[sspiff]

I'm so glad most European countries have robust labour laws which often favour the employee in case of doubt, not the employer.

This type of behaviour - unilaterally changing the employment agreement without even specifying them in their entirety! - should never be possible.

I hope other employees and EU countries follow suit and slap X with more fines, if this impacted other citizens as well.

[fhd2]

The problem is that you can still get fooled or bullied into accepting a bad deal. I suggest everyone working in the EU to learn their rights and to consult a lawyer when something doesn't feel right, doesn't cost much here, initial consultations are often even free. Don't sign something put in front of you before you had a chance to understand your position. The person who wants you to sign it had ample time to do that, you didn't. Same goes for accepting things that seem unfair via email or verbally, that can weaken your position already.

I've been on both sides of the fence (mostly in Germany). As an employer, my approach was usually to be nice to employees I wanted to get rid of and to offer them a good severance package proactively. If you push an employee and give them ammunition to sue (and you fail to fool/bully them) it's gonna get a lot more expensive. Not to mention distracting/emotional. Just keep in mind that if you hire an FTE, you'll have to mentally put money aside to exit them at some point in the future. Hiring freelancers is more expensive, but doesn't carry these problems. I tend to mix FTEs and freelancers, partly to distribute the risks and costs.

When talking to people in bad situations with their employer, I'm always surprised how little they know and how easily they're willing to take the short end of the stick. There's a deal between you and the company that specifies what you'll do for them and what you'll get in return, with legal context surrounding it. I think it's also good to be nice and willing to compromise in that situation, but employees generally don't seem to be aware of what a powerful position they're actually in, and don't feel they "deserve" that, or don't want to upset anyone. It's business at the end of the day, contracts. Don't be a bad business person, it's not like CEOs will respect or like you more if you don't put up a fight. Typically the opposite.

The lack of these protections is one thing that, IMHO, warrants the comparatively high US salaries in tech. More risk, more reward - business 101 stuff.

[nolok]

Not sure about germany or other countries but in France any contractual change that specifically make the employee position worse without any clear return is essentially voided in "prud'hommes" (the workers/companies justice court) unless they were warned in advance of a negociation meet and brought their representative with them (any company above 10 must have one, and more and more as the company grow).

Also, any major change need to be in counter signed writing, it cannot be a one way thing, not even a "we both agreed" even if it's true.

As an employer myself it sometimes lead to seemingly absurd situation where you need heavy procedures for a simple change, but the end result is that no worker is screwed this way in a way that would stick in court (it still does happen, mostly in areas where people don't go to court after, of course).

A specific kind of deal is the "the company is going south, we make a collective agreement like eg no firing and no dividends and workers agreed to reduced hours or salary for X months" things like this, and in Twitter case it could be what they should have used, but again these have clear procedures and steps to be considered legal and not abuse by the employer, and as you can imagine a middle of the night email with no representation does not fit at all.

I know Musk is a know it all that believe he is so smart and better that he doesn't need to listen to the competent persons around, but I wished I could be a fly on the wall in the company's lawyer room that day, just for the absurdity of it (I imagine it was sort of "we can pretend it's ok, or we can tell him and be fired too").

[fhd2]

Oh we don't appear to have that level of protections in Germany. If you accept, for example, a demotion (that one could argue is still in line with the job title and description in your contract) via email, it's difficult to contest later. If you do want to contest it, you have to be quick and do it in writing. For something like reducing salary or other benefits, or changing your job title, those need to be counter signed. Problem is, quite often promotions are (deliberately) not offered with contract amendments, so when you're demoted later, the company can argue you've never legally been promoted in the first place. Sounds like a drag, but it's incredibly useful to describe your role and responsibilities in the employment contract, and to insist on an update once promoted.

As for Musk's lawyers, I'd also love to know how exactly that played out, I can imagine all kinds of scenarios, some hilarious. The most likely to me seems that he wasn't exactly involved in this particular case, or any of these cases. People handle it based on what they think he'd want to do, then pass on the bad news if their plots fail somehow. I'm assuming this might be net positive for him in the end: He got away with the forced, incredibly quick culture change and workforce culling and was able to move forward with his strategy immediately. Delaying problems seems to have worked out for him quite a bit in the past.

[helsinkiandrew]

> The problem is that you can still get fooled or bullied into accepting a bad deal. I suggest everyone working in the EU to learn their rights and to consult a lawyer when something doesn't feel right,

If you've been forced to make a choice with an incredibly short timescale, many tribunals/courts (in Europe anyway) will put aside your choice if it later turns out to be detrimental. It's a bit like forcing someone to sign a contract at gunpoint.

[pavlov]

> “I suggest everyone working in the EU to learn their rights and to consult a lawyer when something doesn't feel right, doesn't cost much here, initial consultations are often even free”

In many European countries unions provide free legal support.

Join the union even if things are good for you now, and you don’t have to go hunting for legal help if one day you feel like your employer isn’t being fair.

[nolok]

In France it's mandatory in a company to have a "company union", after 10 employee it's one representative (employee who has part of his paid time dedicated to employees support functions, and it grows to more and more the more employees there is.

Whether those representative act on their own, or join a national union or syndicate, is their own decision, and they're elected every 4 years.

Any meeting or importance between an employee and his employer, he can request one of the representative be present to assist him (and in some type of meeting, it is pretty much mandatory to avoid employer pressuring against).

Etc etc ...

Our system is far from perfect, but at least having SOMEONE in the company to turn to seem to make sense to me.

[Lev1a]

> In France it's mandatory in a company to have a "company union", after 10 employee it's one representative (employee who has part of his paid time dedicated to employees support functions, and it grows to more and more the more employees there is.

In Germany, that's called "Betriebsrat" (something like "company council") with pretty much the same purpose.

And then there's the "Gewerkschaft", which are unions not for one company but for entire sectors of the economy who - through their numbers of members - are able to do collective bargaining for the employees of their fields of various companies. E.g. "IG Metall" being the industrial union of metalworkers, which considering Germanys large manufacturing background is the largest union in the country.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Metall

[com]

I think that the standard translation into UK English of “Betriebsrat” is “Works Council” [1].

I’ve never been highly convinced by these organs, since they seem to be colonised by folks who want to become Very Difficult to Fire, and who ultimately fold to any poorly thought-through management decision that impacts the lives of employees.

I’ve come to that both as an individual contributor and as a senior manager, but YMMV.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council

[justincormack]

In the UK ACAS provide free support as well.

[GJim]

ACAS are terrific....

...a government body providing impartial advice for employers and employees to improve industrial relations. I can't recommend them enough.

https://www.acas.org.uk/

[throwaway744678]

You don't even need to join to get access to the support.

[phoronixrly]

Can't wait until the US wakes up and we get an endless 'that's why the startup/innovation culture in the EU sucks and will never be comparable to the US'

[refurb]

Is it wrong for people to voice views that you disagree with? The value of HN is hearing differing view points.

It would be nice if people on HN tried to engage in a good willed nature rather than treating discussions like a struggle session.

But to the topic at hand, in rapidly changing sectors, high levels of friction when it comes to employment has a cost. There is no free lunch in economics.

When hiring employees means you’re hiring them effectively for life, it creates disincentives for hiring. Maybe you hiring consultants instead. Or maybe you make do and not hire at all.

No doubt it benefits employees when it comes to job stability. But the cost can be not having those jobs at all. That’s something that has to be considered in the equation.

The other thing is the employee obligations it creates. When I worked in Europe I had to give three months notice to quit. Either that or pay the company the equivalent of the salary I made. As an employee it was a penalty I couldn’t afford and thus opportunities at start ups that needed someone now were out of reach. Employee protections had a real cost to me.

It’s pretty clear that Europe as a whole is willing to pay that cost, but it’s a choice.

Nothing wrong with that, but one can’t make that choice then turn around and wonder why your innovative sectors are lagging other countries.

[snowpid]

The problem on such discussion that many Americans (I am not sure if you are but experience says yes you're) tend to use only straw man arguments (and that's why the reason they are ignored) "When hiring employees means you’re hiring them effectively for life, it creates disincentives for hiring. "

In Germany it is not the case.

"The other thing is the employee obligations it creates. When I worked in Europ" Europe is a big place and working law in the EU (and outside too!) is in the charge of national law. Where have you been living ?

In Germany you can talk to company to quit earlier because these quitting comworkers tend to be rather unproductive.

[lazide]

How is it not the case in Germany?

The only German tech company I’m aware of was a fintech which was a massive fraud that collapsed on itself.

[braabe]

The 6th largest Software-Provider in the World (SAP) is probably the most notable global german software firm. Deutsche Telekom, maybe. As far as I am aware, there are some bigger gaming companies as well. But this is, of course, a singular counterexample.

Germany has a large "Mittelstand", so medium sized companies and much stronger antitrust/cartell-laws. One could argue, that the lack of extremly large tech-companies is, for better or worse, by design.

Wirecard was a disaster for a multitude of reasons: The company itself [lost|stole|defrauded] a billion euros, their auditors (Ernst&Young, now "EY") failed to notice a billion euros of irregularities and lost their auditing license over the debacle. The german banking authorities failed in some capacity I cannot remember right now.

[com]

The BaFin regulatory failure was pretty spectacular too, despite the lid that the German establishment tried to put on it. Not so much has leaked out so far, mainly because prosecutors have declined to take much action against the regulator or its employees and officers, however what is known is pretty damning.

First, they ignored early - like TEN YEARS - and relatively continuous warnings about fraud at Wirecard.

Then they legally targeted journalists who pointed out misconduct at Wirecard (!!!)

Then they banned short-sellers from shorting Wirecard (!!!!!!) and indeed in internal memos mentioned that short-sellers were Israelis and British citizens in some kind of bigoted justification for the ban. Gross and disgusting, but perhaps par for the course in some levels of the government there.

They tried to cover up malfeasance within their own org, including at least one, but probably more employees undertaking insider trades on Wirecard before its failure.

But don’t be too worried about the poor chauffeur-driven bureaucrats at BaFin!

They’ve since reorganised and added more senior employees to an already bloated and ineffectual regulator who are culturally in bed with the regulated entities.

The gravy train must continue.

(Just reviewing what happened through internet searches has caused steam to come out of my ears again. What the actual fuck was BaFin doing all those years?)

[imtringued]

I don't know why you are interested in a niche BaaS/Investment bank. The customer facing "fintech" is N26 and they used Wirecard as a BaaS(banking as a service) provider before they had their own banking license. If you are interested in another BaaS then checkout SolarisBank instead.

We also have our own fancy pants multi billion dollar delivery companies like "Delivery Hero/Lieferheld" or Zalando that Silicon Valley types are so fond of.

SoundCloud is a German startup. So is ResearchGate.

Or how about Hello fresh that so many English speaking YouTubers tend to have sponsorships with?

By the way I was mostly trying to think of Silicon Valley esque startups with a strong internet presence. The moment you talk about things like semiconductors, digital twins, robotics, basically any manufacturing related technology, Germany has a long list of major "tech" companies. I know, I know "tech" is actually American slang for software, not hardware, technology but still.

[snowpid]

Yeah, Such rage bait argument with no real arguments don't help to improve my perception.

[lazide]

Care to reply with opposing facts? Literally the only German tech firm of note I’m aware of is [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal].

Do you have some opposing examples?

[tovej]

That is unbelievable to me. You always have the right to quit, and penalties are rare. The laws depend on the country you're in of course, but I've never heard of three months, and I've lived in Europe my whole life.

Would you mind sharing the country you were working in?

[vidarh]

In Norway, 3 months notice is the norm, and you can be expected to work it. In practice, there's rarely much value in holding people to it (though it can happen) because someone who really doesn't want to be there isn't going to be a productive employee. But lots of people do stay the 3 months because people looking to hire are also used to often having to wait 3 months to get someone on full time.

[jokethrowaway]

It's pretty common to have penalties if you quit without notice. It's also a breach of contract. Employers probably won't go after you in court though, unless your immediate departure cause them some damage larger than the lawyer's bill.

One month is common for juniors or contractors. I've never seen a contract with less than 1 month notice in tech. Three months is common for senior or management positions.

[Aeolun]

I’ve only ever seen one month in both Europe and Japan. With no stipulated penalties for leaving immediately (beyond, you know, being an a*).

[pathsjs]

I am Italian and at my previous work at a bank, I had a two month notice (originally one, but increased with seniority). As far as I know, it is pretty common in Italy, and employers know that when they hire someone, the person will only join one to three months later due to this - or sometimes they offer to pay the penalty

[seritools]

In Germany the minimum time of notice for being fired scales up with your seniority (number of years employed in the company). However, many work contracts add a stipulation that the minimum time of notice from the law be applied to both parties equally, so quitting will also need an advance notice of the same length.

[soneil]

My previous contract (Ireland) was 3 months - it was reciprocal, so they had to give me 3 months notice to quit, and I had to give them 3 months notice to quit.

Due to the position "garden leave" was the most typical way to spend those 3 months, so it wasn't much of a real-world concern.

[ubersnack]

In England I had a 3 month notice period at a previous employer, luckily the employer I was going to was okay with waiting that amount of time.

[iepathos]

Treating workers terribly isn't considered good startup/innovation culture by the US. It is standard practice by large non-innovative corporations though which is what Twitter is. Twitter surpassed stats that would qualify it as a startup over a decade ago long before Musk entered the picture.

[mensetmanusman]

Youth unemployment is a better metric to track. It’s objectively more expensive to hire/fire.

[Yeul]

Americans call it innovation I call it going back to 1890.

But I refuse to believe that every employer in the US is a piece of shit. I bet most of them are decent people.

[nolok]

I mean, it does allow a better access to "move fast, innovate and break things", the issue being that some of things broken are people lives and careers and in the EU we more or less decided this was not ok nor worth it.

[jokethrowaway]

Well, stifling regulation is one problem, but the real reason the EU is behind is the lack of a single place with low taxes on investors and talent.

The effect is compounded by all the smart talent going to SV or large rich cities (London, Zurich), leaving scraps to the rest.

Unrealized capital tax gains being reinvested tax free made Silicon Valley's exponential growth possible (which is the only reason why a16z was forced to back Trump despite the Tech are being overwhelmingly democrat leaning - they're scared they'll be taxed out of existance).

[mytailorisrich]

The issue in Europe is that in many countries the law goes to the opposite extreme. The level of 'protection' and rigidity is so high that it actually utimately hurts people because there are fewer opportunities and lower growth as a result.

[Yeul]

Unemployment is low, rapidly aging society. Any company that treats it's people this way will find their workers looking for greener pastures.

[valval]

Innovators and entrepreneurs in Europe are not happy about that, however. They can’t compete internationally because hiring people is so expensive.