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Comment by matz1 | Hacker News Reader

Disagree, as Apple, it is in their best interest to fight this.

For apple, employee are expenses, reducing expense and increasing profit is what a company should do.

You aren't required by corporate ethics to be maximally unethical especially when it contravenes the law. Being perceived as unethical towards your workforce can furthermore hurt recruiting meaning that after you have begun following the letter and spirit of the law per the courts mandate, even after you pay off the extortionate lawyers,, you now eat higher expenses to acquire and retain a competent workforce.

Its not the best thing for the corp or for the workers. Its a stupid decision.

>You aren't required by corporate ethics to be maximally unethical especially when it contravenes the law

agree, I don't expect corporate to be maximally unethical, rather I expect them to be maximally profitable.

>Being perceived as unethical towards your workforce can furthermore hurt

Agree, but if they can find a way to minimize that perception so that the risk doesn't overweight the benefit then they should.

You are aware that the business judgement rule[0] allows company directors wide latitude in how they run the company, right? I understand expecting companies to make strong efforts to be as profitable as possible, but there is literally no need to do so at the expense of both employees and the company's public image. Rather than trying to "minimize that perception," the simplest way to deal with this type of scenario is to just not do the bad thing.

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[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_judgment_rule

>but there is literally no need to do so at the expense of both employees and the company's public image

Thats depends, if the goal is maximal profitability and the cost/risk doing that is minimal then they should do it.

...was it worth the legal costs?

By this logic they might as well try not paying their employees at all and letting that go to court too.

(To clarify, it's not that I necessarily think there's anything particularly egregious about the original practice since it seems commonplace, but the replyee's sentiment that they should've just given in is absolutely correct.)

If they won, yes.

>By this measure they might as well try not paying their employees at all and letting that go to court too

If they can figure out the way to do that, they should.

No, no they should not. I am not going to argue with this.

edit: Also, "if they won" -- that's an assumption that is already false. If you just disregard risk all the time, you go out of business.

Not saying to disregard risk. Of course the cost vs benefit analysis have to be done.

OK, but you also shouldn't disregard ethics. Even if you have the most egregiously simplified view of capitalism, disregarding ethics continuously can catch up with you. Plus, there are plenty of other reasons to not short-change your employees. Your employees are.. You. They're your company. If you try to skimp on paying your employees, they will find ways to return the favor. Trust me, I worked in retail.

Not saying to disregard ethics.

>you try to skimp on paying your employees, they will find ways to return the favor.

That would be included in the cost/risk part. If the cost/risk of skimp on paying your employees < benefit then they should do it.

Looking at the world through the lens of only corporate cost/benefit and essentially disregarding externalities feels unwise. You could always just follow the rules as they were intended to be followed, not end up in the news, not pay court fees, and have happier employees, regardless of if your bottom line will technically better at year-end. (I know roughly ~nobody actually does this, but wishful thinking.)

Regardless, at this point you seem to basically be saying, "They should do it, unless it's not worth it." Everyone else is saying "It's not worth it, and that's why they should not do it."

> Regardless, at this point you seem to basically be saying, "They should do it, unless it's not worth it." Everyone else is saying "It's not worth it, and that's why they should not do it."

Some people are also saying "whether it'd be worth it or not, they should not do it."

> If they won, yes.

They didn't though. So maybe the shareholders should sue Apple for not working in their interests?

If, as you say, Apple is required to maximize shareholder value, or whatever, then this seems like an excellent example of them failing to uphold that.

This was an obviously stupid decision on Apple's part.

Please don't give them any ideas.

“ By this logic they might as well try not paying their employees at all and letting that go to court too”

They would totally do that if they thought they could get away with it.

Not from an optics POV companies don't want to be the plaintiff in high profile cases like this.

> reducing expense and increasing profit is what a company should do.

Who said that?

There is a bizarre school of thought that goes as follows: The company has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders, which forces the company to do anything and everything to maximize profits at all costs. Anyone working for the company who fails to do this can be sued by shareholders for violating their fiduciary duty.

Of course this is nonsense. As far as I can tell, "fiduciary duty" simply prevents self-dealing and other unethical behavior by company employees. Such as, for example, a VP selling company-owned real estate to his brother for $1, and saying "well it seemed like a reasonable price".

I earnestly hope that you are not in a position to hire employees, and that you never reach such a position without developing a better ethical sense and maybe some empathy.

In practice, your approach seems like it would result in very poor employee performance due to them not feeling valued, but the world is a weird place, and it might take some time before reality catches up.

If I'm the employee I too would fully expect company to do this kind of thing.

Meanwhile As employee I would try to do the same but in the opposite: to extract as much as possible (money/knowledge/whatever) from the company while minimizing my effort as much as possible.

Good employees are an ASSET, and treating employees shabbily jeopardizes your chances of hiring the best ones.

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