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Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

Nobody owes you severance, unless you have a contract that says so. It might be offered in return for something they want you to do, like not badmouthing them on social media or suing for wrongful termination.

Constructive dismissal is a more relevant topic here.

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I think the WARN ACT would most likely apply if they terminate too many workers at once at one expected workplace, whether or not they think they have cause.

It's interesting that the WARN ACT is not well written for WFH developments, but I don't know that that matters given that Amazon is considering people to have mandatory locations.

Does constructive dismissal apply if there was an expectation to work in a traditional office setting when you commenced?

I can imagine it would apply if it’s completely impractical to do so (e.g. during a pandemic), or if they keep changing the workplace location unreasonably, but I don’t think that’s the case here.

I am not sure on all of the details as it seems most of the reporting on this is based on rumors leaked from Blind, but from what I understand, there is both RTO and ReturnToTeam at Amazon. RTT means you need to be in the same hub as the rest of your team[1].

So people may be within range of an Amazon office, but being asked to re-locate to another hub entirely if they joined or transferred to an org or team without a presence nearby.

I think for those who were in person prior to the pandemic there is little recourse, but as I understand it, there are also people were hired as fully remote during the pandemic who are being asked to relocate[2]. I believe exceptions are not allowed unless you are L6 level or above.

[1]https://www.pymnts.com/news/payment-methods/2023/rising-use-... [2]https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/15ttywo/am...

As those are mass layoffs, prior notice (not "you're fired if you don't come to the office", but "we will fire you in X days") is required.

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