Comment by rcoder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rcoder | Hacker News Reader

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I strongly disagree. Firing someone while they’re on leave sends a direct signal to anyone else considering taking leave: “watch out, you won’t be able to defend yourself if you aren’t here.”

ICs follow the lead that executives set. A chilling effect like this will cause folks who most _need_ the leave — single parents, people with family in need of care, or those struggling with their own health issues — to second-guess their choice, while those who can just walk away w/o any real risk can go ahead and try taking time away.

It also puts the lie to the idea that employer-subsidized leave beyond the federally-protected time window is an entitlement rather than an easily-canceled perk. We all know that rationally, but a BigCo obviously exploiting that trust is a good reminder that the company (any company) is not there to help you, they are not your family, and you have to be ready for this kind of “switcharoo” whenever the numbers (or politics) justify it.

If you are being fired, you generally do not "defend" yourself. Also, people at this level are very well-compensated, and the comp generally prices in the risk of things like this. Whether you are on leave or not scarcely matters unless you can show that you are fired because you are a parent (and that's an employment law issue).

It is my experience that people taking time off to be parents also take time off from the machinations that will lead getting promoted (at certain levels), thus hampering their advancement, but they are usually not fired, in tech anyway. Now the treatment of women, who already get a pretty bad deal even if they aren't mothers, is another matter altogether...

Totally disagree, primarily because Twitter offers nearly 5 months of paternity leave. I don't know when the Twitter's Head of Product originally left for paternity leave, but if it was a couple months ago, obviously the world has changed under Twitter's feet in that time.

A business can't just stop because someone is on leave. I would expect them to be treated fairly, and the same as if they were not on leave when it comes to personnel decisions. What would not be fair, to both the employee and all of their colleagues, is to say that when someone goes on leave that there is a moratorium on any changes to their status for 5 months.

The ENTIRE point of parental leave benefit is to ensure that your employment status doesn’t change while you are using it. The business doesn’t have to stop in it’s tracks, but the legal expectation is generally that you will come back to the same job you left.

This sends a horrifying message to employees.

So if the company has widespread layoffs (not saying that's what happened in this case), then anyone on paternal/maternal leave is automatically immune?

> This sends a horrifying message to employees.

Yeah, as someone without kids, your proposal certainly sends a horrifying message to me.

It’s not a proposal. It’s how the law works. If there are layoffs, then yes you can lose your job on parental leave, technically as long as the elimination of your position is unrelated to taking leave. I’m not saying that there is no way to do it. I’m saying that it’s a dumb thing to do.

The message should be just as horrifying whether or not you have kids. The message is: “We made a commitment about your terms of employment. We are willing to break that promise openly and publicly with one of our leaders. Do you think we won’t do it to you?”

Anyone at twitter right now should see this as a red flag at a time when everything is in flux.

Management is in chaos in the middle of a politically contentious buyout, and doing things like firing people on parental leave that will necessarily read badly in the press.

If I were at twitter right now I would be getting everything in writing, and lining up a new job that starts the day my RSUs go liquid.

You have very odd ideas about what this "commitment about your terms of employment" is.

Yes, its true, legally you can not, and should not, be penalized for taking parental leave (a point I made in my original post). At the same time, you should not get some guarantee that because you are on leave you can't be treated the same as if you were working.

If this guy would have been fired had he been working, a parental leave doesn't act like some sort of "get out of jail free" card.

> The ENTIRE point of parental leave benefit is to ensure that your employment status doesn’t change while you are using it.

That's strange, I always thought that the point of it was to allow parents to spend much needed time with their newborn child.

Anyone can get that time with their child by quitting their job.

The ‘benefit’ part is that you get your job back after a few months.

No, the "benefit" part is that you get full salary and benefits while you're not working.

From looking at his tweets, he left just over a month ago. So if he had four months left in his leave, it would have been absolutely unreasonable to wait that long.

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