Hypothetically, If the part of the company where I work would be sold off to another company would I receive Xerox standard severance, or would I then have to receive the severance package offered by the company that acquired that certain part of Xerox, of course, all of that in case that I was laid off after the sell off? Seems to me like a legit question given that sell offs are a realistic scenario at this point.
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Ditto at Toys R Us, though public pressure on the 2 of the 3 primary venture capitalists that helped drive the company into bankruptcy forced them to created a $20 Million fund to provide employees with at least some severance.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/20/business/toys-r-us-severance-fund/index.html
Was reading this article about severance at gymboree and for some reason reminded me of Xerox.
https://theintercept.com/2019/03/25/gymboree-bankruptcy-severance-scam/
Its about how the senior exec's all gave themselves a nice severance, but everyone else was shafted.
First, the severance plan was changed in early August and quite a few people I know were terminated the next day.
From what I have seen, the 'letter' that Xerox forced on people is basically an agreement to leave Xerox ‘voluntarily’ and to accept employment with HCL. This structure would allow Xerox to remove certain obligations off its books, such as severance and COBRA. Certain vested benefits, such as the pension plan are retained as they are ‘attached’ to the employee and controlled by state and/or Fed law. As of the letter's effective date, they employee, assuming he/she signs it, would then fall under the policies of HCL, including applicable severance policies.
Also, one has to remember that no company sets aside money for to pay severance to hundreds or even thousands of employees at once (at least in the US), so severance payments come right of the of company’s cash. What’s the one thing that Visentin & co are hoarding to improve the company’s bottom-line and to buyback stocks to artificially inflate it's share price?
The one legal aspect that I am not certain of how can Xerox dictate that employees who do not sign the letter do not get severance. After all, the employee’s position is being eliminated within Xerox and would be employed by a new company. Check with a qualified unemployment lawyer on that one.
HCL time of service is 1 day when you onboard. Then the Xerox rules apply for years of service. That means no severance until you are with HCL for a year, at which time you get 1 week severance. The memos and powerpoints are meant to mask this.
FYI - Xerox agreed to protect redundancy to US employees for a period of 3yrs (this was in the FAQs circulated internally). This is based on the current Xerox policy I think so likely the 12wk number.
Watch this space...
The severance rules were changed just 1 or 2 days before the first wave of layoffs back in August. A day or two before that first round in August 2018 you would have received a week for every year of service. Then with one update to the HR policy you got a max of 12 weeks, regardless of how many years you had.
So yes, their ENTIRE GOAL is to reduce the severance they have to pay.
I seriously doubt you'll get anything. I think that's what part of the HCL rebadging was for, to avoid paying severance to those employees. I feel like they've had a plan in the works for awhile now to avoid severance packages. Technically the new company wouldn't owe you anything.