TODAY: The dam has never been more profitable, now that we’ve fired all the folks with their fingers in the little cracks.
THIS TIME NEXT YEAR: Oh no! The dam has failed! Please help us, we need bailouts!
“If only we had workers that cared! It’s all their fault for not wanting to go the extra mile!”
“What monsters would just abandon their family like this??”
I hate feeling like an expendable human resource. When I was laid off it was completely without advanced notice, they’re never considerate enough to notify you two weeks in advance (like we are supposed to do).
It’s not like the executive types are known for their empathy. I’ve seen the Chairman of the Board throw full on temper tantrums (and throwing stuff) at his subordinates. They have zero qualms laying us off if it means it increases this quarter’s bottom line.
I live in a country where the company or you need to notify the other 2-6 months in advance. You can only quiet earlier if it is mutual.
I recommend joining a Union so you can also have the safety benefits that we do.
I live in a country (the US) where secondary and general strikes are illegal, so unions don’t have as much power.
In fairness, you usualy get severance that is more than 2 weeks, and you don’t even have to go to work to collect it. That said, in like spain, I think they have to employ you until you find a new job or something.
Lol, severance? Did you get lost and end up in the 50s?
Everyone who gets severance is a real human being, I think you’re referring to so-called “people” like myself that are blue collar. Our severance is “don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out, we’ll make you pay to have it cleaned.”
At least when you’re union your rep hands out step by step instructions on how to file for unemployment and tells you that the company won’t fight it.
I mean, most companies do provide severance when they do massive layoffs. Usually because its required by law in that particular state, sometimes as a way to reduce wrongful termination suits, and( rarely )because it’s the right thing to do.
But severance is actually fairly common–especially when you hear about the googles, facebooks, amazons of the world doing them.
I’m pretty sure those googlers that got let go got 6 months salary + benefits.
1 out of 3 is not most, and this data comes from 2022. I’ve read elsewhere that this number might be around 40-42% now, which is still not most.
That’s a pretty weak source. It reeks of bias and it also seemed to target fast food and gig economy workers. Not exactly who we are discussing in this thread.
Salaried people from large organizations typically, most of the time, get severance during mass layoffs.
We arent talking about Lyft deactivating drivers.
It surveyed over a thousand people and had a margin of error of like 2-3%. Data isn’t really a weak source and it’s better than no source. Do you have anything to support your claim that most workers get severance pay besides you saying so?
A thousand? My anecdotal evidence covered more than that by just reading a news article about one tech company. I am more than willing to admit there is a huge divide between hourly and salaried employees on this subject. But given that the current news these days is about tech layoffs of salaried people, I took the cartoon to be talking about them.
Every salaried employee I know got severence when laid off. Not sure what you are on about.
I’m not saying your experience isn’t valid, but that’s anecdotal. Here’s some data that puts that number at 1 out of 3 employers. I’ve read elsewhere that number may be around 40-42% now, which is still not most employers. https://www.nelp.org/publication/fired-with-no-reason-no-warning-no-severance-the-case-for-replacing-at-will-employment-with-a-just-cause-standard/
What’s crazier than your weirdly combative, out of touch comment is the fact 6 other people decided to upvote it.
When large corps make news laying off 30% of staff, those people are getting severance packages.
Did you get lost and end up in the 1850s?
Been part of large corp. Was laid off during a “reduction in force”. No severance.
Non-union/non-CBA covered staff have no legal mandate to receive severance (depending on state). Severance is exclusively between the employer and employee.
Severance today is pretty much and attempt at hush money. In order to get the money, you usually have to agree to not sue them, and keep company information secret. They also often try to toss in non-compete clauses into the terminology.
The more risk you are to the company, the larger the severance package is.
My first layoff, I knew the entire companies 5 year plan (I wrote it) and was debating a hefty lawsuit against the head of HR and CEO for illegal termination and retaliation = Full-year severance + full benefits and a placement service. Gave me time to reassess swap to a different area of the industry.
My second layoff, I knew all of the companies suppliers, plans and strategies. They laid me off and only gave me 10 weeks of severance. I have since fucked them over by talking 95% of their suppliers and over half of their customers. They have had 10% layoffs every year since then. They should have paid me more.
Damn I really fucked up by just ensuring my employers continue to produce products for a living
I was an Assistant Manager of a well-established, popular restaurant franchise about eight years ago now. Business was fine, probably showing a modest black line on their financial reports.
“This location is no longer in operation.”
That’s all the advance notice I received when I arrived for my scheduled shift and all the doors were locked. No two-week-notice, no severance package.
Publicly-traded corporations don’t care about their employees, their only concern lies within how to spend as little money as possible. Employee benefits included.
Sure, and people in tha industry regularly quit with no notice to. So not really what the cartoon was talking about.
One demographic are folks who appreciate their employment and subsequently lose said job because of corporate decision, while the other demographic you state are people who make the conscious decision to quit a job. That’s comparing apples to oranges and making a blanket statement about all workers within that industry, or honestly any given industry. Your argument is moot.
It’s not weirdly combative or out of touch. Here’s some data that says about 1 out of 3 employers offer severance. I’ve read elsewhere that number might be around 40-42%, but it also appears to fluctuate quite a bit from year to year. https://www.nelp.org/publication/fired-with-no-reason-no-warning-no-severance-the-case-for-replacing-at-will-employment-with-a-just-cause-standard/
My severance is 3 months. Full salary and I don’t even need to go to work
My buddy just got laid off on Thursday and got 3 months. Makes me wonder where you worked.
Everyone I’ve met has gotten severance.
In addition to what was already written on the matter in this thread, if you don’t have a residence permit, when you’re fired without a prior notice you’ll only have so much time to find another company to hire you. Otherwise it’s a bye-bye and you can go fuck yourself in some other country. I wouldn’t say that’s something that can be easily beaten by a severance at least if it’s not some astronomically huge one like a year of salary or more
Sure, but anyone working without a residence permit knows that going in. Noone is say companies are giving out severance from the goodness of thier heart. Just that for most positions 2 weeks notice of quitting is a reasonable ask. And honestly, the company can’t do anything if you don’t give it. It’s really your coworkers who will speak poorly of you to other companies.
That’s true, notice from a worker is more a sign of a food workplace relationship, I think
Yup. Post-COVID, the rich were scared by the newly empowered worker who had just finally begun to understand their worth and power, and have declared war on the working class in retaliation. There’s plenty of evidence for this by now; the pattern is obvious.
So real talk time, what are doing about it?
Why aren’t the remaining workers walking out in protest? Why aren’t sympathetic industries and collectives talking to all of these recently released labor force members and collectively organizing marches and strikes, encouraging workers to refuse to do labor until executives take massive paycuts?
What do we have to do, and why aren’t we doing it?
And if you are somebody out there doing it, what do people like me have to do to get involved?
Yes! My thoughts exactly!
During the pandemic when this was all happening, it was a bright spot of optimism that things could finally begin to get better as people realized how much nonsense wasn’t necessary.
But the propaganda machines were in full force pushing fabricated tales of people who “missed the energy of the office”, and everything was about “getting back to normal” instead of making a new, better normal!
Heck I even saw edgy righties on places like iFunny getting all based saying “I can’t believe we’re being exploited like this! Jobs are such a scam.”
It was beautiful.
Where did it go?! Why do we so easily forget??
Why aren’t the remaining workers walking out in protest?
I fear homelessness.
What do we have to do, and why aren’t we doing it?
The list of worker protections needed for that kind of solidarity would take a book series to properly explain. The majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, meaning they can’t walk out without losing everything. They would pretty much instantly lose their jobs, which is a huge deterance.
And culturally, the situation is fucked. The U.S. has a much workers solidarity as La Croix has taste. Nobody wants to be the first to stick their neck out for a general strike. Nobody takes the ideal of a general strike seriously. A third of the population is republicans, whom vehemently oppose unions and worker protections.
The culture, values, and worker protections of this country need to dramatically change. And I wish I had solutions.
The list of worker protections needed for that kind of solidarity would take a book series to properly explain. The majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, meaning they can’t walk out without losing everything. They would pretty much instantly lose their jobs, which is a huge deterance.
I mean I hear you, and I agree with all of that… But people are already losing their jobs without these safety nets anyway. This meme is in response not to just the general discontent, but specifically the trend of corporate layoffs despite record profits.
We are already taking losses in the battle without ever actually stepping onto the battlefield, so what the hell do we have to lose?
But people are already losing their jobs without these safety nets anyway.
And it’s absolute bullshit. But from the average workers perspective, there is a strong incentive to not lose your job even if you know there is a high chance of losing it to begin with. So the resulting behavior is that workers try to keep their head down and postpone that eventual job loss.
Until a worker can be confident there will still be food on their table and a roof over their head when they strike or try to form a union, the incentive to keep your head down will continue to remain too strong.
I don’t know man. That feels defeatist to me. We’ve made these kind of big pushes in the past, and we are capable of doing them again. Maybe the unrelenting brashness of this current wave of assault by the wealthy can be the tipping point. I think we need to be having hard conversations with our neighbors and coworkers right now, because I think more might be able to see the writing on the wall today than have in a long time.
Yeah, it is a bit defeatist. And I don’t have high hopes for this country to unfuck itself of the current situation. I’ve mentioned unionization to co-workers in the past. At best they don’t bat an eye and engage, and at worst they treat you like an enemy, and no matter what the word is treated in a hushed manner.
I’m not saying it is impossible. It’s just a ball busting-ly hard job to get done.
I don’t disagree at all with that.
I guess the way I see it is either we don’t try anything and fail regardless, or we try our damned and probably fail but maybe succeed. 2% chance for success sounds better than guaranteed 0% to me.
Yeah, that’s pretty much where I’m at. It’s worth tying, even if the chances are small, and they are definitely small.
What do we have to do, and why aren’t we doing it?
I guess nowadays it’s harder for a mob to find, invade and loot a rich asshole’s mansion, “take back what’s owed”
I’m ready to talk about stuff you get banned for saying, and we need a lot more people. Only the billionaires and their heirs for now.
The worst part is seeing all these people getting mad at their computers. Call me when y’all are ready to drag them out of their houses and roast them, I’ll wait for you to catch up.
Says someone, mad at their computer, also not doing anything about it.
That’s not a solution. If I had to stop using every scummy corpo stuff, I’d have to live in a forest. We need reforms and laws. And abolish the wall street.
I am not condoning violence.
That being said, it is becoming less and less likely that solutions which benefit the population at large are reached peacefully. The exact same people benefitting from the current situation are the ones in control of those reforms and laws.
Sad but true. I’ve at least started boycotting shut like Apple, TikTok, delete Indtagram and Xitter accounts, and started using Lemmy, Mastodon, and self-hosted solutions. And most of all not buying scummy name brands. It’s not much, but I am doing my part.
Same here!
So what have you done so far?
Write a witty Lemmy msg
Look, I’m not going to say violence is never the answer. History is full of examples to contrary. But it feels like there’s a lot of steps we haven’t taken before getting to that point. And no, I’m not talking about voting. We need to get serious about collective striking efforts. So I hope you’ll answer not just the call for pitchforks when it comes, but also the one for picket lines when it comes first.
Unionization is the only possible answer.
Unionization is the
only possible answer.first step towards abolishing capitalism100%! First step to organize the required worker solidarity for further change.
- First step: majority of workplaces unionized
- Second step: all workplaces unionized
- Third step: majority of companies worker-owned co-ops
- Fourth step: all companies worker-owned co-ops
- 5: Ethically profit
Can’t we skip to three?
Nope
But it’s not entirely sequential
Your mom’s not entirely sequential.
If only…
You misspelled “guillotines”
WhyNotBoth.jpg
Didn’t Microsoft just report massive profits after reporting they played off tons of people? Maybe it was in reverse order, but they knew they had massive profits at the same time they were laying off tons of people.
Laying off a lot of people does wonders for the end of year report…
Yes, and also months after Bobby Kotick left, taking a $300M severance package with him.
The Microsoft layoffs were a bit different because it was cutting redundant positions after the Actiblizzard merger.
Stuff like middle/upper management mostly I would bet, the company I worked for did a similar lay off after an acquisition not long ago.
Didn’t they cancel a game that’s been in development for over 5 years and lay off the whole team? That’s not exactly redundant positions.
From what I know of recent video game company layoffs, it’s mostly been the cancellation of an in-development game in order to get rid of all the employees working on it.
I tried to search, only thing I found was an unnamed “survival game” blizzard announced in 2022.
It was 1900 people, Microsoft has over 200,000 employees for reference.
They already made those “redundancy” cuts last year. This last round of layoffs was a bunch of software devs and artists of all experience levels, and basically the entire esports divisions for both Overwatch and CoD.
Also keep in mind, this was a record year for Blizzard, profits wise.
Do you have a source for that first part? The deal only went through in October of last year and i can only find info on the most recent slate of firings.
That does suck though for those laid off of course, I hope they can find work they enjoy.
Unfortunately I can’t find any good articles anymore, but I do remember seeing a lot of people posting about it on Twitter. I believe the earlier layoffs happened right around October of last year though.
This is basically why the French Revolution happened
Sharpen the guillotines.
Nah, make them blunt
Sharp, blunt, don’t matter as long as they solve wealth inequality
Guillotines can only make a reset, after that the problem of future wealth inequality very much remains
At least with them gone, they won’t be standing in the way of equity. They’ve proven time and time again they’ll step in the way of progress, so guillotines are just the first step, after that it’s business as usual only with them out of the way, and it’ll become 1000% easier to unfuck things.
Naw. Guillotines are quite difficult to move around and set up.
Executioner’s axes, and a block of wood will do the same job and is much more portable.
It’s pretty crazy how much they can raise employees salary by getting rid of ceo pay.
If the company had 1000 workers, they could each get a 30k raise.
Nvidia gave their engineers stock options that would years later net them millions. That caused a lot of their senior and experienced staff to either retire early or just stop putting in extra hours and now people are writing articles like “is paying your employees well a bad thing?”
That’s slavery with extra steps.
Ain’t capitalism grand?
Boeing!
What do you expect him to do? Not partake in the season’s festivities?
Reminder that at 30m/year it takes them 1000years to earn 30billion which is a fraction of Bezos/Musk wealth
You will see this trend with Ai more and more, expected 40% lost of jobs worldwide due to the Ai implememtation. Google former Ai head of departement claims.
😔
You will see this trend with Ai more and more, expected 40% lost of jobs worldwide due to the Ai implememtation. Google former Ai head of departement claims.
😔
