X ordered to pay €550k to Irish employee fired after yes-or-resign ultimatum

[singingwolfboy]

https://archive.ph/Ed2G2

[fsloth]

Would this be legal in any jurisdiction (click-or-be-fired)? I am not familiar with US labour laws, are employees actually at the level of indentured servants considering terms of employment (which I would expect to be a contract between TWO parties)?

[netcan]

Fwiw...

As a tendency, Irish labour courts tends to find in favour of employees... but also tend to award relatively small compensation.

A headline making award is pretty rare. Judge must not be a Twitter fan.

[freehorse]

They have to pay compensation based on salary and tenure time. Most likely the salary in this case was higher than an average Irish salary. Moreover firing without warning tends to increase the severance benefits even more, which is also why it is relatively rare.

[ghnws]

More likely that the offense by twatter was more egregious than what the courts are used to.

[paulddraper]

The judge is biased by social media?

[xeanotods]

If it's an illegally biased opinion then presumably it will be overturned on appeal. Otherwise Irish law looks prohibitively business-unfriendly.

[asah]

Good luck collecting: X is notorious for stiffing on debts.

[deskr]

I'd assume Ireland has something like bailiffs in the UK.

Delta tried not paying around £3000 owed to a customer. He got a court order and sent bailiffs who went to the airport, closed the checking and said they were going seize the plane to pay for the debt.

There's a good short documentary about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QSj9odUD_c&t=320s . This link starts at 320 seconds, where the action starts. Start from the beginning if you want the back story.

Spoiler: Delta called the police who explained to them that they were about to pay up or lose the plane. Delta paid up. Actually, the managed used her personal card to pay I'd assume Delta paid her back.

[rsynnott]

Collecting debts from a delinquent company is generally easier in Ireland than the US.

[inamorty]

If they fail to pay they will have their assets seized.

[tropicalfruit]

it's surprising how often saying nothing works out well.

[johnnyanmac]

when given 2 choices, people always forget the 3rd default choice of doing nothing. Despite many philosophies, "Doing Nothing" in a legal sense cannot be taken as a Yes or No. Maybe they simply never saw the message in time (especially something as time sensitive as 24 hours).

[thor-rodrigues]

I am glad to hear that workers rights are being enforced in Europe.

As an employee in Germany, it sounds deranged to receive an email saying I have one day to completely change my work contract, or be fired from my job.

[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.

[perlgeek]

BTW in Germany, if a company decides to lay off people just to save money, they have to coordinate with some government agency -- and if the company doesn't have financial trouble, those layoffs can be blocked.

This happened to Alphabet/Google when they wanted to lay off 6% of their workforce, but were wildly profitable. They couldn't in Germany.

(This probably wouldn't have applied in the Twitter case, because Twitter wasn't profitable, but it illustrates that there are processes and rules around employment that might seem very unusual to others).

[surgical_fire]

It's the main reason I chose to move to Europe instead of the US, despite potentially making more money in the US. I very much appreciate the labor protections in most EU countries.

[softveda]

I am in Australia. We are somewhere in between, not as strong as Germany or Western EU countries but infinitely better than US. When some of us were laid off by a US tech firm in 2023 they had to give us prior notice for consultation and not cut off our access immediately like they did in US. This allowed us a week to understand our rights and find out the mistakes in their offer. They had to go back and come back with a new better offer as per Australian laws.

In Australia we have codified National Employment Standards which are strictly enforced. https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/national-e...

[solardev]

Must be nice to live in a civilized society like that.

[GJim]

The number of US tech businesses that are surprised they need, or think they can ignore the need, to obey employment and data protection laws when working in other jurisdictions is simply bonkers.

[thayne]

In the US, you usually don't have a work contract. In many states the employer can fire you for any reason except for being a member of a protected class. Or change the terms of working there.

In such states, employees can also leave for any reason, but the asymmetry of the power dynamic means the "at will" laws are generally more beneficial to the employer.

[mywacaday]

Ireland has an organisation called the Workplace Relations Commission, anyone can log a complaint against their current or former employer without getting the lawyers involved. The case gets reviewed and if warranted a payment can be required. I believe this case was their highest ever award.

[throwaway_9321]

It's nice to have these labour laws, but they only help if you find yourself in the right situation, like this guy, a somewhat senior employee who stands to get a nice payout, and can therefore afford to engage in a legal battle.

But the most vulnerable of us are new grads or people with little experience, and most of the time the abuse from the bosses falls in a gray zone, where it is not clearly illegal, but still very damaging for the future of our careers. And no laws or unions will protect you from that kind of environment.

It's also worth mentioning, with respect to Germany specifically, that there are a lot of anti-worker customs that would make Americans gasp. For example, the quasi-requirement of having pictures and other personal information on your CV, the fact that racial discrimination is an open secret even though there are laws against it, the requirement of a reference letter from your previous employer, the glass ceiling that you will encounter frequently unless you are part of the right demographic to break into management ... I could go on.

As an employee in Germany, I feel abused and helpless. Most of the laws on the books are not written to protect me. The only thing that really protects people like me is a competitive job market.

[mrmetanoia]

My German co-workers have the healthiest relationship with work in the company because it seems they feel empowered to set boundaries. I often wonder if it's a commonality in Germany? It doesn't seem like perfection, they complain about things too, but it seems healthier to a degree from this vantage.

And it's amazing how much nonsense they don't have to deal with just because The business will make the Americans do it so as to avoid a works council hassle :P I'd like a works council that makes my management pause before they load me up with extra work on top of my normal tasks.

What's sad is the people who get frustrated by the German's not having to deal with the bullshit and instead of thinking "we should have that!" they think "They should NOT have that!"

humans are weird.

[hyperman1]

If this is allowed, the concept of a contract is meaningless, as all terms change whenever one party feels like it.

So Musk feels to be above contract law. The whole basis for law based commerce goes out of the window. Musk's world view is incredibly dangerous for a law based country.

This means €550k is a way to low number as punishment. It might be enough as restitution for the employee, but an additional, much stronger and personal punishment should be given to anyone who agreed with this way of working.

[rsynnott]

Most European countries, including Ireland, are not terribly keen on punitive damages as a concept. In this case the 550k was compensation, not punishment; any punishment would be separate, and likely by the regulators and not the courts.

[valenterry]

€550k is just the compensation. But for such a behaviour, there should be an actual punishment involved.

[DominikPeters]

As far as I understand, because employment is at-will and firing is trivial, most employees in the U.S. do not even have a job contract! This was very mind-blowing to me when I took my first U.S. job, where there was no contract (!!), only a 500-word "offer letter". I guess the reasoning is that if there ever were to be any conflict between employee and employer, the conflict would be settled by ending the employment relationship. So there is no point in the employer promising anything (e.g. number of vacation days) since the employer can costlessly renege on any such promise.

[maxehmookau]

Good. The richest man in the world doesn't get to be above the law on account of being rich.

If you own a company, that comes with responsibility and if you shirk those responsibilities the law will come for you; as it should.

[psychlops]

Consider that the commission is also pushing US companies to avoid Ireland.

[tchbnl]

You're right, Ireland doesn't deserve that trash fire.

[TrackerFF]

You can hire and fire, but you'll have to follow local laws.

Sorry, but bozos like Musk bank on being able to bend the rules, and changing the system. They're used to operating in places with either lax laws, or where enforcing the laws is too cumbersome, and think it same applies everywhere else.

Then they come to countries with rock solid workers rights and completely different cultures, act like clowns, and wonder why they're getting shot down in court.

[thih9]

This employer behavior is a result of the business model of collecting a critical mass of the users and later cutting operation costs.

It's viable because Twitter/X controls the access to the audiences of their users - if you leave, you lose your network.

I'd like next gen social media platforms to allow transitions from one provider to another. While related, I think this is a different topic than centralized/federated.

[seper8]

I think you should look at the facts and that is that X is both way more in the media than before - both in a good and a bad way - and the userbase has grown while a significant portion of operational expenses have been cut.

[CamelCaseName]

I think this is one of the very few times I've seen Elon Musk's companies lose a lawsuit.

With all the jockeying in the US, I wonder if this is a sign of more, meaningful, legal trouble to come.

[benreesman]

It’s really hard to know what to think about Elon Musk these days. At a surface level he’s acting a real asshole in a bunch of ways, but he’s surprised us with some seriously useful stuff on a number of occasions and so I’m always still hoping that there’s got to be a method to the madness.

I sure hope there is because the guy is in the running for most powerful man in history.