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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

It's terrible. Even executives deserve to be treated with respect.

Contracts can’t cover every single possible action by either party. They need to assume context of existing case law to avoid being tens of thousands of pages long. This edge case is already covered under such case law which is why the decision was reversed on appeal.

The guy was an executive, FFS. Negotiating a golden parachute is an expected part of his job. How he did not forsee a salary reduction as a real possibility, I can't say.

He did negotiate a salary, such a large drop didn’t need to be explicitly negotiated as that’s covered by constructive termination. Which is why it was reversed on appeal, this isn’t some odd edge case.

I'm sympathetic, but more for the implications to everyone else. Most people aren't in a position to get a severance package negotiated. Now we will also not be in a position to negotiate based on a salary reduction. :(

> implications to everyone else

What are the implications? He's an executive. He negotiated an employment contract with early termination provisions, as is pretty common at the executive level. I don't see that this particular situation has much implication for regular non-executive employees.

Since this was reversed on appeal, the implications were already covered, it seems. I was not personally familiar with the term "constructive discharge," but I am glad to see that it is not something you have to be in a position of extreme leverage to protect yourself against.

To be fair, because of at will employment, you mostly have no protection against discharge, constructive or direct, other than specific negotiate contractual provisions, or protected class discrimination, or some retaliation protections. But, the doctrine of constructive discharhe means when you do have protection against discharge, your employer imposing intolerable working conditions so you quit instead of directly firing you isn’t an effective hack around them.

Right, the protection against the constructive is that you can keep benefits owed on direct terminations. That is, my main concern before was on the last sentence you have here. Many negotiated benefits are on getting fired. If they can instead basically force you out so that you don't get those benefits, that is pretty terrible.

Note that this still allows you to take pay cuts and such. Those are not directly illegal. Nor do I think they should be.

It's the kind of thing employment laws should really cover. The US is an extreme outlier in the developed world in how few rights employees have compared to employers.

What rights do employers have that employees don’t?

Employers get to change the job location, schedule, approach etc unlike the employee who can basically agree to everything or quit.

I might have phrased it poorly. What I meant is that there's a significant power imbalance between employer and employee and as such, employees in many jurisdictions outside the US have significant protections to prevent employers from taking advantage of them.

For example, countries in the EU don't allow for termination without cause (without some form of severance, and assuming you're outside a probation period); unlike the US, where you're employment status is entirely at the whims of your employer.

Other examples are vacation days, sick leave, parental leave, rest periods between shifts, etc.

> significant power imbalance between employer and employee

In this case, the employee was an executive himself, who usually is the one wielding that power against non-executive employees.

That'd still fall under employment law here in Ireland. A precedent that allows an employer to reduce director salaries at will, would apply to other employees also here.

You did phrase it rather poorly, because what you’re describing here is an employee who has _far_ more rights than an employer. Really the main unique aspect of employment law in the US (compared to Europe at least) is that both parties are allowed to terminate the employment agreement at will.

> because what you’re describing here is an employee who has _far_ more rights than an employer

How so? What rights do they have that the employer doesn't?

From what I've gathered here, the employer can change their salary at will. The employee can't turn around and do that. The employer could presumably change their location of work, their hours, or even the job they've been hired to do, at will.

This would all be protected against in the EU.

Keeping in mind that I agree with you that I phrased my original statement poorly: more importantly, how do these additional rights that you're talking about translate to benefits for the employee?

An employer in the US can’t change a salary at will either. What either party can do if they are no longer satisfied with the working arrangement is propose a change to it, and subsequently choose to terminate the arrangement if they are not satisfied with the response of the other party.

Either party can propose basically any change they want, and terminate the arrangement any time they choose. What an employee “can do” is determined entirely by how much the market values their labor. I have proposed take it or leave it remuneration increases (as well as other changes to working conditions, such as location) to employers on many occasions, and they’ve nearly always been accepted.

There's no distinction between employers being able to issue an ultimatum on salary reduction and being able to change a salary at will. Virtually all of an employers authorities reduce to "this is what will happen, else we'll sever your employment".

There is a very clear distinction, because the employer has no ability to force you to continue working under the new conditions. There is essentially nothing they can do to prevent you from accepting a better offer elsewhere. If a person cannot find a better offer, then their problem is that the market does not value their labor enough to sustain the previous working conditions, not that their current employer exercised some tyrannical power over them.

An employee also has exactly the same rights. They can offer a salary ultimatum, and terminate the relationship if it is not met, at any time they choose. Both parties have exactly the same entitlements in this scenario.

This is like saying that an employer can't enforce an arbitrary dress code, because you could always quit rather than comply. Well, yeah, sure.

That's because the person you're replying to hasn't acknowledged the power imbalance between employer and employee. Likely because they're lucky enough to have had it always work out in their favour so far:

> I have proposed take it or leave it remuneration increases (as well as other changes to working conditions, such as location) to employers on many occasions, and they’ve nearly always been accepted.

I don't think they realize that somebody on a minimum wage job in the US doesn't have the same ability to bargain that they do on their tech salary.

Or, perhaps worse, they do realise that, and believe it's just.

It’s a lot more like saying that if you want two parties to participate in an agreement, then both of them must agree to it. Again the only thing special in the US is that both the employer and the employee can terminate the agreement at will, compared to say Europe, where only the employee has the right to terminate the agreement at will.

You're describing all the power any employer ever has in any circumstance (absent contracts), dating back to the Thirteenth Amendment.

> If a person cannot find a better offer, then their problem is that the market does not value their labor enough to sustain the previous working conditions, not that their current employer exercised some tyrannical power over them.

This is a sort of weird take on market conditions to try and downplay the amount of power an employer has over their employee. For example an employee that accepts an offer and moves across the US for a job opportunity only for things to change suddenly or for new conditions to be foisted upon them is SOL. They force you to adapt because you've invested a lot of time, money and effort and if you choose to leave, you lose out on unemployment benefits.

An employer doesn't have to literally hire mercenaries in order to force you to work under bad conditions. There are plenty of ways to abuse soft power, lack of labor laws, healthcare tied to work etc that gives employers a lot of leverage, and new employers a lot of ways to abuse desperate fleeing employees.

> An employer in the US can’t change a salary at will either.

Since when?

Without a union or the ability to afford a lawyer, your compensation is entirely up to your employer's whim. Contracts are only useful if you can afford the time and money to fight for your side of it and also know you need to. And many classes of jobs don't involve employment contracts in any way the helps the employee (think service industry, etc.), the employers for those can do basically anything they want, anytime they want.

It's also the most vibrant economy of the developed world by miles. I feel the two are related in a way (although I'm a salaried employee as well). I think a lot of cut-throat oddities in the US employment sphere have a lot to do with its success. That along with how laws also support the ~treacheries that give birth to the Intel-from-Fairchild types of business.

And with some of the least developed public infrastructure and largest amounts of inequality in the developed world by kilometers.

I don't disagree with you that it's a factor in US economic growth, I'm just not remotely convinced that it's worth the suffering caused by it.

>least developed public infrastructure

By which measure? Also, how is ireland any better in that regard, especially w.r.t infrastructure? Europe in general wouldn't necessarily have a better public infrastructure either, it's just that there is a lot more discussion about America and its issues (even in Europe). And I'm saying that as someone who is neither american nor European.

(Not to mention that ireland was almost a third world country until it started attracting capital with shady loopholes and lack of regulations compared to the US and Europe, which makes the comparison even weirder.)

Public transport, healthcare, even the fucking roads, just to name a few. Every time I've gone to the US, I've been astounded at how awful the roads are in comparison—in particular along the west coast, which given California's GDP, you'd expect better. Even Ireland, which has comparitively shit public transport compared to the rest of europe, is miles ahead of most of the US.

> (Not to mention that ireland was almost a third world country until it started attracting capital with shady loopholes and lack of regulations compared to the US and Europe, which makes the comparison even weirder.)

It's significantly more nuanced than that (and the US is equally as guilty of aiding corporate tax evasion thanks to Delaware—if the US actually wanted to tax income that is currently being routed through Ireland, it could just pass a law to do so). We're definitely a tax haven, no denying that, but our infrastructure started improving well before that became the case. But that's not really relevant to the discussion, which is about employment rights.

> I'm just not remotely convinced that it's worth the suffering caused by it.

I hear you, but I don't know where I fall on this. I think my conclusion is that the US is largely imposing this diet onto itself in a self-sacrificial way, as the price to pay to be the world's leading power, which in turn enables world peace (mostly, so far).

I have the intuition that comfortable countries (European, Canada where I'm from) only manage to have those social services because they follow in the wake of the US. And they're also much less economically dynamic.

Also I do think that the worst of US suffering is really much less worse than the suffering seen in the rest of the world, by miles. As such I think it's hard for me to conclude whether it's all worth it or not. If the US wasn't how it is, another power would rule. Would that other power be as benign and cooperative as the US has been? In current days, the alternative powers would be China, and I don't think a Chinese world power system would be better for everyone.

What improvement could the US do to its system so that it would remain dominant while also being a bit more humane? That would be a worthy goal.

I can't disagree with you there, although to be clear, I don't necessarily agree either, I just don't think we have enough evidence to make a conclusion.

I think some immediate policies that the US could introduce is universal healthcare by expanding medicaid, and work toward the elimination of student loan debt (leading to greater social mobility).

Same, all just conjectures.

> If the US wasn't how it is, another power would rule. Would that other power be as benign and cooperative as the US has been? In current days, the alternative powers would be China, and I don't think a Chinese world power system would be better for everyone.

From this European’s perspective, I welcome the US’s benign power, now and historically (the Marshall plan), and agree the alternatives have always been terrible (unless, say, Canada were to step up in the event of US decline).

However, I’m not sure I would share this perspective if I were living in one of the South American countries where the US has overturned elections, or Iraq or Vietnam. US power is benign as long as you’re on their side.

If you think the US has the least developed public infrastructure, I'm assuming you haven't traveled much.

Just finished reading an article on how some Indian reservations have no electricity nor running water.

We have the worlds richest rich by a mile. But we have some of the least developed infrastructure out of all the developed nations.

> the most vibrant economy of the developed world

By what measure?

freedom units

I should have guessed. The original poster did say "by miles"

“Constructive termination” is a thing employment law covers.

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