Oracle offered laid-off US employees four weeks’ base salary plus one week per additional year of employment up to 26 weeks as severance, according to an excerpt of internal severance terms viewed by Business Insider.
Holy shit that’s low. So to get even just 8 weeks you need to have worked there for 5 years. And this from a rich company.
I work for a small company of 150 people. I’ve got 3 months of notice period in my contract, though it’s going both ways. This protection started immediately after my trial period ended, which was also 3 months long. That’s considered normal here in Switzerland for office jobs. The minimum by law after your first year of employment would be 2 months.
Just for reference, in the European context the Swiss labour laws are considered quite weak. Market liberalism is comparatively strong here.
Despite the claims of the article, my buddy only got 2 weeks.
As a former truck driver, I wonder if any of those who were laid off due to AI, happen to be the same tech bros who were all loudly cheering the same sort of “computers will be doing your job soon, and I can’t wait!” for the trucking industry…
Just a shower thought.
I believe that the reason for the layoff was due to the debt they took out to build data centers which was ~$10 billion so in order to not be too upside down they laid off 30k employees to save on payroll. I could be wrong on this fact, since I don’t completely trust the source I got it from. But sounds like something Oracle would do.
As a former kleptomaniac, I cant wait to see all the self driving trucks getting helplessly forced to the side of the road and ripped off while the people monitoring the cameras in India or Thailand frantically try to get the US police force to give half a shit about their fucking self driving truck getting stole from.
People about to make bank if they ever try to pull that shit, and it aint gonna be the people owning those trucks lol
they already do this kinda. Look up how Guy Fieri’s tequila was stolen
That’s how you get class consciousness
The entire idea of “class” is just another way to divide the people.
The people are already divided by class. It’s not an "idea” it’s reality.
Only because they’ve let themselves be so.
Fuck Oracle. They charge absolutely insane prices for their licenses and you may as well just send them a blank check because no matter what, they’re getting their slice of the pie. Larry Ellison is a disgusting MAGA cuck too. I hope he burns in hell.
Also Oracle switched to so called “unlimited” PTO back in 2017. That means these people aren’t getting any PTO paid out on top of the severance.
US labor laws are 3rd World and suck shit.
My friend was part of the layoff and said they are providing 2 weeks of benefits. So, no health insurance after 2 weeks. It’s barbaric that access to healthcare is tied to employers in this country.
Ownership class needs to extract as much value as they can out of their workers. They think that if you don’t entangle healthcare with employment, then no one’s going to work anymore. I think it is all projection; the wealthy already don’t work nearly as hard as the people they exploit.
Nope. Third world’s are better… actually, third world countries are trying to emulate us labor laws to make the employees easier to fire.
Thankfully the asshole trying to do that here is gone. I’m sure they’ll find someone new to replace her soon though…
They’re very much first world.
Not compared to first world countries.
The shit about numbered worlds is a relic from the cold war. Neither of the worlds exist anymore, really.
How is up to 30 weeks of pay bad? About most people would kill for this kind of payout.
In Italy if you get fired (not if you quit voluntarily) it’s mandatory by law to get 75% of salary for 104 weeks (but from the six month it will get reduced by a 3% monthly) plus the severance package is at least 6.9% of the yearly gross salary multiplied by the number of years worked there.
On top of that, most union contracts (97% of workers in the country) increase that amount of money that the company has to pay.
Finally, it’s a bureaucratic mess. You can’t just fire employees with an email sent Friday afternoon and expect to get the offices empty on Monday. In order to fire more than 5 employees over 120 days the company has to get agreement with unions (money incentive to resign; early retirement; higher and/or longer severance pay) and if it’s doesn’t get an agreement within 45 days it will need to get an agreement with the government (another 30 days) where need to pay at least a 5850 euro tax for each fired employee. So from the cuts announcement, workers have at least 2 months of full pay and full work.
The only way to fire employees “American style”, “from today you’re unemployed” in Italy it’s bankruptcy (chapter 7) but proceeds from the liquidation Will be used to pay
First of all very clearly says up to 26 weeks. So I don’t know where you’re getting 30 from. The fact that it’s even shittier for other people doesn’t make this not shitty though.
4 weeks base plus up to 26 additional weeks depending on how long they were employed, which was my reading as well.
That’s not what they said in the quote in the article.
“Per the Plan, you are eligible for Enhanced severance pay benefits of: four weeks of base salary for your first year of employment, plus one week’s salary for each additional year of employment, based on your most recent hire date, up to a combined maximum of 26 weeks of base salary.”
4 weeks base pay. Plus up to 26 weeks based off years of service. So a long term employee can get up to 30 weeks of pay. Hell 4 weeks alone is better the 90% of employers.
I think that’s a very generous reading, generosity I don’t think is warranted by this company.
Again it doesn’t matter if other workers have it worse, that’s irrelevant.
Companies like this have always had layoffs and hirings. It’s the eb and flow of business. We have had a great amount of these, but the AI cracks are showing, and a rehiring will happen.
they need money for thier AI datacenters, they clearly cant afford, so slashing headcount was thier option to free up cash.
In a civilized country, they would not be able to pull such a stunt. They would have to prove economical necessity to fire that many people. And it would be way more expensive: usual rates here are one months’ salaries per year of employment. And they would be forced to actively help finding new jobs for the majority of ex-employees.
One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison
The severance is usually packaged with a waiver that says you’re not going to sue them for unlawful termination. they don’t give you much time to think about it, so if you want to run it by a lawyer then you have to do it fast
Years ago, I took a nearly identical package to a lawyer, who asked if they had been a bad employer, anything actionable, but they’d been great, I was going to miss it badly.
He said it was a pretty standard agreement, better than most get, so if there wasn’t a chance that I would want to sue in the future, it was best to just accept it, and move on.
I suppose it depends on your State, but most I have worked in have “Employment at Will” which they make you sign on the way in - basically means: you can be “let go at any time, for no reason whatsoever.”
The really crappy thing about Oracle doing this like this is that these people are hitting the market with 30,000 other freshly fired Oracle workers all looking for the same kinds of jobs at the same time - in a market where lots of other companies are doing the same.
Interesting, that doesn’t even meet the statutory requirements in Canada, which is 1 week severence+ 1 week in lieu of notice per year of employment. One top of that civil case law will generally add another 2 weeks per year of employment for employees who have been with a company for more than 5 years. There are other factors involved in this however. The whole thing generally tops out at about 20 months, too.
That 1 week in lieu of notice per year of employment must be “a thing” elsewhere, I’ve seen it many times.
By the way, as I read the summary above, Oracle did meet the statuatory requirement in Canada + 3 additional weeks of severance. Not that this is “good” of Oracle, they’re undoubtedly doing the minimum they can get away with - duty to shareholders over employees and all that.
They explained it more clearly later in the article. 4 weeks for the first year, then 1 week for each additional year of tenure. So a three year employee would get 4+2, which is the same as in Canada. But a 4 year employee would get 4+3 which is less than the statutory (1+1)*4 in Canada.
In Canada, once you get to about 6 years of employment, you can start to expect (1+1+2) * (# years). With a cap of about 80 weeks. You’d bust past the woeful 26 week cap with just 7 years of service.
And, BTW: You would need 23 years of tenure to hit that 26 week cap.
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Imagine pouring your years and efforts into making this company the giant it became, and this is how they repay you. I have to imagine it’s gonna be hard to find a new job at the same pay level etc, considering everyone is currently making big cuts to their workforce 🫠
“After careful consideration of Oracle’s current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organizational change,” copies of layoff notification email viewed by Business Insider stated. “As a result, today is your last working day.”
Oh, and one last thing:
Oracle declined to comment.
Anybody in tech knows that this is the norm. In fact most people in tech usually jump jobs to be able to find a raise or get better package or anything like that. Anybody that has been working for a company for years and years and years is kind of becoming a unicorn.
If you poured your years working for the Umbrella Corporation, you kind of had it coming.
Last time I had to do this was a startup. We all worked insane hours trying to get the product off the ground but then
- layoffs just short of a year so can save on severance
- unemployment lower than my current mortgage
- paid money to buy out my options in case the company made it, but a couple weeks later they reissued them to zero
Well I mean a lot of that’s on you. You overworked yourself for some sort of self-gratification. You then paid money to the company for worthless stock in their company because you still somehow believed in them. I mean so many things here that you did wrong when you should have just accepted that startups often fail and the majority do and never go anywhere. And so at that point you just walk away and go find to the next thing.
I assume this is what happens when you exercise stock options and so it’s better to just look at them and think that they’re interesting and that’s about it
It’s at least scammy but I don’t see how it’s aboveboard at all. It was only like $200 so not worth the cost of finding out
I did spend like a decade trying startups in the hope of one making it, without any luck. Interestingly the only buyout that got me anything was a midsized company, not a startup, purchased by a large company. The only options that have panned out was a midsized company bought by a private equity, where they’ve paid cash
unless you’re a founder or an investor, you want the cash and the experience. stock options are diluted every time they do a funding round, because it means they are issuing new shares
What I find vaguely interesting is that the US hasn’t managed to privatize unemployment insurance. I mean it could be made much more inefficient, line the pockets of the billionaires, and be of less use to laid off employees. Doesn’t capitalism demand it be privatized?
Payday loans already do this.
True. But in theory, those are for people who have jobs. And technically that’s a loan. I am surprised that we don’t have private unemployment insurance, where like health insurance you pay into it even when not collecting. I believe in most states everyone pays into unemployment insurance that is run by the state. But since it is state run, it doesn’t cost much. If they privatize it, the cost will have to go up. So they are missing an opportunity. Which capitalism doesn’t tend to like. Thus my suprise.
With an average annual percentage rate of 390% - 900% !
Fuck man. Don’t give Elon ideas. They billionaires have already been trying to pay military and TSA wages. We seriously don’t need to continue creeping down this FAFO pathway.
Lol, I didn’t post it on X, should be safe from Elons eyes.
That’s just a savings account isn’t it?
Well, they can make it required like they do for health insurance. Then it will be like a forced group savings account, but they get the jnterest, and they control how much you get out of it no matter what you put in it. Thats the capitalist dream.
more than i expected. sad, right?
Per WARN Act aren’t they required to provide 60 days to everyone?
Typically, tech companies get around warn through garden leave, meaning you’re employed and paid for 60 days but not able to actually work. Then, at the end of 60 days, warn is posted and severance is distributed. Is that what you’re referring to?
Yes, and no. From my experience it was done slightly differently.
They gave the paycheck for 60 days + additional severance (which was additional 1 month if you signed that you won’t sue) as one lump sum and saying that there’s 3 months severance.
I think the only difference between first two and this month was that I think there was still medical insurance for the 60 days.
Just to the government.
