Comment by FateOfNations | Hacker News Reader

Comment by FateOfNations | Hacker News Reader

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The ideology that the employer-employee relationship is fundamentally one where labor is exchanged for money? The most I expect is, "Don't worry about things at work. Take care of yourself and your family. You are welcome to use any accumulated leave you have available, and your job will be here for you when you get back on your feet."

My perspective may be colored a bit by working in an environment with strict labor cost accounting where labor is accounted for down to the tenth hour (even for salaried-exempt employees), and there isn't some magical slush fund that can be used to pay for what would otherwise be unpaid leave. We do have "disaster leave" for salaried employees, but it's on a "work extra hours over the next X weeks to make up for it" basis, where X is a reasonable number given the nature of the disaster. For run-of-the-mill "snow days," it's typically 4 weeks. Taking PTO is also an option, including running up to a 40-hour negative balance. Thankfully, I don't have to deal with any of these RTO shenanigans.

> And yet, TikTok’s LA-based employees are being told to either continue their work from home or use their personal/sick days if that’s not possible, while the company’s LA office remains closed due to power outages caused by high winds.

In other words, in this case, employer is unable to provide a safe work environment (i.e., is not even "on their feet" at the moment) and their answer to that is to force employees to compensate for it using their own time off.

I would call this behavior vindictive but in my book, to be vindictive first you need to have a soul.

A natural disaster is neither the employee's nor the employer's fault. If a business's operations are interrupted due to a natural disaster (or for any other reason) and it cannot productively use an employee, it is appropriate to furlough or lay off that employee until operations can resume. Impacted employees can seek temporary or permanent employment elsewhere and, if eligible, apply for unemployment insurance compensation. The one-week waiting period for unemployment insurance is waived as part of state of emergency declarations.

If an employer wants to pay employees to stay home and do nothing because no work is available, potentially to avoid losing valuable employees, they can do that, but they are not expected to. If working remotely is feasible, it can be mutually beneficial to both the employer and employee, but like everything employment-related, it's also voluntary on both sides of the deal.

> If a business's operations are interrupted due to a natural disaster (or for any other reason) and it cannot productively use an employee, it is appropriate to furlough or lay off that employee until operations can resume.

1. Even in a logistics level, that's pretty much an abuse of "salaried" positions. Especially exempt ones. You get to suck out 60-80 hours of someone's time, but when they need to not get burned alive it's suddenly "furlough"? No.

2. A business that cannot survive for a few weeks without production is one that deserves to shit down. Individuals that don't have a savings is judged as unsafe, but companies can getaway with that behavior? It's a double standard.

>they can do that, but they are not expected to.

I'd definitely look up state laws about this one before spouting as fact. Federal may not care, but states have an incentive to not lose their entire workforce because businesses don't want to support the econimy in an emergency situation.

> there isn't some magical slush fund that can be used to pay for what would otherwise be unpaid leave

There is.

There actually is, but it isn't the employer's responsibility. It's called Unemployment Insurance. The one-week waiting period is waived as part of the state of emergency declaration.

This is such a cop out.

You're one of those people saying the system is set up a certain way, and it can't be changed. It was built by people, they can fix it and figure out how to make it work.

I don't give a fuck about your accounting system. These are real people that work for your company, not numbers in a computer. You can't figure out how to give them some paid time off during a huge rare disaster like this? Figure it out, and fuck this whole attitude.

Making people make up their work time during a disaster. Fuck me... seriously?

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