X illegally fired employee who publicly challenged return-to-work plans

[yalogin]

What happened to all the severance that Musk did not dole out?

On a related note, musk seems like an impossible guy to work for. He is super opinionated and does things on a whim over tweet, does not treat employees properly, over works them and there is proof that he doesn’t even give severance to fired employees. Why do people work for him, specifically Twitter? I can see he allure behind Tesla and spacex even though I heard similar stories from there

[ethbr1]

The problem with being brilliant is that you don't develop a good litmus test for the rare times when you're not right.

Or as Elon put it, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4xIwP-65oD0

[kevingadd]

It seems unambiguous that it was possible for X to get away with doing this if they were slightly less aggressive about it - set a reasonable RTO timeline instead of demanding people show up immediately, not go on witch hunts by scanning slack messages, etc. But X's new owner loves drama and wants to feel powerful, so we get this.

On the other hand you could also argue that they did get away with it, because multiple years of legal battles with the NLRB don't really count as much of a loss unless they result in big enough penalties to actually hurt the people who made these decisions.

[Zigurd]

Yes, they could have not antagonized people, but that's not the problem. The problem is they fired workers for coordinating. In this case it was about RTO but it could have been about coordinating about anything, even a triviality. Workers have the right to coordinate, organize, and act together, formally or informally.

[financypants]

All the best entrepreneurs love drama and want to feel powerful right

[oconnore]

, NLRB alleges

[ShamelessC]

Oh so even more likely then!

[kcplate]

I’m confused at how it is that people actually think that an employer doesn’t have the ability to dictate to its employees where their working location will be. They did it in early 2020 when they sent us all home. You are not forced to work at the location they specify—your employment in the US is always at will, so just quit and find another gig that suits you.

[ensignavenger]

If I have an agreement with my employer to work at location X, and they decide I have to start working at location Y, they have that right, but I also have the right not to quit and force them to fire me, so I can collect unemployment. Laternatively, my employer could offer a severance package so that we part ways on friendly terms.

I am certainly under no obligation to resign.

[paulryanrogers]

Considering that healthcare is tied to employment in the US, a job change is high friction. Relocating ones family and life are as well. When companies change a policy like WFH to RTO they're asking a lot. And often it's a stealth layoff to avoid regulations.

[kevingadd]

If your employer made promises about work location and/or work hours, they can't just suddenly go back on those promises and demand that you immediately upend your entire life to comply. Even if your employment agreement said they are allowed to do that, it may not be legally enforceable.

What they can definitely do is say "anyone who can't show up to work in this office is getting laid off", and then perform a mass layoff in compliance with the law (N days advance notice and/or severance, etc).

Claiming that if you choose to dance to a puppeteer's tune no matter what kind of demands they make on short notice you have "effectively resigned" is not a healthy employee/employer relationship and any boss doing that should expect to get harassed by the NLRB.

This is all separate from the question of whether X retaliated against people for organizing, which is definitely an illegal thing to do.

[happytoexplain]

The word "ability" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. You might want to specify what is wrong with challenging this "ability", in the case at hand, or maybe generally.

[bugglebeetle]

The person wasn’t fired for refusing to work in a specific location, but organizing their coworkers against resigning in the face of various abuses and a de facto layoff. The latter is protected under US labor law while the former (depending on the circumstances or terms of their employment) is generally not.

[metabagel]

That’s one way of looking at it. Another way is to say that we were promised thus-and-such and now you’re (the company) reneging on that promise. We’re not going to quit, because even though you have the right, we think you’re wrong to go back on your word, and we’re going to try to change your mind.

[Zigurd]

That's not what X did that's illegal. They illegally fired workers for coordinating. That, illegally, suppresses unionization by suppressing all forms of coordinated action. Workers have a right to collective action, and to organize.

[bandyaboot]

Or you try to organize a collective response that maximizes your and your fellow employees’ power to influence the decision. That’s a legally protected response and is the entire point of the article.

[karaterobot]

Flagged because the title of the post is missing a key verb phrase.

[7e]

Flag the entire site for enforcing a very short headline length limit, like it's 1978 and we're reading it on an 80 character teletype. Must be a LISP thing.

[bamazizi]

I can't stand the X name! Twitter was more than a name/product. What's the catch phrase for "tweet this" or "someone tweeted me that" in X? "X this" or "someone X'd me that"? so awkward!

*edit: came to comment on employee handling fiasco but got distracted with the name

*Second edit: Wrote "twit" instead of "tweet". Out of sight, out of mind I guess!

[lexandstuff]

Just keep saying Twitter. The name change will inevitably be reverted when it's sold in a few years.

[Scoundreller]

I was aware that x.com was Elon's 1999 banking startup that merged into Paypal.

I thought he somehow still owned it and held onto it, but didn't know about this further tidbit of history:

> In July 2017, PayPal sold the domain X.com back to Musk.[17] In July 2023, X.com was repurposed to redirect to Twitter, following Musk's establishment of X Corp. to manage Twitter assets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com_(bank)

[KptMarchewa]

I still call Facebook Facebook.

[talldatethrow]

You think the name is so important, yet after a decade you wrote twit and twitted... When it's actually tweet and tweeted. Shows you how subjective it all is that after a decade at the top of mind people can still get it wrong.

[rescbr]

I love that some news outlets are still writing “X (ex-Twitter)” to this day.

[rnikander]

I don't like it either. It also seems arrogant to me – something about squatting on an entire letter and trying to rebrand it for your company.

[tough]

I like to resort to the portmanteau xeet for those occasions, I see it as my own little futile act of rebellion against the branding upgrade.

[qingcharles]

I was trying to find an SVG icon for 𝕏 today. Good luck finding a search box that will accept a one-character search term.

[manonthewall]

everyone I know still say twitter, tweets and tweeting.

[labster]

The name X is more appropriate, because pretty soon the company will soon be dead enough to have cartoon Xes for eyes.

[65]

> return-to-work

A subtle way to insinuate that working from home is somehow not working. That the only way to work is in an office.

[quickthrower2]

return to work really should be reserved for things like disability e.g. you broke your leg and your job is a waiter so you literally can’t work until it is healed.

[kevingadd]

Yeah, it's interesting that they accept the phrasing "return to work" here when "return to office" is commonly used and more accurate

[joshxyz]

should be rto return to office.

return to work is hilarious.

[DoreenMichele]

Pretty sure Elon Musk is on record as saying that people working from home are only pretending to work.

I don't think any subtlety is intended.

[yieldcrv]

mmm organizing to challenge return to office policies, the NLRB says

this suggests a theoretical way to override at-will employment by saying you were organizing in some way?

[dragonwriter]

Well, its not really theoretical that "at-will" employment means that termination is allowed by default (good cause is not required), but there are still prohibited "bad causes" (race, sex, labor organizing, etc.)

Of course, the burden is on the complaining party to show the bad cause, its not simply a matter of assertion.

[Afforess]

Yes, if it’s in good faith and you can prove it.

The way this was phrased implies bad faith. Courts care very much about intent.

[happytoexplain]

Well, lying is frowned upon, legally.

[bugglebeetle]

You can’t fire people for organizing their workplaces. This has been established law for 80 years.

[jongjong]

That is just ridiculous. Even as an employee, I believe that the company should be allowed to fire whoever they want whenever they want without justification. The company is paying money, they should be allowed to stop paying that money whenever they want... Otherwise it's not really their money. I've been fired over things that were not my fault and I never complained.

The monetary system which creates anti-competitive tech monopolies which makes it hard for people to start companies and find jobs should be fixed yes but that is a separate issue.