10 ms·

Would this be legal in any jurisdiction (click-or-be-fired)? I am not familiar with US labour laws, are employees actually at the level of indentured servants c

by fsloth 2y ago

Would this be legal in any jurisdiction (click-or-be-fired)? I am not familiar with US labour laws, are employees actually at the level of indentured servants considering terms of employment (which I would expect to be a contract between TWO parties)?

xyst 2y ago
Welcome to “at-will” employment. On the flip side, this also means an employee can quit at any time.
nebula8804 2y ago
[flagged]
- playingalong 2y ago
  https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/majorlaws https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/majorlaws
surgical_fire 2y ago
From Wikipedia: > In United States labor law, at-will employment is an employer's ability to dismiss an employee for any reason (that is, without having to establish "just cause" for termination), and without warning,[1] as long as the reason is not illegal (e.g. firing because of the employee's gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or disability status). When an employee is acknowledged as being hired "at will", courts deny the employee any claim for loss resulting from the dismissal.
DoctorOW 2y ago
Right to Work laws, despite the name makes pretty much any firing legal. Unless an employer says something like "You are my least favorite race and for that reason I'm firing you" they're in the clear.
- eadler 2y ago
  "Right to work" is an anti union provision and has nothing to do with being fired. You might be thinking of "at will employment" - which is the case in 49 of 50 states.
InsideOutSanta 2y ago
I think this is probably legal in the US, since most employment is "at-will," meaning both parties can terminate it at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all (with some specific exceptions that probably wouldn't apply in this case). Your employment contract may have terms that override the at-will relationship, in which case the employer has to follow the contract's terms. You may also be unionized, in which case the union will have negotiated termination procedures with your employer. And you may live in a State that has additional rules for terminating contracts. But as a general rule, I believe this is legal in the US in most cases.
withinboredom 2y ago
In the US, in most (all?) jurisdictions, your employer doesn't really need to have a reason to fire you. They can fire everyone wearing red shirts, if they wanted to. There are also very few places providing leave (outside of white-collar positions). For example, my wife was given two weeks off from her job after having my son. The state we lived in only required maternity leave to be implemented at companies having more than 50 employees. Oh, and those two weeks were unpaid. In some places, taking a vacation longer than three weeks requires the company to stop paying your salary and consider you "abandoning" your job, or submitting special paperwork. I do not miss the US; moving to the EU was the best decision I ever made.
- Fokamul 2y ago
  "Unpaid two weeks of matternity leave" are you nuts? Holy sh.. "vacation longer than three weeks requires the company to stop paying your salary" What? Why is it called vacation then, I cannot comprehend this at all, heh. Don't tell them some EU companies even give unlimited PAID vacation, lol. Never experienced this myself, because I usually have "only" 5 weeks paids vacation, but unlimited HO. Of course in practice this means I have main job and also doing self-employed contracts, if work in my main job is done.
  - comprev 2y ago
    Unlimited paid vacation days are for the employers benefit not employee.
    - sethammons 2y ago
      For those who may not yet know why: US companies must pay out vacation time when employment terminates, meaning unpaid vacation affects liabilities and thus the balance sheet and thus stock price.
      - cr1895 2y ago
        >US companies must pay out vacation time when employment terminates Doesn't that depend on the state?
hippich 2y ago
From everything I read, in US, in general, outside of specific list of protected reasons, or a contract specifically describing conditions for contact termination, one can be fired at any time. This works both ways - employee can quit any time too. I wouldn't be surprised musk just applied the same logic worldwide and let lawyers deal with consequences
- fsloth 2y ago
  "This works both ways - employee can quit any time too." I think employees have been allowed to quit at any time since the early 20th century in most western countries. Of course there is a probationary period involved, but it's nothing like earlier times when police would possibly come and take you to your place of work, or it was illegal to be unemployed in several jurisdictions up to 20th century (e.g. USSR) etc. So discussing this as "feature" rather than tablestakes in any modern society is somewhat misleading IMO. I don't know if there are some professions where it's a bit more complicated than this and am happy to be corrected.
  - refurb 2y ago
    When I worked in Europe I had to give 3 months notice. If I left before that I had to pay the company the equivalent salary. So let’s say I leave after 1 month of giving notice. I now owe the employer 2 months salary.
    - pimeys 2y ago
      I've had a month of notice in Germany for the past 13 years so YMMV.
      - VonGallifrey 2y ago
        It is 3 months notice for me (also in Germany) for either side to quit the contract. However, there are no real consequences if I would just leave without notice. Other than my employer having a bad opinion of me afterward of course. Like, I could just stop showing up and they would fire me for cause without notice, but that matters only if I needed unemployment pay. If I already had a new job that I would like to start immediately, I could just do that.
burnished 2y ago
Not a lawyer but broadly most forms of employment in the US is considered to be 'at will' and can be terminated by either party at any time for most any reason (excluding membership of a protected class). If you were fired for failing to respond to the yes-or-resign I believe you would be able to claim unemployment because they can't force you to resign and changing the terms of employment to force a resignation is a 'constructive dismissal'. American employers tend to be big fans of lying and hoping you don't know your rights though, or denying valid unemployment claims because they know not everyone will contest it. Some people do have employment contracts with more consideration but as I understand it that mostly applies to union work and C suite executive positions.
- andyferris 2y ago
  What does "claim unemployment" mean in this context?
  - sethammons 2y ago
    To claim unemployment is to take advantage of Unemployment Insurance. Companies pay into that and when you are terminated (doesn't count if fired for cause) you get some predefined amount of money for a period of time to help while job searching. The amount is dramatically less than your normal pay.
  - hyperliner 2y ago
    Unemployment insurance is a form of insurance in US that pays you if you lose your job due to layoffs and other conditions. It is paid by you so it is not “welfare.” It is managed by each state independently and has some rules. For example, if you lose you job today and “don’t claim” unemployment insurance for two weeks, those two weeks are not paid out to you (this is in Texas). Every week, you must show that you are “actively” looking for a job. You may lose the benefit if you are not, or if a job is available but you decide not to take it. You must report on your efforts to find a job (interviews etc), and must attend some state class about looking for work. Most states’ unemployment insurance covers up to a maximum benefit per week, and a maximum number of weeks. When I lost my job once, I was paid $325 per week.
psychlops 2y ago
Indentured servants are not paid for their labor. Americans are paid. The contract is between two parties until a new contract is proposed. If a party declines the new terms (by not clicking) then the past contract becomes void.
- alain94040 2y ago
  There's a bug in your logic. Yes, if a new contract is proposed and a party declines the terms, there is no new contract. But that has no impact on the old contract. So the old contract is still in effect, as it was not replaced by a new contract. So who terminated the old contract? That's the question here, and the conclusion seems to be that the employer is the one who then fired the employee, the employee did not quit by refusing the new contract.
jordanb 2y ago
In a lot of US jurisdictions there are rules that you have 21 days to review a severance agreement. My guess is that a "you have three days to agree" type notice may run foul of that.
fargle 2y ago
> are employees actually at the level of indentured servants (which I would expect to be a contract between TWO parties) no, it's actually the polar opposite of that. either party is free to end the relationship at any time. there is essentially what is a long term contract (may not be called a contract), but one which either of the two parties can terminate. it's halfway between being a european style employee and being a truly independent contractor. an indentured servant is certainly not free at all to end a bad relationship or to seek a better job or more pay - totally the opposite thing. and i don't think there's anything wrong with it. in fact, i personally strongly want to move more toward becoming a true independent contractor someday, but the culture of engineering strongly favors employees for what i prefer to do. i'd rather pay my own taxes and handle my own retirement and medical insurance and other "benefits", many of which do not benefit me at all. when you say "click-or-be-fired" it seems shocking. rephrase it into "agree to our new terms going forward, or we will not renew". i have zero problem with that if that was the situation that was originally agreed to. now, i don't know what those new terms are or whether they were fair, and that might have been a problem. but simply the at-will employment system isn't wrong on it's own. but in our jurisdiction, not ireland (which is how X appears to have got itself in trouble).
- spacedcowboy 2y ago
  If this was a conversation between equals, I think you might have a point, but the balance of power between employee and employer (especially when it’s a huge corporation) lies firmly on the side of the employer. An employee has needs that sometimes cannot go untended, s/he has rent/mortgage payments, s/he may have family to take care of, loan repayments, children at non-free school, etc etc. This is normal, and the paraphernalia of living a life. They are long-term commitments. So if the employee is presented with an ultimatum like this, it really amounts to “rip up your life, or take the new (worse) offer we are giving you”. It smacks of Vader’s famous line: “I am altering the deal. Pray that I don’t alter it any further”. You may prefer living in a world where corporations can wreak havoc with employees lives without consequence (like Vader) but I don’t. Leaving the country at the end of this year and returning back to the UK. I came here for the money and the weather. The weather is now too damn hot, and I’ve made enough money to retire (in the UK at least) and look after my wife after an American hospital utterly destroyed her life, putting her into a coma after trying to “turn beds” like restaurants “turn tables”. I so much wish I’d done this 2 years ago, life would have been very different if I had.
hansvm 2y ago
In (parts of -- often state-defined laws) the US it might or might not. - Generally, you can be fired without any particular reason. - Outside of a few whitelisted reasons (like being fired "for cause"), when fired, you can collect unemployment (a system where the employer self-insures, sending money into a governmental pool to payout in such cases) for O(1 yr), with caps in the $900/mo.range, depending on the state. Not clicking on the link would likely not count as "cause," but Twitter might try to argue it does (not that it necessarily matters since the severance package is probably better and probably precludes filing for unemployment). - Other labor laws exist, like requiring some sort of notification period for mass layoffs. If this were found to be a mass layoff in disguise, there'd be additional penalties. - Similarly with race or any of the things you can't fire a person for (e.g., if a person didn't see the email because they were pregnant and doing something medically relevant, a lawyer might be able to say something about the firing being structured in a way that discriminates against pregnant people, which is not legal). - If the link had any attached terms and conditions, those likely would not be enforceable since the contract was agreed to under duress. - Any other contracts between Twitter and the employees might matter. Perhaps the firing is allowed, but there are other constraints on the exact manner (e.g., having previously negotiated a better severance package). - If the link had any specific terms involving lower pay or reduced benefits or whatnot, there's a decent chance that it was criminal extortion or blackmail in various parts of the US. And so on. We can start tacking on hypotheticals which might apply, but I'll stop there. > indentured servitude There's no need to be so hyperbolic when bagging on the US. It's bad that we don't have great safety nets for people, but forcing individual employers to take up the slack isn't an ideal solution either (still no protections when the employer goes bankrupt or when a crisis hits somebody like a college student, and it disproportionately impacts the smallest businesses because you can't spread the risk out across a lot of employees and revenue -- an imperfect but almost strictly better solution is just raising the unemployment rates to match the real inflation we've seen), and it's nothing like indentured servitude which allows the working conditions to degrade nearly arbitrarily without a chance to leave and go someplace better.
gamblor956 2y ago
Yes, it would be legal to require an employee to review and sign a new employment agreement or be terminated. But that's not what this was about. X was attempting to characterize the refusal to click as a resignation by the employee rather than a termination by the company. This is because a resignation would not trigger contract-related severance (which apparently Twitter employees had) or hit X's unemployment insurance account, while a termination would trigger both severance and unemployment.

by fsloth 2y ago

xyst 2y ago

Welcome to “at-will” employment. On the flip side, this also means an employee can quit at any time.

nebula8804 2y ago

[flagged]

playingalong 2y ago
https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/majorlaws https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/majorlaws

surgical_fire 2y ago

From Wikipedia: > In United States labor law, at-will employment is an employer's ability to dismiss an employee for any reason (that is, without having to establish "just cause" for termination), and without warning,[1] as long as the reason is not illegal (e.g. firing because of the employee's gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or disability status). When an employee is acknowledged as being hired "at will", courts deny the employee any claim for loss resulting from the dismissal.

DoctorOW 2y ago

Right to Work laws, despite the name makes pretty much any firing legal. Unless an employer says something like "You are my least favorite race and for that reason I'm firing you" they're in the clear.

eadler 2y ago
"Right to work" is an anti union provision and has nothing to do with being fired. You might be thinking of "at will employment" - which is the case in 49 of 50 states.

InsideOutSanta 2y ago

I think this is probably legal in the US, since most employment is "at-will," meaning both parties can terminate it at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all (with some specific exceptions that probably wouldn't apply in this case). Your employment contract may have terms that override the at-will relationship, in which case the employer has to follow the contract's terms. You may also be unionized, in which case the union will have negotiated termination procedures with your employer. And you may live in a State that has additional rules for terminating contracts. But as a general rule, I believe this is legal in the US in most cases.

withinboredom 2y ago

In the US, in most (all?) jurisdictions, your employer doesn't really need to have a reason to fire you. They can fire everyone wearing red shirts, if they wanted to. There are also very few places providing leave (outside of white-collar positions). For example, my wife was given two weeks off from her job after having my son. The state we lived in only required maternity leave to be implemented at companies having more than 50 employees. Oh, and those two weeks were unpaid. In some places, taking a vacation longer than three weeks requires the company to stop paying your salary and consider you "abandoning" your job, or submitting special paperwork. I do not miss the US; moving to the EU was the best decision I ever made.

Fokamul 2y ago
"Unpaid two weeks of matternity leave" are you nuts? Holy sh.. "vacation longer than three weeks requires the company to stop paying your salary" What? Why is it called vacation then, I cannot comprehend this at all, heh. Don't tell them some EU companies even give unlimited PAID vacation, lol. Never experienced this myself, because I usually have "only" 5 weeks paids vacation, but unlimited HO. Of course in practice this means I have main job and also doing self-employed contracts, if work in my main job is done.
- comprev 2y ago
  Unlimited paid vacation days are for the employers benefit not employee.
  - sethammons 2y ago
    For those who may not yet know why: US companies must pay out vacation time when employment terminates, meaning unpaid vacation affects liabilities and thus the balance sheet and thus stock price.
    - cr1895 2y ago
      >US companies must pay out vacation time when employment terminates Doesn't that depend on the state?

hippich 2y ago

From everything I read, in US, in general, outside of specific list of protected reasons, or a contract specifically describing conditions for contact termination, one can be fired at any time. This works both ways - employee can quit any time too. I wouldn't be surprised musk just applied the same logic worldwide and let lawyers deal with consequences

fsloth 2y ago
"This works both ways - employee can quit any time too." I think employees have been allowed to quit at any time since the early 20th century in most western countries. Of course there is a probationary period involved, but it's nothing like earlier times when police would possibly come and take you to your place of work, or it was illegal to be unemployed in several jurisdictions up to 20th century (e.g. USSR) etc. So discussing this as "feature" rather than tablestakes in any modern society is somewhat misleading IMO. I don't know if there are some professions where it's a bit more complicated than this and am happy to be corrected.
- refurb 2y ago
  When I worked in Europe I had to give 3 months notice. If I left before that I had to pay the company the equivalent salary. So let’s say I leave after 1 month of giving notice. I now owe the employer 2 months salary.
  - pimeys 2y ago
    I've had a month of notice in Germany for the past 13 years so YMMV.
    - VonGallifrey 2y ago
      It is 3 months notice for me (also in Germany) for either side to quit the contract. However, there are no real consequences if I would just leave without notice. Other than my employer having a bad opinion of me afterward of course. Like, I could just stop showing up and they would fire me for cause without notice, but that matters only if I needed unemployment pay. If I already had a new job that I would like to start immediately, I could just do that.

burnished 2y ago

Not a lawyer but broadly most forms of employment in the US is considered to be 'at will' and can be terminated by either party at any time for most any reason (excluding membership of a protected class). If you were fired for failing to respond to the yes-or-resign I believe you would be able to claim unemployment because they can't force you to resign and changing the terms of employment to force a resignation is a 'constructive dismissal'. American employers tend to be big fans of lying and hoping you don't know your rights though, or denying valid unemployment claims because they know not everyone will contest it. Some people do have employment contracts with more consideration but as I understand it that mostly applies to union work and C suite executive positions.

andyferris 2y ago
What does "claim unemployment" mean in this context?
- sethammons 2y ago
  To claim unemployment is to take advantage of Unemployment Insurance. Companies pay into that and when you are terminated (doesn't count if fired for cause) you get some predefined amount of money for a period of time to help while job searching. The amount is dramatically less than your normal pay.
- hyperliner 2y ago
  Unemployment insurance is a form of insurance in US that pays you if you lose your job due to layoffs and other conditions. It is paid by you so it is not “welfare.” It is managed by each state independently and has some rules. For example, if you lose you job today and “don’t claim” unemployment insurance for two weeks, those two weeks are not paid out to you (this is in Texas). Every week, you must show that you are “actively” looking for a job. You may lose the benefit if you are not, or if a job is available but you decide not to take it. You must report on your efforts to find a job (interviews etc), and must attend some state class about looking for work. Most states’ unemployment insurance covers up to a maximum benefit per week, and a maximum number of weeks. When I lost my job once, I was paid $325 per week.

psychlops 2y ago

Indentured servants are not paid for their labor. Americans are paid. The contract is between two parties until a new contract is proposed. If a party declines the new terms (by not clicking) then the past contract becomes void.

alain94040 2y ago
There's a bug in your logic. Yes, if a new contract is proposed and a party declines the terms, there is no new contract. But that has no impact on the old contract. So the old contract is still in effect, as it was not replaced by a new contract. So who terminated the old contract? That's the question here, and the conclusion seems to be that the employer is the one who then fired the employee, the employee did not quit by refusing the new contract.

jordanb 2y ago

In a lot of US jurisdictions there are rules that you have 21 days to review a severance agreement. My guess is that a "you have three days to agree" type notice may run foul of that.

fargle 2y ago

> are employees actually at the level of indentured servants (which I would expect to be a contract between TWO parties) no, it's actually the polar opposite of that. either party is free to end the relationship at any time. there is essentially what is a long term contract (may not be called a contract), but one which either of the two parties can terminate. it's halfway between being a european style employee and being a truly independent contractor. an indentured servant is certainly not free at all to end a bad relationship or to seek a better job or more pay - totally the opposite thing. and i don't think there's anything wrong with it. in fact, i personally strongly want to move more toward becoming a true independent contractor someday, but the culture of engineering strongly favors employees for what i prefer to do. i'd rather pay my own taxes and handle my own retirement and medical insurance and other "benefits", many of which do not benefit me at all. when you say "click-or-be-fired" it seems shocking. rephrase it into "agree to our new terms going forward, or we will not renew". i have zero problem with that if that was the situation that was originally agreed to. now, i don't know what those new terms are or whether they were fair, and that might have been a problem. but simply the at-will employment system isn't wrong on it's own. but in our jurisdiction, not ireland (which is how X appears to have got itself in trouble).

spacedcowboy 2y ago
If this was a conversation between equals, I think you might have a point, but the balance of power between employee and employer (especially when it’s a huge corporation) lies firmly on the side of the employer. An employee has needs that sometimes cannot go untended, s/he has rent/mortgage payments, s/he may have family to take care of, loan repayments, children at non-free school, etc etc. This is normal, and the paraphernalia of living a life. They are long-term commitments. So if the employee is presented with an ultimatum like this, it really amounts to “rip up your life, or take the new (worse) offer we are giving you”. It smacks of Vader’s famous line: “I am altering the deal. Pray that I don’t alter it any further”. You may prefer living in a world where corporations can wreak havoc with employees lives without consequence (like Vader) but I don’t. Leaving the country at the end of this year and returning back to the UK. I came here for the money and the weather. The weather is now too damn hot, and I’ve made enough money to retire (in the UK at least) and look after my wife after an American hospital utterly destroyed her life, putting her into a coma after trying to “turn beds” like restaurants “turn tables”. I so much wish I’d done this 2 years ago, life would have been very different if I had.

hansvm 2y ago

In (parts of -- often state-defined laws) the US it might or might not. - Generally, you can be fired without any particular reason. - Outside of a few whitelisted reasons (like being fired "for cause"), when fired, you can collect unemployment (a system where the employer self-insures, sending money into a governmental pool to payout in such cases) for O(1 yr), with caps in the $900/mo.range, depending on the state. Not clicking on the link would likely not count as "cause," but Twitter might try to argue it does (not that it necessarily matters since the severance package is probably better and probably precludes filing for unemployment). - Other labor laws exist, like requiring some sort of notification period for mass layoffs. If this were found to be a mass layoff in disguise, there'd be additional penalties. - Similarly with race or any of the things you can't fire a person for (e.g., if a person didn't see the email because they were pregnant and doing something medically relevant, a lawyer might be able to say something about the firing being structured in a way that discriminates against pregnant people, which is not legal). - If the link had any attached terms and conditions, those likely would not be enforceable since the contract was agreed to under duress. - Any other contracts between Twitter and the employees might matter. Perhaps the firing is allowed, but there are other constraints on the exact manner (e.g., having previously negotiated a better severance package). - If the link had any specific terms involving lower pay or reduced benefits or whatnot, there's a decent chance that it was criminal extortion or blackmail in various parts of the US. And so on. We can start tacking on hypotheticals which might apply, but I'll stop there. > indentured servitude There's no need to be so hyperbolic when bagging on the US. It's bad that we don't have great safety nets for people, but forcing individual employers to take up the slack isn't an ideal solution either (still no protections when the employer goes bankrupt or when a crisis hits somebody like a college student, and it disproportionately impacts the smallest businesses because you can't spread the risk out across a lot of employees and revenue -- an imperfect but almost strictly better solution is just raising the unemployment rates to match the real inflation we've seen), and it's nothing like indentured servitude which allows the working conditions to degrade nearly arbitrarily without a chance to leave and go someplace better.

gamblor956 2y ago

Yes, it would be legal to require an employee to review and sign a new employment agreement or be terminated. But that's not what this was about. X was attempting to characterize the refusal to click as a resignation by the employee rather than a termination by the company. This is because a resignation would not trigger contract-related severance (which apparently Twitter employees had) or hit X's unemployment insurance account, while a termination would trigger both severance and unemployment.