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by paxys 971 days ago
I'm willing to bet that LinkedIn's severance terms are significantly more generous that what a standard union shop can negotiate for its members.
3 comments

When my father was pushed into early requirement, he got a full years severance and has his pension was topped up to 100%.

Do you think the LinkedIn people will get their pensions fully paid out?

Companies like Google & Salesforce paid out 6-8 months of severance (more depending on tenure) and accelerated remaining stock vests, so not all that different.
First waves of layoffs are famously more generous with their severance agreements than the following ones.

They are already not as generous as they could be (for example, Google on January 20th boasted about accelerated vesting for the notice period of US employees that would be laid off... But employees in other regions didn't get the same terms)

...and they are going to get worse and worse, with future layoffs

>employees in other regions didn't get the same terms

Yep, that's what happens when you have labor laws that dictate the terms. It cuts both ways.

You're doubly wrong:

1- the laws dictate minimum terms for the agreements, they don't put ceilings on the maximums

2- the regions in which employees got shafted in that way aren't the regions in which employment laws are stricter

> 1- the laws dictate minimum terms for the agreements, they don't put ceilings on the maximums

That's not how it works in many jurisdictions: if a company does a round of layoffs and exceeds the terms ... those are the new terms going forward for that company.

2 months + 1 week per year at LinkedIn. Not good based on my experience with tech layoffs over the past few decades.
Compare to union shops though?

I know of some factories that shut down for annual maintenance for several months every year, and they lay everyone off. There is another factory (same company) that works opposite months of the year so in theory people are laid off and just switch between the two factories, but depending on schedule and work needs you can be out of work for a while.

I also know big projects often hire union labor (electricians, plumbers), and lay them off at the end of the project. I have no idea what the terms of this are.

You're comparing situations in different industries with different economics, never mind the union situations.
But that is the context if your read up a few levels we were told union shops have layoffs all the time. We cannot compare them is my point.
Having seen the difference between USA's severance packages vs Europes I think you're wrong.
Also relevant are the difference between overall comp for software engineering jobs in the USA vs Europe.