I wasn't aware until recently that severance is not law-mandated. What's to stop this leadership from offering it? It's not something that would surprise me at this point.
12 replies (most recent on top)
It is a legal requirement in modern countries!
As mentioned, it's not there to be nice to layoff victims, it's to ensure you don't take legal action if you accept it. It's hush money.
Oh you thought they were doing it for the good of their employees?
Adorable.
You accept severance in exchange for release of liability.
They would take a huge reputation hit if they didn’t give severance. Mass layoff without severance puts a lot of families at risk. Even people making 6 figures USD are facing hardship financially. Oracle would become public enemy to a lot of those folks. Oracle would also risk a lot of their IP leaking into other companies. I for one would go work for their competitors and give them all the secrets I know about the GBU I work in.
@av if that’s the case there will be a stampede to get out of the company.
@a1 That is the only reason severance is offered, to get you to sign on the dotted line.
That said, they could change the severance formula to be less generous than before. I saw that happen at HP during MH's reign of te---r there. It gradually became less and less.
@a9 Just one example: "Your position has been eliminated" is generally not true. A discovery may find a better-connected person filling it after you're gone.
From a corporations like Oracle's pov, the real danger is in discovery for any case being allowed to uncover internal communications and evidence trails such as:
hiring without any real effort to follow U.S. citizens first laws
giving clear hiring preference to friends or compatriots by outright agreements to "let them get hired easily"
certain hires receiving preferential avoidance of interview loops with long-established normal participants or true bar-measuring coding/technical rounds
inconsistent, missing or outright fraudulent application of standards, metrics and capability in determining layoff RIFs
There are whole groups of external hires who only get hired because one of them gets a director or senior management position, then does combinations of the above in a concerted manner to bring in "their people". This happens all the time in the tech industry, but Oracle like other corporations just bank on the idea that no one will pursue it in court and persist long enough to uncover the trail that proves it.
I wish they would and we will see tsunami of lawsuits of every type.
Serious question, what would be the basis for a law suit? As long as they paid you for all of your time worked and any requirements from WARN they are free to terminate your employ just like you can quit at any time.
@a1 Pretty much. You have to promise NOT to sue if you want to collect.
Plus precedent has been set with folks let go so far getting severance, that folks may be more likely to sue if Oracle stopped paying it.
"What's to stop this leadership from offering it?"
The fear of being sued.