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Comment by ytpete | Hacker News Reader

A US administrative labor law judge judge found that software maker Atlassian had illegally fired an engineer after she pushed back against manager layoffs and other policy changes.

> The ruling found that the engineer, Denise Unterwurzacher, had a federally backed right to make such comments because she made them as part of a collective effort to aid or protect co-workers.

> The judge ordered the company to reinstate Ms. Unterwurzacher to her former job or an equivalent position, and to make her whole financially. It is one of the most significant outcomes in years in a case involving the labor rights of a tech worker.

Atlassian said it planned to appeal the ruling, however.

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> Atlassian said it planned to appeal the ruling, however.

I think it'd be cheaper to keep her at this point. I'd tell your lawyer's egos to take a chill pill.

I am not a lawyer, but if they don't appeal and win, it will set a precedent that they'd (and other companies) have to pay out on any other employees fired for this reason. That will cost them more in the long run.

Trial courts can't set precedents. Only appellate courts can.

Trust me, other companies are watching this case already and will adjust accordingly.

Of course, they won't stop firing employees who point out inconvenient truths, they'll just be more careful about the reasons they put in writing.

That's not really true at all. You just think that because you never hear about it. Stare decisis still applies at a trial level, but its scope is obviously much narrower. Moreover, most things really aren't that novel. Most importantly, its quite hard to research on this level and usually pointless because theres usually a higher level case anyway.

It is just persuasive precedent so any other court, or even the same court when dealing with case involving different parties, can ignore it.

You are correctly stating that stare decisis is really just (very) persuasive precedent for the court reconsidering its own decisions, and that it is not binding on other jurisdictions that are not lesser.

But these words belie the fact that stare decisis is largely a social construct for the judiciary. The right case and (very) persuasive argument could and does overcome precedent of any level in any court. It's just a matter of framing this case as "different" enough in a way that your reviewers (whether a higher court or a political concern) will agree with.

It’s depressing how the tech ecosystem works as a self-reinforcing cartel against workers for statusquo preservation. Yes, it’s rational from the tech industry as a whole’s POV, there’s little to no chance a single individual can really stand against such machinery

Each side has incredible freedom. There are downsides to them.

Employees can take up a huge amount of resources and then leave before costs are recovered.

I think this is a salient point people are missing. This incredible freedom is equal on both sides, just as how companies are able to spread that risk around with multiple employees, it is common these days to have multiple jobs just in case of a layoff or other notable event where your job is lost.

I am doing a double take reading your comment and the parent comment of yours. They’re just so wildly corporate-biased.

I’m really not sure how we can conclude that the freedom is symmetrical.

The fact that this story made national news says everything about how rare it is for an employer to win a case like this. In most cases you just get fired for any reason with no notice or off-ramp. The employer is just always correct by default and you can easily be denied unemployment insurance because the company cooked up some official looking documents showing that you were fired with cause.

A corporation can spread risk by having 1,000 employees. I can’t have 1,000 jobs. It’s just not equal on both sides.

I mean, “incredible freedom is equal on both sides,” in the only developed country where there’s no mandatory paid parental leave and basic healthcare access depends on employment? Spare me.

My comments are not "corporate-biased", they are business owner biased, which includes small businesses.

Employment is an free arrangement between two entities, not a modern day serfdom where the employers are now responsible for their serfs housing, food, etc.

We can’t exactly say this isn’t a serfdom in a country where the majority of people depend on employer benefits to get access to affordable healthcare.

Small businesses definitely feel a squeeze that bigger companies don’t, but they’re not saints to be put on a pedestal, either.

In that regard, small businesses get a ton of carve-outs. For example, they don’t have to pay healthcare benefits to full time employees. They are exempt from a slew of regulations targeted at larger businesses.

I don’t really have the same reverence for small businesses that a lot of people do. They’re just companies. Some are good, some are bad. When you work for one, there’s still a power distance between you and the owner.

I find that many small business owners are taking things way too personally. Their business is their baby and therefore any employee that doesn’t have a grindset like them is taking advantage of them.

The small businesses I respect are the ones that move toward employee ownership. Employees who own the company care about the company and don’t try to screw it over. Problem solved.

The power balance is tilted heavily towards employers though, no? If I quit you still have things like income and health care. If you fire me, not so much.

Holy shit, did you just try to spin serfdom??

Yeah, no corporate bias here whatsoever

Yes, indeed: the rich and poor alike have freedom from being allowed to sleep under bridges.

Come on; there are such obvious imbalances of power here that "each side has incredible freedom" is blatantly misleading.

On the one hand, you have each individual software engineer (because heaven forbid we should ever join unions! Those are for people who aren't A+ 10x alpha coders and negotiators, amirite?), every one of whom needs a salary so they can afford food, clothing, shelter, etc.

On the other hand, you have a group of the most wealthy and powerful countries the world has ever seen, who openly work together, have the ear of the flagrantly-corrupt president, and could coast on their cash reserves for, in some cases, many years even if every single customer decided to boycott them all at once.

And you think that "each side has incredible freedom" is a meaningful statement here...?

> That will cost them more in the long run.

Only if customers don’t care about your labor practices. For me this story screams “Don’t Use or Recommend Atlassian - in fact, strongly advise against it.”

It's not the lawyer's decision, it's the client's

Atlassian almost certainly has their own legal department, which calls its own shots (or rather isn't beholden to anyone below C-level).

> Atlassian said it planned to appeal the ruling

To me this reads as: Atlassian says it doesn’t want customers.

Happy to oblige. Our $100 million startup moved off Atlassian recently, and we couldn’t be happier.

what/where did you move to?

Atlassian could have fired her for no reason and had no problem.

Yes, if they fired her for no reason…

No reason stated is trickier if the employee shows a timeline/cause and effect then gets discovery in court. Also, firing for no reason would not be very believable in itself compared to a timeline.

This is why employers even get extra careful with documentation in some situations where they have cause but also potential legal issues.

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