Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by MattGaiser 1020 days ago
In general, there should be prompt payment legislation.

My family used to be in food processing. The grocers (except Walmart, which is one of the reasons they can get lower prices), will straight up just not pay by the date specified in the contract and will make you hound them.
1 comments
prepend 1020 days ago
This is just contract law. When I managed vendor contracts I had to specify the terms of payment (net30, etc) and penalty for late (2%, etc).

So there’s already legislation that enforces contracts. I’m not sure how you would make a law that was helpful to force prompt payment clauses specifically.

It’s important to only accept terms that you want. And if your customers keep paying late, then collect your penalty charges and negotiate for higher penalties next time.

Most vendors will pay on the absolute last day possible so if the terms are net30, they will pay on the 30th day.

link
hn_throwaway_99 1020 days ago
My primary point is that there should be much, much quicker resolution of these cases, and when the facts aren't in doubt (e.g. contract says I delivered X, and if I did, I have the right to garnish wages/bank accounts/etc.) there should be a much faster pace to start requiring that the deadbeat pays up.

Taking the Twitter case, a lot of these folks were laid off nearly a year ago. Why is this still going on? Is there anything that could be more cut-and-dry: they were promised severance, in writing, in their termination agreements, and they haven't received it. As far as I'm aware there are 0 facts that are actually in dispute (save some of the highest up execs that were basically fraudulently fired "for cause", but that's a different story).

If Twitter wants to continue not paying them, they should have to file for bankruptcy, otherwise the laid off workers should get to take it straight from the Twitter bank accounts at this point.

link
dangero 1020 days ago
Power imbalances still exist. The problem is, if I have a contract with Google that is 80% of my small business revenue and they pay me late, what recourse do I have? It's a constant negotiation of who has the willingness to walk away. If they pay me late, I'll likely not complain because the money is big for me. I don't want to rock the boat.

Now if the gov told Google they could receive a massive fine for paying late, they would stop doing it.

link