Twitter UK staff get deadline over cuts consultation | Hacker News Reader

Twitter UK staff get deadline over cuts consultation

bbc.co.uk

45 pointspolitelemon17 comments

I'm a member of the Trade Union mentioned in the piece - https://prospect.org.uk/

They were hugely useful when I got made redundant from a tech role several years ago. They gave me expert legal advice and helped me negotiate a very generous settlement.

If you're a tech worker - join a union. Sure, you might be well paid now, but your employer has a lot more lawyers than you do.

How do you negotiate a settlement for redundancy? There’s a legal minimum. When you negotiate what do you offer in exchange for anything above that? Give me more or… I’ll quit? Or was it trading some benefit you didn’t want for one you did?

You can challenge redundancies or dismissals fairly easily, they need to prove that your position is no longer needed and that they couldn’t find you an alternative position at the company.

If you have a very specific role it might be easier for them to argue that, however for example a developer is quite an interchangeable position.

They also aren’t allowed to hire for that role under most circumstances for a 2 year period.

If you aren’t in a union or even if you are always get a lawyer to represent you they aren’t that expensive and they more than pay for themselves, companies that offer you a settlement would also usually cover your legal fees.

Another reason why to get a lawyer is that companies have to follow the law, and most of them acres it up, putting wrong dates on a document, counting consultation days incorrectly, people chatting about it on company comms etc.

This is also why most companies would attempt a “without prejudice” negotiation first because those cannot be brought up as evidence in court or a tribunal (the employee doesn’t have to accept negotiating under no prejudice).

So the moment you get an email or into a conversation that starts with “without prejudice” you should contact a lawyer or your union for legal advice, and preferably both.

Oh right so the bargaining power you have is to claim that the redundancy is illegal and offer to accept them paying you off instead?

If the redundancy is properly done though I can't see how you can do anything but take what you're offered.

Yes, it’s very hard to do redundancies the right way without any screwups, you can also usually delay a redundancy by at least a couple of months since if you do appeal it most companies won’t risk making you redundant before a tribunal or an arbitration process took place because they’ll be liable for back pay and much more substantial compensation if it’s reversed.

Usually from a large firm you can get your notice period which they have to give you, your statutory redundancy period and 3-6 months of additional pay + any bonuses you could normally expect to get without too much sweat.

They negotiated far more than the legal minimum. They also reduced my gardening leave and removed my non-compete.

As to how they did it? I don't know. I sat in a fancy lawyer's office and explained what I wanted. They made the calls and did the paperwork.

That's what you pay Union subscriptions for - to have someone do the hard work for you.

I suspect, as with a lot of customer services and patio11's guide to salaryman, simply complaining in a way that sounds like you know what you're talking about and can sue them will cause them to be a lot more generous - because otherwise you'll take up far more than that cost in legal costs and the time of dealing with you.

Surprisingly, Twitter UK Limited, a UK company, have decided to follow UK law regarding redundancies. In contrast to the parent company ignoring the CA WARN Act.

Given they've got till February being paid, I think twitter has about a month to file the WARN notification.

Employers in the US love to ignore California laws. My brother got an $18k settlement because his company ignored that CA requires all employee compensation be given at separation. He notified them in writing and they replied in writing that they would not follow CA law and would follow their own procedures.

It would be $20k but he accepted $18k to avoid the hearing/trial the week before it was scheduled idk the exact legal terms.

They initially offered him .... $800 to ignore his rights. He stood his ground but my guess is most people accept that $800 and move on.

CA seems to have some of the strongest worker protections in the US. Wouldn’t be surprised if Musk moves Twitter’s HQ and employee base.

It's great that UK has these laws. Although there is clear and malicious effort from Twitter to put obstacles in the way of employees trying to get representation (notices sent on Friday evening with period ending on Tuesday morning, usual communication tools being frozen in the company), it still beats being fired without any conversation.

I am sure that they will find interested law firms on Monday, if the firms won't reach out to Twitter employees first.

What if this leads to the shutdown of Twitter UK altogether? Would that be so great?

"We can't afford to treat our staff humanely because it's not in our business plan" may not be the argument it appears to be.

If treating employees with respect makes the business unviable, the business was never viable.

Yes, businesses that cannot treat employees (and customers for that matter) shouldn't exist, so if that were the case, good riddance.

That is part of the less pretty side of how unions perform their capitalistic functions. Killing companies that threaten established worker rights, so as to not get races to the bottom. For another example they should also cull companies or even industries that have become so unproductive that they can no longer compete on compensation.

> Accounting for selection effects and the potential endogeneity of unionisation, the results show that increasing union density at the firm level leads to a substantial increase in both productivity and wages.

https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/130/631/1898/5824627

> After controlling for differences between studies, a negative association between unions and produc- tivity is established for the United Kingdom, whereas a positive association is established for the United States in general and for U.S. manufacturing.

https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/1755676...

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