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Comment by Joeri | Hacker News Reader

What's especially clever here is that most people will sign to get the severance package (it's better than nothing), leaving the group who refuses to sign too small to mount an effective legal defense against age discrimination (the company can just outspend them in court). Meanwhile the company can just say "we offered people a choice, and they chose" and pretend like they did nothing wrong.

This is exactly the sort of thing unions are supposed to protect people from. If something like this happened in my country there would be a general strike and the country would be at a standstill.

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> If something like this happened in my country there would be a general strike and the country would be at a standstill.

That sounds too good, and too progressive, to be true. Which country do you live in?

Belgium. We have a lot of strikes.

To clarify: by something like this I meant legislation that allows behavior like this to be legal. A single company acting badly would lead to a local strike, probably not a general strike (those are for forcing government policy changes).

It's well understood that the trend is toward stripping employee's of their rights in favor of large Corporations.

This, IMO, seems to have coincided with the Citizens United decision. Since that time Corporations have had many favorable outcomes from both parties.

Non American here. What is Citizens United decision and why it is important?

Citizens United was a Supreme Court decision that said money was free speech. The result is that it is perfectly legal to “bribe” U.S. politicians now.

Not evenly remotely true. It means that citizens don't lose their free speech rights when they form groups.

It was about a group who made a "documentary" about hilary clinton and were banned from releasing it near the election.

But the impact of the Citizens United decision has allowed dark money to flood into U.S. political system in the form of anonymous spending from "independent" political action groups.

Dark money can be used for purposes akin to bribery since the speech of the group has been interpreted as political influence. While the money doesn't go directly to the candidate, it is used for their benefit or detriment during elections.

It just so happens that outside political spending has risen dramatically since the SCOTUS Citizens United decision in 2009.[0]

[0] https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/index.php

Most people don't know the background of the Citizens United case. Since you do, then I'd wager that you also know the effects that it's had on campaign finance laws. The ruling overturned existing laws that limited campaign contributions from corporations while also overruling other cases that had previously limited free speech rights.

> It means that citizens don't lose their free speech rights when they form groups.

That's basically what the court's majority opinion stated. But the dissenting opinion also stated that the ruling provides more opportunities for corruption and for laws to be "bought and sold". So to say that GP's comments are "Not evenly remotely true" is disingenuous.

> citizens don't lose their free speech rights when they form groups.

... even when those groups are legally obligated to act in service of a profit-driven corporate agenda. It's not really 'free' speech when you take the labor of your employees and use it to promote policy that directly conflicts with their interests.

It enabled corporations and other groups to utilize unlimited, unregulated, anonymous spending on elections. As a result, much of, maybe most election spending is by people unidentified to the American public, and of course that makes politicians beholden to them. At least the Russians are identified!

Don’t be a cynic painting everyone with the same brush.

Specifically, President Obama signed an executive order making arbitration clauses in employment cases unenforceable: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...

The next president then reversed this. There are extremely clear distinctions between the parties, and this issue is actually a perfect example.

> The next president then reversed this.

Just out of curiosity: This is very uncommon in modern democracies, isn't it?

In most European countries (and maybe also in the US?) each newly elected government shows enough respect for the previous government by not reversing laws established just 1-3 years ago. They usually either concentrate on different topics, or restrict themselves to refinements and corrections of existing laws.

And there's some good reason for that: You don't want a country's set of laws switching between two versions every 4-5 years without making any progress.

However, since that taboo has been broken by now, maybe the next US president would have the courage to do the same with everything the current president did?

These were executive orders, not legislation. It is quite common for new administrations to rescind or override executive orders of previous administrations. EOs usually direct an administration to enforce department rules a certain way and a new administration is within their right to interpret them another way. Enacting legislation that specifically spells out how certain rules are to be carried out is the best way to make them concrete. Nowadays it is very difficult to enact any legislation let alone remove it.

> These were executive orders, not legislation. It is quite common for new administrations to rescind or override executive orders of previous administrations.

OTOH, the US having both a weak party system and a separation of power system makes it so that, to return to the upthread question about modern democracies, it does a lot more through executive orders than many modern democracies, which often have a strong-parties parliamentary system or a weaker Presidency, so that the executive has either less ability or less motivation to issue executive orders for matters that might be directly addresses by legislation.

> it does a lot more through executive orders than many modern democracies

Obama did a lot more through executive orders than his predecessors, in large part due to Congress obstructing all policy much more than its predecessors. IIRC, at a certain point he turned to executive orders to implement policy the best he could.

Also, most other modern democracies use parliamentary systems, in which the executive always has the majority in the legislature. In those cases, executive orders are less needed because the legislature and executive are much more likely to agree.

The problem is that an executive order isn't exactly a 'law'. It's the president ordering the executive branch about what to do, so it has no inherent permanence.

I wouldn't expect most executive orders to stay the same here if the president changes parties. But that's a statement about what I expect, not about how things ought to be.

this wasn't a law, though, it was an executive order, which is just a decision by the president on how to run the executive branch.

in this case, it only applied to companies that had contracts with the federal government for more than $1 million. basically, Obama ordered his departments to stop doing business with companies that had certain arbitration clauses. Trump removed this restriction.

i would expect a ton of Trump's executive orders to be overturned if the next president is a Democrat.

it's much harder and less likely to repeal an actual law passed by Congress.

IBM's genius was to take Logan's Run, and make Carousel into the promotion policy!

That's why there should never, ever be any conditions on a severance package.

My spouse gave up an entire severance package because of the ludicrous terms outlined in the agreement. She could have been sued for any comments she made about her employer in perpetuity if she took her severance, which was neither generous nor fair. Our lawyer advised us to walk away and didn't charge us for his time to look at it either.

I'm happy the two of you were able to do that, but many, many people would not be able to turn down the severance, regardless of how terrible the terms are.

Couldn't she be sued even after declining severance ?

No, signing the draconian contract was a condition of receiving the severance, so (as explained by our attorney) by not signing she was not bound by that contract. It didn't amount to much money wise, not even a whole paycheck, and we were fortunate enough to be able to pass it up.

the natural state of things is anyone can sue anyone. So unless she got them to sign a contract to not sue, they can sue her.

Yes of course, but not with a previously agreed cause of action.

Sure. They could sue but they cannot sue for a slam dunk "breach of contract" suit. They would actually have to prove damages which makes any case much more expensive for the company.

Why should a company give one then?

Because treating people fairly is one of the requirements for many (not all) to sleep peacefully at night. And because it's the right thing to do, and keeps your Glassdoor ratings up.

But is the term actually valid signing a contract with an illegal term makes that term invalid.

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