It really doesn’t take a lawyer to know what “at will employment” means.

A case for what unless it’s discriminatory. Your employer doesn’t have to justify letting you go - at all.

Even looking at your citation, it shows that constructive dismissal is only actionable if you can show that they made working conditions harder and they were targeting you under a law meant to protect you against discrimination

Companies have been giving employees an ultimatum between “relocate or quit” forever.

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neilv 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Also, in combination with possible constructive dismissal, the company is possibly defaming the employees in a way that predictably adversely affects their ability to gain new employment. And there may be other potential problems that aren't apparent to me, since I'm not a lawyer.

Talking to a lawyer about this is low-effort, low-risk. You get a lawyer's name from friend/family or another kind of lawyer you know, or you call the local bar association referral service (or, if poor, maybe go first to a law school free clinic near you, to see what resources they can point you at). Then you get a free initial consultation with an actual lawyer, who can tell you whether they think you might have a case.

That's all I have to say on this topic.

(Side Note: You might have been discussing this from a standpoint of Someone Is Wrong On The Internet, and you want to help more people understand At-Will, for example. I can understand that. But I was discussing this from a standpoint of Don't Screw Over Vulnerable People By Discouraging Them From Talking To A Lawyer When I Think They Should.)

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Aurornis 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> the company is possibly defaming the employees in a way that predictably adversely affects their ability to gain new employment. And there may be other potential problems that aren't apparent to me, since I'm not a lawyer.

Why is it that the "I'm not a lawyer, but" comments are always giving the worst legal advice?

There is no defamation case anywhere in this situation.

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neilv 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> There is no defamation case anywhere in this situation.

They said they were terminating lots of people for poor performance, while terminating lots of people.

And there's plausible reason to suspect, given the frenzy of headcount reductions going on, that it wasn't actually for poor performance.

> Why is it that the "I'm not a lawyer, but" comments are always giving the worst legal advice?

Why are a couple people on an epic tour de force of commenting, energetically telling people to definitely don't talk to a lawyer about any possible wrongdoing by this company?

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JustExAWS 4 days ago | parent [-]

I literally just got let go from AWS two years ago in the midst of hundreds of layoffs. Absolutely no one cared why I wasn’t there anymore or even asked. I had four interviews and three offers within two weeks.

Even more relevant, one of my former coworkers at AWS who was now a director at a well known public non tech company knew I was going through the focus -> PIP process and encouraged me to stay until I made it through my next vest, got offered severance and said call him when it happens and if I’m interested he will either make a permanent position for me if possible or at least give me a very lucrative contract. He didn’t even care and he knew I was getting PIPd

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neilv 4 days ago | parent [-]

I'm glad that worked out for you. In this other case, a company publicly announced that people were being fired for low performance.

Even if the colleagues of a given person knew/suspected that the person was a good worker, everyone else hiring at other companies doesn't, and they heard what the last employer said.

	▲	JustExAWS 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		You don’t think that everyone in the industry who hires doesn’t know how these things work? Absolutely no one who interviews or screen candidates think less of someone who gets laid off these days. There are tens of thousands who have been laid off in the industry since 2022.

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johnnyanmac 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to say either way. See a lawyer if you're impacted and see what they say. Don't take legal, medical, nor relationship advice from the internet.

	▲	scarface_74 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		It’s getting to a point where it’s like you’re saying that I’m not a physicist but you might need to ask one before you jump off of a 25 story building, you might survive.

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JustExAWS 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Who said anything about defamation? My n=1 experience at BigTech is that they won’t say anything about why an employee left and you don’t even talk to a human to confirm dates of employment. They redirect you to TheWorkNumber (a real website).

I was Amazoned in 2023 and in none of the five interviews I had within the next two weeks did they ever ask why I left Amazon. I did get LinkedIn recommendations from my former managers there - ie not my then current one.

And we are talking about well paid Microsoft employees who are asked to come into the office. Cry me a river these aren’t “vulnerable” low paid wage slaves.

Yes I work remotely and if I had still been working at Amazon when they announced their “field by design” roles were being forced into RTO six months before it happened, I would have been interviewing and taken the pay cut.

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nradov 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You're not making any sense. Who is being defamed in this hypothetical scenario, and how?

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johnnyanmac 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>It really doesn’t take a lawyer to know what “at will employment” means.

It takes a lawyer to understand an individual's situation, background, and contract in order to see if this is just a bad but legal hand, or in fact something worth filing against. We don't know every engineer's story that is impacted here.

>Companies have been giving employees an ultimatum between “relocate or quit” forever.

Yes, and severance packages makes it less tempting to try and look into suing.

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scarface_74 5 days ago | parent [-]

Were you really confused by “your contract” at any job? I’ve signed 10 over the years and they basically all spell out - how much you are going to get paid, when your start date is and you are an at will employee.

I was also hired by BigTech in 2020 and assigned to a “virtual office” and my position was designated as “field by design” meaning that it was suppose to be permanently remote.

There was nowhere in my contract that I would never be expected to return to office and in fact AWS did tell all of their “field by design” roles that they would have to come into the office by the beginning of the year.

I was already gone by then. Don’t you think you would have heard at least one case of a successful lawsuit by employees of at least one of these companies? Especially the US’s second largest employer?

You think a local lawyer “recommended by a family friend” is going to successfully take on a trillion dollar+ market cap company?

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johnnyanmac 5 days ago | parent [-]

>Were you really confused by “your contract” at any job?

I live in California and many things have changed over the years in terms of labor laws. So yes, I don't know if what I signed is relevant today (e.g. non-competes).

>There was nowhere in my contract that I would never be expected to return to office and in fact AWS did tell all of their “field by design” roles that they would have to come into the office by the beginning of the year.

Okay, and some employees may have argued for those protections in their contract during negotiations. I'm not that high up, but I imagine some MSFT workers in Seattle may be.

> Don’t you think you would have heard at least one case of a successful lawsuit by employees of at least one of these companies?

It may be out there, but we may not have heard of it. I'm not a lawyer, I don't spend my time digging through court cases, and anything I may find may only be regionally valid and not matter to where you or I live.

>You think a local lawyer “recommended by a family friend” is going to successfully take on a trillion dollar+ market cap company?

Sure, that happens all the time in minor cases. You'd be surprised how sloppy offices can be with compliance. There are still cases of discrimination that courts fine to this day.

Again, that's not for me to determine, though. That's for a firm to analyze, accept or reject. I don't know why you're questioning me about a sector I'm not involved in. Ask your "family friend" lawyer to dig up cases for you. They are much better at that than me.

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scarface_74 5 days ago | parent [-]

> live in California and many things have changed over the years in terms of labor laws. So yes, I don't know if what I signed is relevant today (e.g. non-competes).

Unless you signed your contract in California before 1872, when you signed your contract, non competes were already illegal in California.

I challenge you to find any citation in any contract written by any BigTech company where legal would ever let them put in a contract that they guarantee that you will never have to work in an office.

> Sure, that happens all the time in minor cases. You'd be surprised how sloppy offices can be with compliance. There are still cases of discrimination that courts fine to this day.

Any company would have their team of lawyers bury your little family lawyer so as not to set a precedent. Do you think that lawyer is going to work pro bono? They are going to charge you for every hour and then not win the case. These people have eight months to find another job.

> Again, that's not for me to determine, though. That's for a firm to analyze, accept or reject. I don't know why you're questioning me about a sector I'm not involved in. Ask your "family friend" lawyer to dig up cases for you. They are much better at that than me

Because anyone who knows how the industry works knows that the entire idea of suing a company because they enforced RTO is foolhardy. What are the chances that these multi trillion dollar companies are making these kind of policies without passing them by their team of lawyers?

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johnnyanmac 5 days ago | parent [-]

>I challenge you to find any citation in any contract written by any BigTech company where legal would ever let them put in a contract that they guarantee that you will never have to work in an office.

Why do you assume I have access to every employee's contract? Have you never negotiated terms?

I don't have someone's direct contract but I worked directly with two people who had very particular stipulations for when and where they can work. One at a medium sized studio who basicallyhelped establish core tech they use to this da. One from a director at big recognizable company. They were both talent who clearly could shop and bid for jobs anytime and anywhere they wanted to.

It's not common, but we're not talking common talent. Anyone can negotiate, what you get in the contract depends on a variety of factors.

> Do you think that lawyer is going to work pro bono?

I don't know. I'll ask them about it the next time we ever meet.

I'm not really a fan of pre-maturely giving up. If I really feel wronged, a consultation isn't that expensive in the grand scheme of things.

> What are the chances that these multi trillion dollar companies are making these kind of policies without passing them by their team of lawyers?

Higher than you think. Hanlon's razor applies here.

Again, I'm not sure why you're so against the idea of deferring to an actual expert. At worst you waste a fee hundred dollars and hours of your time. At best, the company was dumb and they settle under the hood so you can at least get a bit more piece of mind.

	▲	scarface_74 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Because some things are common sense. Instead of wasting time and money chasing windmills and hoping your family lawyer can beat a multi trillion dollar company, you are much better off spending your time and energy looking for another job if you want to work remotely. When I go into “job search” mode which I have done 10 times in 30 years. My focus isn’t on my current or former employee. Do you think a lawyer would be necessary if your contract outright stated that you never had to go into an office? Besides that, every single contract I’ve signed said that nothing said outside of the contract is legally binding. And legal is very (small c) conservative, they aren’t going to go through the trouble of making a special contract for random employee #1256374 everything is very standardized at these companies except for very high level executives. They are “common talent”. You really have a high opinion of BigTech employees if you think they are “special talent”.