can land a job, they're going to get paid scale (~$1k/day I believe).
- busterarm 3y agoThe film and television unions are a tough nut to crack. On the west coast, that's almost all there is and if you're working you will be in the union easy. Unless you do youtube/streaming content and most of that is non-union. On the east coast, you're going to be working probably for 10 years before you can get into your union and it's an uphill struggle the whole way. And union or not, you're only going to get work if people like working with you. One day with a bad attitude and you can find yourself unable to get hired by anyone. Film and TV is long hours and a stressful environment and nobody wants to work with anyone who makes the day harder.
- joshmarlow 3y agoI actually think this is the core cause of a lot of current popular hate of capitalism - shitty managers (I'm thinking the /r/antiwork sort of sentiment). People conflate shitty managers with how the system intrinsically works, which is an over simplification. Now there is an argument that operating in our 'capitalist' system introduces incentives to be a shitty manager (I think this is approximately Chomsky's perspective).
- concordDance 3y agoNote that reddit in general, those whose posts rise in particular and posts that rise to the top of that subreddit even more in particular, is extremely unrepresentative of actually common sentiment. To get an a less biased view you can chat to people on public transport (in Europe) or talk to your neighbours (in the USA).
- Eisenstein 3y ago> Note that reddit in general, those whose posts rise in particular and posts that rise to the top of that subreddit even more in particular, is extremely unrepresentative of actually common sentiment. Why?
- JohnFen 3y agoBecause the population of Reddit users is not representative of the population in general. This is true for all such places (including HN).
- giantrobot 3y agoReddit has a severe astroturfing problem. Any subreddit that gets any attention (or ends up in /r/all) gets hammered with socket puppets and astroturf campaigns. Groups can very cheaply buy upvotes for pretty much anything. Reddit has shown little appetite for combating this issue because their value is the number of eyeball-seconds they receive every day. They want to report huge eyeball numbers you investors and advertisers.
- 3y ago
- avgcorrection 3y agoYeah. Go up to that corporation and say: Do Better, capitalists, or I’m walkin’ out that door!
- junon 3y agoWhen your best talent leaves you without any recourse, and onboarding new talent takes 3-6+ months, they will definitely start to care. My last company is imploding due to this exact scenario. They didn't want to listen to their experts and are now reaping those particular rewards.
- brewdad 3y agoI guess the questions remains, will the management that caused your last company to implode take the right lessons with them to their next job?
- junon 3y agoAlmost certainly not, no.
- slg 3y agoThis only protects "your best talent". The company is free to mistreat all the rest of the people who don't have the unique skill set to guarantee themselves better treatment. That is capitalism working as intended.
- nielsbot 3y agoA commenter below mentions unions. This could be the answer. I think tech workers so far have been paid and treated well (at least where I work) and so haven't felt the need to unionize. But having a union would certainly protect against these kinds of problems. (Being relocated and then immediately laid off)
- busterarm 3y agoI was a member of three different unions before I ever switched careers to tech and being able to (and expected to) negotiate my own contracts was one of the biggest factors in me ending up in this industry. I have certainly made orders of magnitude more money and under substantially better conditions. My experiences in unions were awful and I would never go back to that.
- nielsbot 3y agoWhat industry did you work in before?
- tinglymintyfrsh 3y agoAmerican workers are the wimpiest creatures on the planet. That's why they don't have unions, tolerate horrible bosses, and have few protections.
- ars 3y ago[flagged]
- mempko 3y agoWhich SOME employees benefit from. The poverty rate is too high, too many people in jail for such a rich country. What's the point of being rich when only a tiny percentage of the people benefit?
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoWell, a lot of the people you're addressing here are the ones benefiting, so I don't know what sort of answer you're expecting.
- OnlineGladiator 3y agoYou can expect people to have empathy and be self-aware. It doesn't mean your expectations will be met, but it's a sad world we live in where you dismiss this as unrealistic.
- ars 3y agoEveryone in the US is benefiting from this. People in the US are so comfortable they don't seem to have a clue what real hardship actually is.
- JohnFen 3y agoWell, at the very least the ones who die from exposure in the winter because they don't have a place to live, the ones who die because they can't afford medical care, and so on have a clue what real hardship is.
- willdough 3y ago[dead]
- garbagecoder 3y agoThat's a crime in California. Labor Code section 1050[1] [1]:https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB§ionNum=1050 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio....
- vipa123 3y agoGains are for the company and shareholders, losses are for the employees and society.
- krapp 3y agoAnd Americans will do nothing about it, even as they suffer under it, because they see themselves not as an oppressed proletariat, but temporarily embarrassed billionaires.
- tinglymintyfrsh 3y agoAmerica is built on the exploitation of undocumented workers for the food supply and of cheaper foreign labor held hostage by employers for tech. These are forms of coercion much as tying health insurance to employment. Tools of power to keep employees at a disadvantage.
- sgregnt 3y agoFor tech, I think this is a win-win situation. Tech workers have the options to stay and work in their home country. It is not like tech workers do not have a choice they prefer it this alternative, even given the uncertainty or not having a permanent residency.
- anigbrowl 3y agoThere are undocumented workers in every industry, getting exploited in a hundred different little ways. Some political factions have done very well out of creating a caste of legal untouchables.
- morkalork 3y agoWhile the USA exploits undocumented workers in agriculture etc., its not like being documented is a huge step up either. In Canada, there's a whole (sub) class of legally imported labour under the "Temporary Foreign Worker" program that's exploited in a similar way.
- int_19h 3y agoA big difference is that a person working in the country legally can report labor code violations to the authorities without risking immediate deportation.
- acchow 3y agoYou can see which jobs are sharing in the burden of the move: those offering significant signing bonuses on top of relocation costs
- webinvest 3y agoSome pay relocation bonuses.