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FiveFingerDiscount.com?
phillippaxton writes: "According to this link, dot-bomb victims are creating their own severance packages, no doubt walking away with the typical office tchotchkes (staplers, tape dispensers, etc.) but also big ticket items such as plush furniture, copiers, high-powered network servers, etc. One anecdote cites someone who lifted $445,549 of equipment, then tried to sell it on eBay as a company liquidating their assets." On the other hand, the fact that it's illegal to stiff your employees out of wages due them, even in a bankruptcy, isn't mentioned in the article...
If (ex-)employees have a legitimate grievance with their employers, they can bring them to court. If they win, they get paid, and if they don't, they can chalk it up to misfortune and move on. It's ludicrous to suggest that getting stiffed out of wages goes anywhere toward justifying theft.
Does anybody know what recourse there is for people like me to get the money owed them?
You go after them in bankruptcy court. Michael's intimation that somehow the employees' theivery is justified in these situations is just so stupid it makes me sick.
As for whether or not you can go after the assets of the CEOs, I believe you cannot. IANAL, but as I understood it companies are structured to protect the shareholders and executives from the creditors of the company. Now, if some of them were personally negligent, this might be different, but problems arising from their actions as executives of the company are probably not actionable.
heaven forbid that these geeks, after putting in 80 hour weeks, would feel they're entitled to anything other than an asskick out the door
A zealous opinion indeed. In fact, when I first read the article, I wholeheartedly agreed with you. Once I got over the emotional charge and saw the situation from a rational perspective it became very simple: These employees don't own this equipment, period. This is the only conceivable arguement. You have to remember that these geeks are getting paid for their 80 hour weeks. They are not entitled to the equipment that their employers paid for.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
Whenever an employer fucks up a pension plan, or terminates someone without good reason it's always "a shame". But whenever an employee walks away with a printer you can buy for 100 bucks on eBay after their severance package has been cancelled and their pay check bounced, it's "a criminal act".
This article is misleading and sensationalistic.
The most common items stolen from tech companies by employees are laptops and handheld computers that cost less than $1,500 per item, asset managers say. But they are also seeing an increase in big-ticket theft.
The writer gives ZERO facts in support of this.
One anecdote cites someone who lifted $445,549 of equipment
The anecdote refers to a MOTOROLA (hardly a dot-bomb) employee. The employee used his "security clearance" to steal a lot of stuff; I'd infer that there were multiple thefts over time while still employed. Either that or Motorola is too stupid to disable employees' access cards when they fire them, or maybe their security guards let people cart out half a million dollars' worth of equipment whenever they feel like it.
The second largest number mentioned is $100,000...
somebody had cut a hole through the wall and stolen $100,000 worth of computers.
This is a flat-out case of robbery robbery. The writer carefully worded it to make it look to a casual reader like an ex-employee had stolen it but gives ZERO evidence for this proposition.
The only news here isn't news...laptops and PDAs walk off. If you call someone and say "Don't bother coming back," they'll take you at your word, even if they've got a company laptop at home.
What I want to know is why people worked for free so long in the first place? I know when my paycheck comes, and if I don't get paid, I don't work. It's as simple as that. I work because I get paid. Why did these people continue to work? That seems like a pretty damn stupid idea. I'd rather sit at home in my PJ's, watching TV and sending out my resume then go into work for free. (And in fact, I was forced to do this once).