That's actually pretty good and how it's calculated in France when you're fired (beside the "notice" period, which would more or less match the two months here in Dell annoncement): https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F987 , and similar to what other countries here are doing.
1/4 of a month per year served up to 10 years, and 1/3 of a month per year served after the first 10 years
I'm of course ignoring the whole cause of layoff, which in France is very different and can lead to majoration or to straight up remove the severance, and also here unless you're someone with years on the job the paid holidays severance is usually the largest part of the amount you get and I don't think the US has an equivalent.
The 2 months is pretty standard for white collar corporate mass layoffs to cover the 60 day WARN notice requirement, since most corps just opt to sever people immediately and pay out the required notice period. For blue collar work it's typically more usual to make them work thru the notice period and offer retention bonuses.
Grading exit packages on a curve instead of what workers deserve only carries water for Dell and sets an ever lower bar for every subsequent round of layoffs.
Okay, how should it be graded? What's preventing me for arbitrarily choosing a number like 100 months? Averages might not be perfect, but at least everyone can agree on it.
You can choose 100 months then advocate your position on its merits, if you like. This is a political question, a contest of power and resources, not a math problem. Scaling severance to be proportionate to the average period of unemployment at the time of firing would ensure the company doing the layoff would bear their share of the societal burden of unemployment they are helping to create.
>You can choose 100 months then advocate your position on its merits, if you like
You certainly didn't bother to do that, and "2 months is generous because it's above average" might be a lazy argument and perpetuates the status quo, but it's certainly orders of magnitude better than no argument.
Your system of averaging employer input means that exclusively employers comprise a virtual senate for all matters severance and the corresponding employment they create.
Any proposal that considers opinion and interests beyond businesses’ is already more even handed than your proposal.
When I got laid off from GE I received a severance and bonus. They trained me on how to apply for unemployment so that my severance wasn't calculated. So I got unemployment and was able to bank my entire severance. If you follow the instructions without the help of legal advice your unemployment starts when the severance runs out.
The way I see it, if you want something fair it can't be solely the worker nor solely the employer.
And the governement would be too easy to be pushed too far one way or the other, depending on political climate.
Which is why unions should be pushed more, so employers and employee can negotiate than on equal terms (and not employer versus single employee).
Not american, and that's how it is here, and frankly it's not perfect but it seems a lot better than hope your employer has some decency to give you breadcrumbs and if not oh well tough luck.
Can you recommend any companies I can apply to with an option to “opt” for just-cause employment? Would be very impressed if you could list any companies offering “just-cause” employment with >=12,500 employees that these laid-off employees could have “opted” for.
Or does that not exist?
At first glance, it seems equivalent to “well, they opted to work on planet Earth”, with the implication that they could have opted to work on the moon or Mars or the ISS - as in, for the most part those options don’t actually exist, and where they do, there are a very limited number of jobs available (on the ISS), so that in fact not all of the 12,500 people could have opted to work there.
Although, look at it like a retroactive inflation adjusted 2% raise for every year up to 26 that you worked at Dell.
Dell doesn't _have_ to offer much of anything although in my experience the 1 week per year of tenure on top of a fixed payout is fairly common.
For a 26 year employee, that's a total of 8 months of pay which is plenty of time to find a new job - assuming you have valuable skills to contribute and haven't just been coasting for years and not keeping your industry skills up to date. If one can't find a job in six months that is similar to their now defunct job, they probably won't and likely need to adjust their expectations.
What's your baseline and where are you getting it? At least compared to the statutorily mandated amount of 0 days, and what companies typically give out (eg. 1-2 months), it's pretty good.
This varies a lot between cultures and jurisdictions obviously. But not even half of Dells emplyees are in the US, so presumably a large chunk of these layoffs will be elsewhere.
Welcome to America, where companies know they can fire easily so they hire easily. Strong competition between employers benefits employees. That is why salaries in the USA are so much higher than those in Europe. But hey, at least we’re not “exploited” here in the old EU. We're just being paid peanuts…
That's poor, when I was in financial services there were three rounds of layoffs in 10 years. The payout was notice period and 6 weeks per year capped at two years salary. Some people I know were on three months notice and had 15 years service.
> Severance for most will likely involve a payout of two months wages plus a week per year served up to a max of 26 weeks
A week per year of service?