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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

> Was their severance package dependent on this?

Yes. Its financial extortion.

Well it's more about preying on vulnerable people in general. Not playing along may make you lose your severance, and may also ruin your rep with that company for the purposes of re-hire.

Obviously you shouldn't work for the Disneys of the world if you can work somewhere else. If you're really confident that you can find good work wherever and whenever you want it then you can afford to tell a bad employer like Disney to fuck off. For various reasons, a lot of people can't do that.

>Extortion: the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.

I guess I can see how threatening to not give them something is a threat, but if that is how expansive our definition is, how is regular employment not extortion?

"This is how much we're willing to give you for your dignity. Do you accept?"

Or they're paying a 10% bonus of yearly salary as payment if they're willing to train their replacement.

If someone offered me $10K extra on top of my salary to take the trash out and clean the company kitchen for 2 weeks, I would gladly do it without blinking, even if it's a little humbling. I don't know about you. Calling it extortion is a bit much.

> If someone offered me $10K to take the trash out and clean the company kitchen for 2 weeks, I would gladly do it without blinking, even if it's a little humbling. I don't know about you.

You mean 90 days, because that's the requirement in their agreement. And its not "taking out the trash", its directly training your lower-wage foreign replacement.

Maybe you might feel differently if you were being fired at the end of those two weeks?

10% is around a months wages. I'd tell them to get lost if that's all they offered to train my replacement (plus regular salary), I could find a new job in less than a month. I'd need a few months severance to go through that level of embarrassment, and not contingent on me finding a new job.

I believe they have been given notices longer than a month.

Anyway, it's a financial transaction for knowledge and labor like any other, if you think you're getting a raw deal, you should not accept the deal.

Not sure how it is financial extortion though.

Because you've taken people who are at a very vulnerable spot in their lives, and who are probably going through a lot of self doubt as to whether they'll be able to find another job in that time.

Very easy to say from a distance. Imagine actually doing what they were coerced into doing.

It's more than that with big employers like Disney in towns with limited options. You end up getting blackballed from future employment with contract providers if you say or do anything perceived negative.

That's a completely different situation and you know it.

Not really. they were still entitled to severance, but their severance would be 10% higher if they trained their replacement. Also, they would have a job for 3 months while looking for another job.

sorry, you mean to cut company spending?

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