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Comment by studmuffin650 | Hacker News Reader

Interested to see this go down in parallel with Elon's "everyone must be in office decree". I have multiple friends that work at Tesla and at least one of them has it in their work contract to allow remote work for at least a year (they started 2 weeks ago). Not sure how his decree will work out (though I have only heard about the employment contract, not actually seen it).

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Is the statement in an actual work contract? Or just an item in the offer letter?

In the US (and many countries) we don’t actually have work contracts as full-time employees. Offer letters aren’t contracts, as an lawyer will remind us.

Companies can, and will, change employment terms and compensation as they want.

Tesla does have an exception process for remote work, though.

Many workers have contracts, and they are not subject to unilateral change by the company.

If you accept an offer letter, wouldn't that be a tacit contract?

Unless your friend lives in Montana, their employment is “at-will”. Which means at any time Tesla can change their mind on any aspect of the agreement and offer you a choice between a new contract or the door.

That’s not true. At will is almost never an excuse for violating contracts, employment law, or various discrimination protections. That said they can do it, but they would expose themselves to copious lawsuit liability.

Being a contract worker is the alternative to being an at-will employee. Employment law, nor discrimination protection law, have anything to say about dismissing at-will employees who are surplus to business needs.

Any kind of competent HR department will be able to manage a paper trail sufficient to dismiss at-will employees in a bullet-proof way, especially in a general business turndown.

That’s untrue, lay-offs and not for cause terminations have all sorts of protections and implications for the employer. The employment law body for not for cause termination is substantial, and discrimination law absolutely applies in not for cause termination - if they laid off all their pregnant and black employees you don’t think there would be liability?

If the firing is discriminatory, then yes obviously discrimination law applies; I mean, that's kind of obvious isn't it? Everyone knows that "at-will" doesn't mean "you can be fired for illegal reasons".

A well-executed termination of at-will employees because of a change to the business environment is basically never going to fit into any of the exception categories to at-will, again assuming a competent HR department. Pretending otherwise doesn't help anyone.

Ah sorry I misread what you were saying.

Yes, but having that in an offer letter or work contract makes it a lot easier to argue for constructive dismissal.

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