So, if Google had laid off a worker in Norway who was on leave, they wouldn't have much choice but to stand by their obligations.
Not the case here.
I could sign a mortgage Monday and be laid off Tuesday.
So then my income and insurance just stop.
Companies have no obligation to give you notice. Anything they do is literally out of the good of their PR people. Some states require payout of accrued vacation days (notice the government doesn't mandate any amount of vacation days, it's all up to negotiation).
Then you can go on unemployment, but for some reason it's capped in amount per month, so even if I make $200,000/year, which after taxes becomes $11,000/month. I live in a HCOL, my unemployment would be ~$450/week, so ~ $2,000/month. Which is less than my rent. And I pay A LOT of taxes.
We have a minimum notice period of three months in Norway, and many have a contract that give them more than that. This is a mutual obligation, so if you want to quit your job for a new one, you will have to stay in your current for the notice period.
How much unemployment support you get depends on your salary level, and it has an upper cap, but it should be sufficient enough to keep you floating while you seek for a new job. It is not a sleeping pillow, though. You do not get a full compensation.
You get the support until you get a new job or for 12 months. If you are still without a job after 12 months you can apply for another 12 months period. If you are not able to get a new job within this period you will have to rely on other types of public support if you are entitled to any of them.
You might think that this would lead to people not wanting to get a new job immediately. However, the unemployment rate is currently at 3,4 percent.
It doesn’t really make sense for one to demand both severance and their leave.
From my understanding the Google severance effectively pays you more than maternity leave anyways unless you were at Google for less than 3 years. I wonder how many are in that situation.
One example in the article involved a person who had been at Google for 10 years. They would receive 36 weeks severance. More than the 24 weeks they would receive as maternity leave.
It seems that person is arguing they should receive 60 weeks severance.
We are talking about presumably a fraction of 1% of laid off workers receiving an average of 12 additional weeks of pay which for google is a rounding error. Most wont be receiving this benefit and of those that will the majority will have closer to 30 than 60 weeks of pay total.
Shareholders, take notice.
I don't really see this as "Google won't honor medical leave" any more than I see this as "Google won't honor employment agreement". That is, people on medical leave get paid while they're not working but still employed (and, mind you, this is not something that's a legal requirement, but something Google does with their largess - the vast majority of companies, in the US at least, without monopolistic businesses are way less generous), and I'm not sure why being on medical leave should automatically put you in the "you can't be laid off until your leave is over" bucket. After all, tons of people who were laid off who were not on leave had plenty of important reasons they shouldn't be laid off (e.g. I'm sure lots of people had spouses or dependents on Google's health plan who were wholly dependent on it). I just see some fundamental fairness issues that aren't even commented on by people insisting Google is evil.
More importantly, the root cause issue (in the US) is that so many critical benefits are linked to employment. I know that other countries have stricter laws around this (e.g. you can't be laid off on maternity leave), but that's kinda the point - with a broad legal framework of what's required, and especially with many benefits being ensured by the state (especially healthcare), it means that the individuals are not dependent on the generosity (and huge profit margins) of their particular company. I mean, the FAANGs especially like to talk about how generous they are with things like unusually long parental leave (again, relatively in the US), but that's only because they make so much money. There is a reason that restaurants, for example, could never begin to offer this level of leave, and it's not because restaurant owners are inherently more cruel.
If we believe the benefits are important for societal function and fairness, we should pay for them at the societal level, instead of depending on the whims of individual employers to guarantee them.
Many knowledge workers expect stronger guarantees for earned benefits, out of an intuitive sense of ethics and commitment, but those expectations are more in line with labor laws found in European countries. In the U.S., workers often have no recourse or leverage against even small companies, let alone Google. "Earned" benefits evaporate once the employment contract is void.
If you agree with the above, the challenge becomes figuring out whether a benefit is more like the legally earned or more like those provided as a courtesy and convenience.
USA needs some laws lol
Related (may break american minds): https://imgur.com/a/dAo1D6Q
1. Google is continuing to pay full health care for 6 months, for all laid off employees, as part of their severance.
2. In addition, in the US, workers at decent-sized companies have the option to get COBRA for up to 18 months. COBRA basically says you can stay on your employer's group health plan, but you have to pay the full premiums out of pocket (usually companies pay most or all of the premium). This can be particularly expensive for a family (e.g. $1500 a month or so).
3. After that, if you haven't gotten another job that offers insurance, you can get an individual plan through Obamacare. Again, the cost of these plans can be expensive depending on your circumstances and level of coverage.
In America, illness, including terminal illness, are a leading cause of bankruptcy.
America is a win-lose rat race scam where the rats are too docile.
Here is a direct, reliable source of truth straight from the official government website in case my comment gets buried by downvotes: https://www.healthcare.gov/unemployed/cobra-coverage/
You can stay on the existing healthcare plan you had from your former employer, switch to your spouse's plan, or start a new individual plan. By default, Cobra is automatic and retroactive, so you could continue your hospital stay unchanged and then at the end of the following month pay the monthly premium to stay on the plan.
Technically of course anyone could "go into debt" for any purchase, so in a certain pedantic sense, sure you could go into debt for healthcare costs, but it's not like anyone is suddenly becoming uninsured. You have weeks to figure out which health insurance plan going forward is the best option for you. The severance payments should be enough to cover the gap until new employment begins, even for the most irresponsible people who had no savings despite drawing a Google salary.
The only possible way I’d think this is justified is if Google would have to file bankruptcy if they didn’t do this.
In most places in EU it would be illegal to layoff people in those situations, that’s not a US thing of course, but just asking the already-approved deal to be honored seems just obvious.
Not to mention no one Google lays off is going to have any trouble finding a job paying at least the median wage.
- Promising a person a particular thing (approving maternity leave, for example) goes above and beyond the ordinary employment contract, and cutting the duration of that promise short doesn't sit well.
- Google offers (offered?) a variety of specialized healthcare plans that you can choose _instead of_ a standard PPO or whatever, and those require you to move to doctors in a very small network. Cutting off those services and saying "LOL, have fun with finding new doctors on top of figuring out Cobra" with less than a day of warning is a bigger inconvenience than you'd expect from comparable layoffs elsewhere.
Optimistically, because it's the right thing to do.
It's true Google management didn't foresee this issue but it's not like Google was an outlier. Everyone in the economy thought the same thing.
I think I would be upset if I was laid off but those on medical or baby leave were specifically given a pass. It kind of feels like a slap on the face for those whom are unable to have kids.
Layoffs should be focused on performance, cost of salary, team business utility, etc.
That said, if layoffs disproportionately hit those on that are on medical leave, that would be pretty cruel.
Moreover, I think those laid off during leave should be given additional severance due to the incredible imposition.
Everywhere I've worked has stipulated that leave, sabbaticals, etc. were still subject to layoffs.
If a company must select whom to layout it would seem logical to pick those who presently aren't contributing because they just had a kid and are on leave and yet we don't really want to live in a society where people are worried about having kids because they might be punished for it by being fired not least of which because we need a next generation and don't want the entirety of it to come from less intelligent people in lower performing households.
To take away the incentive and ensure at least the appearance of objectivity—different from emotional nonsensical fairness—its wise to decouple layoffs from maternity by dealing with any change in employment status after the end of maternity leave. If it still makes sense to lay them off or fire them after the end of their leave.
The issue here is simply whether Google should honor the commitments Google already made. If Google approved your leave, I’d say you’re entitled to it, no different than if you had accrued paid vacation time per Google’s vacation rules.
Especially with modern family planning, it is possible to be strategic about when to use such leave, and natural to include the expectation of continued employment upon return into the decision to use such leave.
I’m not claiming there’s a simple answer - I understand the point that it seems unfair that an employee on leave will “get more” than an employee who wasn’t, but at the same time, this is the commitment that Google made, and I can’t shake the feeling that a mother giving birth and then using the resulting benefit that she was promised should be entirely unrelated to any notions of severance.
If anything, it makes it look like Google is taking advantage of people on leave, not somehow leveling the playing field.
But with how the US medical system has pretty much transitioned from non-profits to profits, I doubt there can be any argument saying doing this is OK. Money now talks more than it did years ago.
/s (for me at least)
They laid off senior GCP techs because they didn't want to promote them.
Basically, going back on your word. No honour.
