3 ms·

That's not theft. It's not even really unethical. It's well-understood that the value of RSUs is not guaranteed. Nor is bonus pay. For one, this kind of comp on

by tootie 3y ago

That's not theft. It's not even really unethical. It's well-understood that the value of RSUs is not guaranteed. Nor is bonus pay. For one, this kind of comp only typically applies to people earning a base salary way above the median and that anyone accepting comp in terms of company or personal performance is willingly signing on to accept the risk.

darth_avocado 3y ago
It is theft; it is definitely highly unethical; RSUs are guaranteed pay; doesn’t matter if salary is above median; willingly signing a contract because companies have better bargaining power doesn’t make it right.
- tootie 3y ago
  The above comment said specifically they are end-of-year grants. That's a bonus and it's never ever guaranteed. Fired or not, they can just say "no bonuses this" and it's 100% the employer's prerogative. Happened to me plenty of times in down years. Not to mention, stock is inherently volatile so 1000 shares can be worth an arbitrary amount.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
Usually equity compensation is in lieu of base salary, so the base salary is often below median for comparable work at a comparable company that doesn’t offer equity. For instance Amazon is famous for offering absurdly low base salaries relative to their talent competitors. Wall Street is famous for this too. However bonus based compensation is outsized, often to account for the risk. The problem comes with laying people off in December prior to bonuses. You’ve taken a year of work under the presence of a bonus compensation and then yanked the rug out after squeezing every last ounce of work from a year. They could of course just not pay a bonus, but often internal compensation guidance requires proving a fireable performance problem while layoffs just require basic reporting to labor departments. Calling this theft is extreme, but it’s definitely ripping employees off and treating them badly. The imprudence mismatch is that the employee is much less able to afford the shenanigans than the employer benefits, and a year of an employees career is a much larger share of total lifetime earnings than the corporations benefit as a percentage of its total lifetime revenues (or compensation expenses as the case may be). This makes it wrong, but not illegal.

by tootie 3y ago

darth_avocado 3y ago

It is theft; it is definitely highly unethical; RSUs are guaranteed pay; doesn’t matter if salary is above median; willingly signing a contract because companies have better bargaining power doesn’t make it right.

tootie 3y ago
The above comment said specifically they are end-of-year grants. That's a bonus and it's never ever guaranteed. Fired or not, they can just say "no bonuses this" and it's 100% the employer's prerogative. Happened to me plenty of times in down years. Not to mention, stock is inherently volatile so 1000 shares can be worth an arbitrary amount.

fnordpiglet 3y ago

Usually equity compensation is in lieu of base salary, so the base salary is often below median for comparable work at a comparable company that doesn’t offer equity. For instance Amazon is famous for offering absurdly low base salaries relative to their talent competitors. Wall Street is famous for this too. However bonus based compensation is outsized, often to account for the risk. The problem comes with laying people off in December prior to bonuses. You’ve taken a year of work under the presence of a bonus compensation and then yanked the rug out after squeezing every last ounce of work from a year. They could of course just not pay a bonus, but often internal compensation guidance requires proving a fireable performance problem while layoffs just require basic reporting to labor departments. Calling this theft is extreme, but it’s definitely ripping employees off and treating them badly. The imprudence mismatch is that the employee is much less able to afford the shenanigans than the employer benefits, and a year of an employees career is a much larger share of total lifetime earnings than the corporations benefit as a percentage of its total lifetime revenues (or compensation expenses as the case may be). This makes it wrong, but not illegal.