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Comment by xnorswap | Hacker News Reader

Seems absurd that 18% can be laid off without an extended consultation period, proper notice, proper protocol of who should be laid off, etc.

If any UK staff are affected, then I would talk to citizens' advice (or a solicitor if you can afford it) asap.

Know your rights: https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights/consultation

You’re entitled to a consultation with your employer if you’re being made redundant. This involves speaking to them about:

  why you’re being made redundant
  any alternatives to redundancy

If your employer is making up to 19 redundancies, there are no rules about how they should carry out the consultation. If they’re making 20 or more redundancies at the same time, the collective redundancy rules apply.

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You're right about consultation, but there's a sneaky trick to get around it.

Simply tell the affected people they've been selected for voluntary redundancy, which comes with a much more attractive severance package. If they don't volunteer, you then forcibly make them redundant -- with a less attractive package, they can then enter into consultancy if there are enough of then.

When this happened to me, 30% of the company was laid off, everyone took the "voluntary" package, no consultancy took place.

I suspect most of the layoffs are in the US, where no such protections apply.

I suspect you're right, but Coinbase does have a reasonably large London office from their job postings. If anyone there is affected it is important they know their rights.

I have worked for US companies going through a mass redundancy where they just avoided any UK based redundancies to avoid the headache.

I also value making clear to US-based readers that such protections are important and do make a difference to how companies behave. If readers don't like living in a world where they fear very immediately being cut from their job then they should know there is a different world out there and they should lobby their representatives for change.

Unfortunately that world also leads to overly bloated corporations that are never able to clean house.

Respectfully I disagree. Redundancy is entirely possible, it just has to be done fairly and in a manner that respects employees.

A 45 day consultation period when making over 100 employees redundant doesn't stop redundancies.

Which corporations do you consider bloated and unable to make employees redundant?

> California’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN Act). Under this Act, the right of employers to lay workers off for reasons bordering on business necessity is curtailed. Employers who plan to lay 50 or more employees off within a 30-day period must give them a 60-day notice before taking such actions.

I'm not sure about California, but the federal WARN act and many state laws have an exemption for "unforeseen business circumstances" – a hole big enough to drive a truck through.

California's WARN Act does not have that exception.

As they are given 14 weeks severance, would it not be possible to give them 60 day notice (=9 weeks, say), which they are required to be outside the office, and then the remaining 5 weeks severance?

Employers typically get around this by giving the laid off employees 60 or 90 days worth of severance pay+benefits.

I don't really understand why anyone would want to continue working for a company that doesn't want you.

Give me my severance (14 weeks for Coinbase) and let me go find something better to do.

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