Leaked messages show Amazon will force a 'voluntary resignation' on employees failing to relocate near their team 'hubs'
Leaked messages show Amazon will force a 'voluntary resignation' on employees failing to relocate near their team 'hubs'
Leaked messages show Amazon will force a 'voluntary resignation' on employees failing to relocate near their team 'hubs'::undefined
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Sounds like the solution is to say, "Yes," then never show up onsite. Make them fire you, so you're entitled to unemployment benefits and any severance.
You don't even have to say yes. Just refuse to relocate it, and when they say you have to resign, just don't.
But if 50% resign because they think they have to, that's 50% less unemployment Amazon has to pay
No. The solution is to call their bullshitnout.
A company can’t hire you to work from one location (regardless if it’s WFH or not,) and then unilaterally decide to have you relocate.
“You can apply internally” or anything else that is a new contract doesn’t matter. They’re changing the terms of employment, and they can’t do that unilaterally.
The choices are to agree with their new terms, accept the “out” of taking another position in your area, or reject them. They can use what ever semantics they want, but it’s still a layoff.
A company can’t hire you to work from one location (regardless if it’s WFH or not,) and then unilaterally decide to have you relocate.
In the
useUS, with at-will employment, they absolutely can. Terminating someone for not relocating is absolutely legal. And, barring contract or law to the contrary, severance is not required.This state of things are what happens when you remove unions from the workforce, and why companies like Amazon absolutely flip their shit when union talk starts.
Well, yes. But then they trigger unemployment. The can’t here is that they’re trying to avoid that.
In the us, you have to pay unemployment if they’re not terminated for cause. And refusing to locate is not an “acceptable” cause, so it comes to be an at-will termination (ie “we’re firing you because we can.”)
Also, the jobs they’re talking about usually come with severance packages. It’s not the warehouse gig workers
This is true.
Qualifying for Unemployment Insurance benefits is a decision made by the State, not the employer, and the standard for qualification is much lower than the one used to determine if terminating an employee is legal or not. That is, there are many things that will get you UI benefits that are still perfectly legal reasons to fire someone, as you said.
As an aside, UI is an insurance product sold (forcibly, by the State) to the employer. The employer pays a premium which rises or falls based on the number and cost of claims that employer generates. Naturally, employers are incentivized to reduce the number of claims to keep costs low, but it's not, as is commonly thought, the employer paying benefits directly.
As another side, a strategy companies are using lately to keep their UI costs low is providing a severance package that pays all or part of the employee's salary but paying it out over time. Depending on the state and the rules for that state's UI program, that often counts against any UI benefit the former employee would receive, reducing the weekly benefit (sometimes to $0). It's a thing I've only seen in the past 5 or so years. I would expect States to start to recognize this end-run around the system and adjust the rules accordingly in the near future.
As another side, a strategy companies are using lately to keep their UI costs low is providing a severance package that pays all or part of the employee’s salary but paying it out over time. Depending on the state and the rules for that state’s UI program, that often counts against any UI benefit the former employee would receive, reducing the weekly benefit (sometimes to $0). It’s a thing I’ve only seen in the past 5 or so years. I would expect States to start to recognize this end-run around the system and adjust the rules accordingly in the near future.
this is an old strategy. It's called "severance." Many company will offer a severance package before going to lay offs that enhance retirement packages (especially for people close enough to it anyhow) or otherwise entice people to take it, instead.
As an aside, UI is an insurance product sold (forcibly, by the State) to the employer. The employer pays a premium which rises or falls based on the number and cost of claims that employer generates. Naturally, employers are incentivized to reduce the number of claims to keep costs low, but it’s not, as is commonly thought, the employer paying benefits directly.
It would really, really, suck if you had to rely on a former employer to pay unemployment. Just saying.
Did you not see the end of their post?
Yes. "Layoff" has a very specific meaning in employment. In the US, it is, in one form or another, ending the employment agreement because there is no longer available work. I.e., "Your position has been eliminated."
That's not the case in the "Everyone has to relocate to (place)" situation. It is not a layoff if you fail to comply. It is the company terminating your employment because you refuse to perform the job they want you to do.
I feel like everyone understands that the question of "have you been fired" shouldn't include instances of "I refused to relocate" though.
It's a constructive dismissal where I live, unless your employment contract specifies you must work in the office. If it doesn't and you applied for and accepted a remote job, then you're pretty much golden.
I'm not in USA though FWIW.
IIRC it is where I live (in the US) as well.
You know how a lot of job applications say something like "Have you ever been fired?". That is a pretty strong filter. When you are expecting hundreds, if not thousands, of applications from everyone who knows how to look at linkedin, you need to set those filters up. And it becomes a roll of the dice as to whether "worked at a FAANG" gets you auto interviewed or "been fired" gets you auto rejected. And, if you are not currently working for them, employment verification is not too uncommon. Everyone saw the blog posts about how to lie on your CV. So if there is no risk of "Fred will get fired if we ask Amazon if he works there" then HR will ask... and get an earful.
So it stands to reason that most staff are more likely to just resign and lose their severance rather than take the termination.
You know how a lot of job applications say something like “Have you ever been fired?”. That is a pretty strong filter.
Constructive dismissal isn't the same thing as being fired for cause, regardless of whether Amazon tries to lie about it.
And I am sure Amazon will make that distinction when they get called about the person who actively spited them and forced a firing/termination when they were otherwise going to get to skip out on unemployment and severance.
But hey, you can sue. That worked out real well for the ex-twitter employees.. and even people amazon dicked over in the past.
Like a lot of things in life: it doesn't actually matter who is morally or legally in the right. What matters is what the bad actors can get away with.
If you get to the interview stage and say "look, you should know that I was part of the team that were fired as part of this news article" then you are basically set. Any company worth working for will say "Jesus christ, that is fucked". But if HR calls amazon to make sure you aren't some kid who was lying on linkedin? You are now not just a bad potential employee, you are a liar. And that is the kind of thing that can potentially even come up in conversations with colleagues.
I think you're really blowing this out of proportion as if this is the scary "permanent record" teachers used to warn you about in elementary school.
Explaining that they needed you to relocate and you weren't willing is a satisfactoy answer. Additionally there's no requirement that you put Amazon on your resume if it did come down to that. Frankly I don't think the new employer would really care what happened between you and some other corporation if you seem competent and they aren't going to check every reference on every single person that applies to a corporation with 100k+ employees to stop you from getting an interview first.
It is less a "permanent record" and more just the reality of a global workplace. Once you hit the "amazon" level of employment, you are applying for the kinds of positions where people will move across the country for that paycheck. You are looking at hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants.
And the reality of it is: When you have that many applications, you aren't going to interview every one of them. Hell, you probably aren't going to read every one of them. You are going to apply basic filters. Asked for a cover letter? You'll probably ignore that chatgpt generated mess, but you better see that a PDF was uploaded. Otherwise you just avoided an interview. Same for red flags in the application process.
I've been on a lot of hiring committees over the years. At bigger companies? I only ever see the filtered applicants. So you would have never had the chance to even explain what happened. And at the smaller companies? I know I try to "be one of the good ones" and will do a quick google as to why you might have left at a given time and so forth. But I've also punted a few that looked "too good to be true" to the poor bastard we have handling HR for a startup.
As for "just don't list Amazon": Sure. If you have a ridiculously amazing CV then you can skip a FAANG company. Otherwise, you want to list that shit because that is going to open more doors for you than just about anything imaginable. And that is also the kind of work history where people are going to check to see if your linkedin is legit and maybe call Amazon to find out if you are lying.
Small company or even a bankrupt company? Too much effort. But one of the biggest companies on the planet that is known for hiring some of the best of the best of multiple engineering disciplines? That is the scenario where you ask Joe in HR to make a call or two.
Like I said before: Amazon/FAANG (or whatever we call it these days)? That pretty much guarantees you get an interview. Report that you were fired? That pretty much guarantees we don't bother with you because we don't have to care about whether you were fired for good reasons or bad reasons. And if we find out you lied about the latter while we are checking the former?
At this point every hiring manager out there is aware of Amazon's terrible workplace practices. Put on the resume don't say you got fired. When you get asked why you left, tell the truth of the situation. Some managers won't want you because if it sure, but the intelligent ones can see the tree through the forest and those are the places you want to work anyway.
It's sub optimal but that's what happens when you join a place like Amazon.
You just say “no. And then explain the actual situation in the interview.
And no engineering job I’ve ever applied for has had me fill out an “application”. That’s not a thing. And if some place weirdly has it, then send your resume somewhere else.
You just say “no. And then explain the actual situation in the interview.
Exactly this. theres no reason to shoot yourself in the foot for something you had no control over
Wow. Today I Learned that there are entire groups of people who have managed to apply for jobs without ever filling out an application. Even the time I was straight up headhunted to the point of getting approached in a diner involved filling out a form for oversight and logging reasons.
Also, apparently Intel, Google, and all the FAANGs aren't "engineering jobs" since they also do the application thing.
From first hand experience I can say I never submitted an application to work at one of these places. The hiring process was me submitting my resume, doing phone interviews, and then in-person interviews.
Even for "strategic hires", you still need to ask demographics and eligibility questions and the like. The CV can be parsed for most of the work experience stuff. Presumably there was the question of "So... you can legally work in this country, right?" during the phone interviews.
Those generic questions you ask while you upload your CV? That is an application form. It just isn't a ten page document like at the kroger.
I didn't need to submit a CV when I submitted a resume, and my work eligibility was verified when I filled out an I-9 form after getting the job. Furthermore, in the context of the discussion, what does asking about citizenship or demographics reveal about whether you've been fired from Amazon?
You can be condescending and speculate all you like, but I've actually gone through this process and it isn't as you describe it to be.
Its not “be(ing) condescending”
A CV and a Resume are (close enough to) the same thing. And a lot of people don’t realize that for “strategic hires”, things might not even happen in the same order. You can be offered a job… contingent upon filling out these forms and being eligible to work. As opposed to filling out these forms and demonstrating you are eligible to work… before being offered a job.
Near as I can tell, this is some batshit insane “I am a rising junior” nonsense that has been taught to people. “I don’t fill out applications when I apply for jobs because applications are for the weak” and so forth. Speak like you already have the job you want and all that brand building.
As for relevance: Mostly this is just complete insanity over the dude who talked about how they don’t fill out applications when they apply for jobs and acting as though that is standard and what happens with the kinds of companies you apply for after you have been an engineer at a FAANG-like for a bit. When, unless you are only applying to the tiniest of startups, you are going to go through the bog standard HR policies. And when you have a significant blemish on what is probably going to be one of your top three bits of employment history… that is not a great thing.
And, just because I am sure this will also somehow be misconstrued: A “strategic hire” is a catch all term for someone a company makes a job opening for. Sometimes that is the CEO’s kid. Often times it is someone who is technically amazing. Maybe they just got laid off and you see an opportunity to grab them. Maybe you walked up to them in a hotel bar at a conference and talked about how much you like their vibe. Those are the people who tend to only do interviews and the like as a formality… mostly because you still need to go through the motions for HR purposes.
I like how you keep insisting that you know more about my hiring process than I do even though you know absolutely nothing about me, where i work, or what was involved. You can keep shifting the goal posts with each new comment, but you're still totally off base and entirely too confident, to almost an absurdist degree, in your assumptions.
Nobody has said anything about "strategic hires" other than you, so spare me your irrelevant rant about these 'entitled employees' that you've entirely invented in your head.
Nobody is going to care that you wouldn't relocate for your job and they will never check this reference until after you've already been interviewed and had a chance to explain.
And no engineering job I’ve ever applied for has had me fill out an “application”. That’s not a thing. And if some place weirdly has it, then send your resume somewhere else.
You mean you've never filled out one of those web forms asking like how many years of experience you have with X technology, what is your expected salary, when is your earliest start date, etc? When job hunting earlier this year I've found those to be incredibly common.
Have you ever been fired?
Lie. They lie to you, you lie to them. They're not the government. The worst they can do is fire you if they ever found out, which they won't.
That's job abandonment and would disqualify from unemployment benefits.