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Comment by imrehg | Hacker News Reader

What a strange thing to force the payout due to the lawsuit to commence right away, and not after all the legal avenues were exhausted (appeals and such). E.g. they were basically denied of appeal because of being forced into bankruptcy...

I cannot imagine the feeling of the employees either: those who were fired are the ones who walked away with money + take away everyone else's job.

I'm really conflicted about labour laws. On one hand, having gone through some (IMHO) very unfair treatment at a previous job I'd like those laws to have some effect. On the other hand, I don't think many current forms have unintended, serious consequences, which favour the wrong people/wrong outcomes... No wonder that I hear from entrepreneurs these days, that don't hire people until really really positively absolutely have to.

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The forced upfront payout is probably a good thing in most cases - large companies can play games with the court system for years, purposely drawing out proceedings for no valid reason. Most companies can afford to pay up front, they just don't want to. To force a company into bankruptcy is tough, but then again it's a warning to companies not to make such major mistakes with their employees. The strange aspect is this: what happens if the appeals result in a change of outcome? Would the employees be required to pay back the money?

I'm also curious as to what exactly the lawsuit claims were. Surely it's not just "he didn't need to lay people off because he had money" - if that's the case, I believe the outcome was too harsh. I am wondering if what really happened is something I've seen over and over again: the company lays people off, and then starts massive rehires only months later. This is illegal in many places, but companies often get away with it anyway. They just want to improve the bottom line for the current quarter to appease shareholders, and then go back to hiring at the beginning of the next quarter after shareholders are no longer looking at expense reports.

Most companies are not large, I would think.

France labour laws are on one extreme. For example the notification period for quitting is 3 months for "cadres" (most software engineers are cadres). In Luxembourg and Australia it is 1 month, in Spain it is 15 days. There is probably a middle ground.

It has an impact on the whole society, because everything is modelled after those lifetime employment usages. If you need to leave a flat, you also need to show a 3 months notice. See the link? Now what happens when you don't have a stable employment? You pay 2,5 month too much. Our society is split between those who succeed to get a lifetime job ("CDI") and those who have an unstable life, entrepreneurs and lowerclass people included. It encourages staying far too long in a company you're not made for, which creates depression, hence France being the 1st consumer of Prozac in the world, the one with most sick leave and the country known for grumpy people.

I've lived in Australia. My flatmate grew up in an orphanage in Thailand. Today he makes $1000 a week as a waiter. He quit to start his studies, at 24. That's when I started to think that we've overvalued job stability in France.

I've dealt with unfair employers as well... but labor laws don't really help you. The cost of taking someone to court far exceeds the likely result if you win the case... so the risk reward, even when you've really been wronged, is bad.

This is why transparency (check glass door reviews, and post them!) is important... so the market can work.

Depends on the offense and country. UK has Small Claims Court, specially designed for easy small claims. I know some ppl who got a succesful judgement out of that when their employers didn't give them their last pay packet fairly. (Tho it has to be said, Tory goverment is making access to justice harder, mostly by changing the fee structure of who pays.)

Tho I do think a more transparent work culture would be very interesting (especially in our industry where workers have a fair amount of choice), laws do have their place. Many people in other industries find themselves in positions where they know a employer is shit but they are desperate for a job so apply anyway.

> The cost of taking someone to court far exceeds the likely result if you win the case

This depends a lot on the legal system.

For example, German's labor laws and related procedures differ from "regular" German law in many little ways to prevent the employer from making lawsuits against them impossible (since they're typically the much more powerful side of the dispute).

Examples:

- We have relatively employee-friendly laws to begin with.

- There's no requirement for attorney representation in the lowest labor court.

- The lower labor courts are quite lenient when it comes to formal requirements for paperwork (so you _really_ don't need a lawyer to file your lawsuit)

- There are a bunch of safe guards to prevent the employer from driving up costs for the event that you lose. We usually have a weak "loser pays" system, but in the lowest tier the only costs are court fees and certain travel costs of the opposite party if you lose.

On the other hand German law doesn't know punitive damages, which makes such lawsuits less risky for the employer side as well.

> I cannot imagine the feeling of the employees either: those who were fired are the ones who walked away with money + take away everyone else's job.

Given Mandriva is not a new start up in a new market that could go any way, I would hope they realized that they would be the laid off employees eventually and would apparently get an illegally bad deal unless the plaintiffs won.

"Mandriva is making a come back," says management. But they recently needed lay offs to get to those numbers. If you shut down a plant you will have great numbers until the shelves are depleted..

Management wants to put themselves in the best light to get the next job but the reality from the perspective of employees is usually quite different.

The payout probably doesn't start right away, at least not to the employees. The money is probably put under court control until appeals are resolved.

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