[frde_me]

> He had a son with severe Autism and Microsoft's health benefits were very important to him.

This really sucks for him. Through should Microsoft _not_ layoff specific people due to health conditions? Is that something we require from companies?

[project2501a]

How about you nationalize your healthcare, so people like that are not depended on their work to get the care they need?

[WalterBright]

Employer provided health care insurance came about during WW2 because Roosevelt froze wages. Companies discovered they could "raise" wages by paying for the insurance themselves.

The practice persisted because employer paid health insurance is tax-deductible, while it isn't if a person pays it out of pocket.

The obvious solution is to make it tax-deductible.

[KetoManx64]

How about you do some research on the kind of healthcare that people in countries with socialized healthcare receive. 6 month waitlists for a cancer screenings, multi day emergency room waits for broken bones, maybe you've heard of the oh so wonderful death pods in Canada? Our system is by no means the best, but I'll take it any day over socialized systems.

[trollbridge]

Note that a freshly laid off person will usually qualify for generous Medicaid benefits, including in WA state.

[mindcrime]

(Looking at this from an American centric point-of-view):

The Czar of health-care in the US today is a brain-worm addled, drug-addicted, vaccine-denying, conspiracy mongering, incompetent jackass. And the overall current administration has shown itself to be hostile to basically anyone who isn't a cis-gendered, white, heterosexual, Christian male.

How many of us really trust these people to make good decisions regarding our health-care? A position that they (or their delegates) would find themselves in if we "nationalize health care".

I think this is a classic example of an idea that sounds good on paper, but doesn't survive contact with reality.

[bagels]

What role did you specifically play in your country's nationalization of healthcare?

[eek2121]

Legally, Microsoft, or any company, cannot use any personal factors in determining who to lay off. If they do, they risk a very real lawsuit. All one needs to do is show some evidence of discrimination, and the EEOC doesn't charge a dime, the worst they will do is deny to pursue. If that happens, most private lawyers will take the case on contingency.

This is the reason you see sweeping cuts without regard to age, sex, etc.

There have also been lawsuits in the past that have settled out of court where a company's layoffs appear to overly inflict damage on one class vs. another, even if the intent was not to do that.

I am not defending these companies at ALL btw. I just have a bit of experience in this area due to the legalities, and I wanted to share it.

I am also not saying that companies don't do this, but the smart ones don't, and the smart ones at least try to at least avoid making it look obvious.

[Terr_]

> the EEOC

Which—for the folks not following along aghast at everything—has been sabotaged by recent federal political changes.

https://www.epi.org/blog/trump-is-making-it-easier-for-emplo...

[mschuster91]

> Is that something we require from companies?

In Germany, yes. For mass layoffs, this absolutely has to be considered. In general, the older the employee is, or if the employee has dependents, the more difficult it gets to both fire them or lay them off.

[WalterBright]

Germany's GDP is shrinking.

The regulations that make it hard to lay off someone have an equal and opposite effect of making companies very reluctant to hire. This impedes the efficient allocation of labor, resulting in a poorer GDP.

[wahnfrieden]

It is, but more generally. In many other countries, it is not so easy to lay off employees as it is in the US. It is also not necessary that your access to healthcare be contingent to your employer's whims.

[chrishare]

Not at all - it's legal, but it doesn't garner goodwill either.

[mxkopy]

Yes

[dghlsakjg]

Companies don’t have agency. People do. Compassion is a cross cultural value. Including amongst those that run companies.

For the most part none of us has any “required” obligation to anyone else.

Is it something we require of companies? No. But being a responsible, compassionate human being that considers the totality of circumstance is something I expect of that company’s leaders. Especially a company that has the money and need for technical skills elsewhere in the org.

The golden rule does not stop being true just because you are at work.

Preemptively: duty to shareholders is broader than short term profit maximizing. Avoiding bad PR like this is also in the service of MS shareholders.

As a side note: Nadella moved his home to Canada, while working at MS, so his special needs kid could go to a specialist school. That is absolutely the right choice. The argument that MS should not consider the health of their employees children is horseshit when they allow the CEO to set up house hours away in a different country for that exact reason.

At the end of the day, a kid suffered unnecessarily through no fault of his parents or his own.

[bowsamic]

Yes I’d say that such people should get extra protections

[kwanbix]

In europe (at least in Germany), they do get extra protection.

[jasomill]

In the US at least, there are needs-based high-risk insurance programs run by states that do just that.

Even so, while it's not a good argument against layoffs, the fact that it's even considered as such is in itself a reasonable argument against health care being tied to specific employment.