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Roblox orders staff back to the office 3 days a week – or resign (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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[–] 175 points 2 years ago (6 children)

This is how companies lay people off without having to report layoffs

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  • [–] 70 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    And if they resign, no severance.

    Pretty sure Tesla is getting sued right now because they tried to call layoffs resignations with this same scheme

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  • [+] -20 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Getting sued doesn't mean they will lose or did anything "wrong".

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I think you're misunderstanding the cause and effect here.

    "They did something wrong which is why they're getting sued" is not the same thing as "they are getting sued, therefore they must have done something wrong."

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  • [–] -5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'm just stating a fact. You can sue someone for anything, it doesn't mean you'll win. Just because someone sues you it doesn't mean you actually did anything wrong.

    I'm just saying that saying that Tesla is getting sued for doing the same thing doesn't actually mean anything. It can be said that Tesla did the same thing, but the fact that they're getting sued for it doesn't really mean anything until they win or lose (and maybe a little if they settle) the lawsuit.

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  • [–] 46 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Can an employee just refuse to go back and continue to work? I'd much rather be fired by them than give them a pass by resigning.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yes, but they don't have to pay you unemployment, because they can say you're not following employment requirements.

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  • [–] 35 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    they can't change your job in order to get you to quit, though. You don't have to agree to new requirements, and can get unemployment because they fire you for not doing so.

    In this case, this might still qualify as constructive dismissal. Even if it for sure would, not everyone will apply for unemployment, and they can still challenge it, causing delays and getting more people to not pursue it, ultimately resulting in a layoff that's cheaper than it's ought to be.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    Yeah - I'm not a lawyer, but my casual understanding is you can get out of that gotcha if you apply the rule equally to everyone at the company. No legal action against these RTO mandates has been successful so far.

    That being said, I didn't fully read the article. Roblox is offering severance to those who don't want to RTO - that's less shitty than a lot of the other tech companies.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That seems like it would only apply to people hired after March 2020. Anyone before then would have been in office anyway.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago

    Maybe. If both parties agreed to the change to become remote full time, then they'd both have to agree to change back. Though having a previous non-remote work agreement changed by an international state of emergency does give some weight to the employer side.

    But I'm not a lawyer.

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  • [–] 41 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    If people were hired (say, in 2020) under the condition that they’re allowed to work from home, this might be considered constructive dismissal - that is, forcing an employee to quit in a way that is equivalent to firing them. The employees are then entitled to the normal rules for unemployment, and potentially severance pay, unused vacation cashout, and so on.

    I think Musk is facing several lawsuits along those lines, but might be moving to settle because the cost of arbitration would potentially bankrupt the company.

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  • [+] -10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Constructive dismissal only applies when it is used to terminate someone who is otherwise protected, for example a whistleblower. Companies can change work location requirements more or less at will.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago

    Constructive dismissal was advised as a suit by an employment lawyer representing Twitter employees in California in a published article when Musk ordered employees whose employment offers specified work from home needed to work in the office. It’s a hostile change to the work environment that is alleged to encourage employees to quit, as indicated by the messages saying that people who do not return to office will be considered to have quit.

    I mean, you’re not necessarily wrong, and I’m sure Elon hopes you’re right. But we will have to see how it plays out. The fun part is that CA law specifies that some types of employee cases have to be tried individually rather than collectively.

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