[rndgermandude]

I wonder if this legally really is the case. Twitter seems to have asked "Do you still want to work here", giving an option to affirm. They didn't say "you have to go", they said "you may go if you do not like the new direction of the company, please tell us which one it is".

I'd be rather careful with that, and not just proclaim these people were terminated. I see a rather good chance court could rule very differently.

[apawloski]

The magic proclamation is actually going the other way. If the company is ending the employment, that is termination. The company does not get to simply say "well you've resigned."

Perhaps you're not arguing termination vs resignation but rather whether they're entitled to unemployment and wrongful termination protection? That's more open for debate, but the former employees are entitled to those considerations (which they would not be had they resigned).

[perlgeek]

Employment is managed by a contract.

Likely that contract doesn't have a clause that states it only remains valid if the employee clicks on "yes" in death march emails.

So, the contract remains valid until either the employee quits or the employer terminates. Not reacting to an email is not quitting.

I'm pretty sure that legally, the employees that received that email and didn't click/answer are still considered employees. They are only terminated once they received their actual termination papers, not an "if / then" email.

[LambdaComplex]

> Employment is managed by a contract.

In the USA? Not unless you're an executive (or an actual contractor).

(With that said, "Not reacting to an email is not quitting" is still a true statement)

[perlgeek]

Are you seriously saying you spend 8+ hours a day working for a company and don't have a contract that manages your rights (like salary, PTO, ...) and obligations (work hours, presence, ...)?

Mind blown.

[causi]

Most American workers have an employment agreement with generalized clauses to the effect of "we can terminate you at any time for any reason" and "hours are thusly unless management needs you otherwise" and "duties are so-and-so but also anything else we want you to do."

I've had jobs where I kept the software running so smoothly 80% of my time at work was spent with a broom or a rag cleaning because "downtime" was not a thing.

[snowwrestler]

Federal employment laws, state employment laws, and court precedents substitute for a detailed contract for many employees in the U.S.

This is in fact a big reason that companies like to use so many contractors: it’s way easier to manage the downside risk for a contractor because the employer’s liability is scoped entirely to one written agreement. Whereas their relationship with employees is scoped to the broad set of laws and precedents mentioned in my first paragraph.

[hxugufjfjf]

European here. What do you mean? Employment contracts are not common or mandatory? Unheard of here. I painted my grandma's house for money and we still wrote a single page contract.

[ryanSrich]

There are employment agreements, but they typically only cover protections for the company - not stealing IP, no competition clause, etc.

Since most states are at will employment, you don’t need a reason to fire someone, just like an employee doesn’t need a reason to quit. Both parties can end employment without cause at any time for any reason. There are some varying exceptions to this, but it’s mostly the case.

[robbick]

Guessing here but I think the implication is that courts in the US are unable/unwilling to enforce workers rights even when laid out in a contract. In a post-union US there is not enough organised support for workers unless they are very rich.

Obviously employees all (maybe almost all) have employment contracts

[ncallaway]

Many W-2 employees still have a contract. It's quite common for an employment contract to exist for regular salaried employees, and extremely common at companies like Twitter.

[xwolfi]

I think you've been had. Even in the US people work for contracts, ask for yours !

[mrguyorama]

We do have work contracts, but for salaried employees they are often :

"You work for us, we pay you (salary amount) and you will do everything we ask you to and thanks to 'right to work' laws we can fire you at anytime for any or no reason"

[LambdaComplex]

1. Salaried employees get offer letters that they have to sign, but I don't think those actually count as contracts. (Correct me if I'm wrong, though)

2. "Right to work" laws deal with union membership. You're thinking of "at-will employment" laws.

[stefan_]

Obviously there is a contract, if you have it written down or not is not decisive.

[witheld]

You can’t send out an email asking “Do you NOT quit?”

Quitting is a process you do, you give a letter, or you tell your boss, or you stop showing up to work, anything else is termination

[dehrmann]

I'm guessing this is the case because "I didn't see the email" is plausible. I think all my jobs have asked for a one sentence resignation email to HR just so everyone's on the same page.

[function_seven]

It has nothing to do with the plausibility of seeing the email or not. Somebody could say “yeah I read that email. It was stupid and I wasn’t going to respond to it. I would still like to work here though, just not on double hours.”

[watwut]

It you stop showing to work, it won't be quitting. Instead you will be terminated by employer for cause.

[Cthulhu_]

What if you cannot show to work because everyone's been locked out of the building or their accounts?

[watwut]

It is obstacle on the side of employer. If employer makes it impossible to reach office, it is his issue.

But I gotta say, I really hope someone will speak to journalists about what that was about.

[Gene_Parmesan]

Saying "we are materially changing the terms of your employment, you can accept them or quit" is constructive discharge.

Besides, unemployment is one thing that is usually very liberally decided in the employee's favor, given that you are effectively paying for it.

[klyrs]

Even if you think they "quit" that's still extremely clear-cut constructive dismissal.

[nocoiner]

There is very, very little chance a California court would rule the way you imagine.

[nprateem]

California labour laws don't apply globally

[systemvoltage]

There needs to be some competition to California model.

[lovich]

There is, it’s every other polity’s labor laws. So far the competition is doing fairly poorly compared to California’s economy

[systemvoltage]

I wonder if that’s why people are moving out of California at a record rate. Same with companies.

https://www.ppic.org/blog/whos-leaving-california-and-whos-m...

There is a lot of tailwind for California's economy. If I were starting a new company, I would stay away from California. Every possible metric is worse except for network effects and access to capital in SV.

[Apocryphon]

Does it matter where they live if they still work for California companies remotely, and perhaps are subject to Californian labor laws?

[lovich]

>I wonder if that’s why people are moving out of California at a record rate. Same with companies

Probably because they are no longer competitive to afford them. If you want to argue that there needs to be a more compassionate, less capitalist competition to California then I'll walk back my argument as I would agree that there are tradeoffs there. If you were discussing there needing "to be some competition to California model" and referencing capitalistic model then I will still point to the fact that gdp per capita puts California as the best subnational polity

>Every possible metric is worse except for network effects and access to capital in SV.

Again if you meant to compare this to a non capitalistic market then you have a point, but if this is capitalism vs capitalism that's like saying "if you just remove all the ways they are winning, aren't they actually losing?"

[scotty79]

> "Do you still want to work here"

Many stably employed people would answer "no" to that question (if they could be honest) and kept working.

[twixfel]

Is it that simple though? By your logic it's possible to never fire anyone, just change the contract until they resign... doesn't really make sense to me.

[rndgermandude]

No, I didn't say that. And there it really becomes tricky, If they try to unilaterally change terms of the contract, they cannot do that. However, at the same time an employee is not entitled to dictate the direction of a company. I am pretty sure a lot of the "perks" that might go away in favor or "hardcore mode" weren't contractually guaranteed. The terms of the employment contract wouldn't have changed then. If they muddle around e.g. with pay or work hours that would be quite different.

I don't really see the "constructive dismissal" argument either that others brought up, as that would require the employer deliberately creating a hostile work environment. Just saying "we're going into hardcore mode" and taking away some perks that weren't guaranteed wouldn't yet fulfill that. There might be of course other shit that twitter/Musk pulled/pulls that may legally satisfy a constructive dismissal. The email, in my laypersons view, wouldn't be enough.

However there is a strong point about the "missed the email" argument, and the non-affirmative nature of the "resignations" it creates. I think that's a rather strong point in favor of the employees. But then again, never underestimate courts ability to render "surprising" rulings.

My guess is though that twitter would not just "dismiss" everybody who did not respond. At the very least HR would get in touch with those people anyway, at which point employees can say "oh wait, what email?". I'd think the email is just meant as a pre-filter to save time by filtering out what people you do not need to talk to because they want to stay anyway.

[CaptainZapp]

They phrased a little differently, though, didn't they?