Hacker News Reader

Comment by gerardnll | Hacker News Reader

I can not understand how it is legal to dismiss a worker with less than 14 days notice. Those are great workers rights! Thanks god we still have some of them here in Spain (although some have already been diminished).

View on HN

In most states, no notice (or even a reason) is required. We call it 'at-will employment'.

If the company ceases to exist, then many of its usual responsibilities don’t exist either

The company didn't cease to exist; they still had (have?) employees finishing existing contracts. They also tried to raise money to staff back up and finish off the Walking Dead games.

It sucks but if there is literally no money left then the company is simply not able to fulfill its obligations. Like if pay is owed where will that money come from?

I don’t excuse management for a second; they must have known the coffers were bare while they were still hiring.

If I'm not mistaken, here in Belgium first the assets of the company are sold off and from that money, first the employees are paid out their contracts.

After that the money goes to other instances (like the loan by the bank etc).

EDIT: They are paid out their outstanding wage for their performed work, not to the end of their contracts

It is a criminal offense in Germany to not file for insolvency in time.

In Quebec, administrators are personally liable for owed wages.

In California, where the studio is based, it's not. There's a lawsuit from those who were laid off for this very thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com