Bank's Severance Deal Requires IT Workers To Be Available For Two Years (computerworld.com)

dcblogs points out this story at Computerworld about a severance agreement that requires laid-off IT employees to be available to help out for two years. The article reads in part: "SunTrust Banks in Atlanta is laying off about 100 IT workers as it moves work offshore. But this layoff is unusual for what it is asking of the soon-to-be displaced workers: The bank's severance agreement requires terminated employees to remain available for two years to provide help if needed, including in-person assistance, and to do so without compensation. Many of the affected IT employees, who are now training their replacements, have years of experience and provide the highest levels of technical support. The proof of their ability may be in the severance requirement, which gives the bank a way to tap their expertise long after their departure. The bank's severance includes a 'continuing cooperation' clause for a period of two years, where the employee agrees to 'make myself reasonably available' to SunTrust 'regarding matters in which I have been involved in the course of my employment with SunTrust and/or about which I have knowledge as a result of my employment at SunTrust.'"

Comments

memory loss defence?

[dudpixel]

"I'm sorry, it seems I've forgotten how to fix that. Good luck"

Re:memory loss defence?

[linuxgurugamer]

I've had a traumatic brain injury, I've lost my entire memory for the time I was working there

Re:memory loss defence?

[kefalonia]

Yes, THIS.

"Sorry, my memory has failed me. What are you going to do? will you fire me? ;-)"

That clause is so ridiculous, that this kind of response would make even the judge chuckle with content!

Re:memory loss defence?

[Anonymous Coward]

A better response would be "Fuck you."

Employment is at will.

Re:memory loss defence?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Aside from just being an unbelievably gigantic dick move; this arrangement seems rather foolish on the bank's part: I suspect that they are correct in thinking that they have enough leverage to get the contract signed; but they can't seriously imagine that (even if the terms hold up in court) they'll be able to compel competent, motivated, actual-best-effort assistance under terms that are such an overt screwjob. And for something like software engineering or complex IT projects, do you really want people with good reasons to hate you and absolutely no incentive to do more than bare minimum touching anything? You've already axed them, so they have no incentive to do anything more than whatever is required to avoid legal action.

You'd think that it would be much more sensible(even if some asshole bean-counter thinks that it looks like leaving money on the table) to not fuck them over; so that they might actually be willing to do some contracting for you in good faith and with actual effort.

Re:memory loss defence?

[JoeMerchant]

>and to do so without compensation

Would seem unenforceable.

I've been asked to sign "unconscionable" severance papers before, including ones that forbid me from revealing the existence of such agreements - obviously, I didn't sign - and there were no negative consequences for me.

If nothing of value is offered in return, it's not a contract. Goodwill of my former employer who has stopped employing me with minimal notice and no promise of future return doesn't count as "of value."

Re:memory loss defence?

[ShanghaiBill]

>and to do so without compensation

Would seem unenforceable.

Indeed. Compelling someone to work for less than minimum wage is illegal. For instance, unpaid internships are generally illegal in America.

If nothing of value is offered in return, it's not a contract.

I believe the thing of value is the severance check. When my company last did a layoff, the terminatees were give one month of pay for each year of employment ... unless they refused to sign the severance agreement, in which case they got zilch. Everyone signed, but it was a very standard agreement, with no weird clauses ... basically an agreement not to steal anything and an agreement not to sue.

Re:memory loss defence?

[ultranova]

"Sorry, my memory has failed me. What are you going to do? will you fire me? ;-)"

No, they're going to sue you for damages for negligence, using the contract to keep the legal process going long enough to force you into bankruptcy.

Re: memory loss defence?

[JWW]

Well then I suppose the employees will have to come in and "help" then, it'd be a real pity of the only command they could remember was "drop table".

Re:memory loss defence?

[grasshoppa]

Not only is this "just deserts", but it's also quite probable. Institutional and architectural information tends to fade quickly, at least for myself. 6 months into a new job and I will only have passing knowledge on the systems. 1 year out and I'm back to almost square one with a weird sense of deja-foo ( on purpose ).

So fuck them. Take the money, develop amnesia and when they come calling, create chaos under the guise of "being helpful".

Re:memory loss defence?

[_KiTA_]

>and to do so without compensation

Would seem unenforceable.

They presumably paid for this on call time with the severance. Or at least that's the legal justification I'm sure they're using.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mysidia]

If nothing of value is offered in return, it's not a contract.

If nothing of value is being offered to you, and you've already been informed you are being severed, then you should just refuse to sign.

A severance agreement is supposed to involve compensation. If there's no compensation, benefit, or protection being provided to you, then it makes no sense to sign, just because they'd like to see it signed.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

What they would do is sue them for the severance... being that they probably had to sign something waiving all rights to the money if they do not complete the term of the agreement, the judgement would be in the company's favor without them even having to go to court.

Re: memory loss defence?

[plopez]

1) Change root password
2) make root password unmodifiable
3) Have root password expire at 23 months + 29 days.

Re:memory loss defence?

[plopez]

And don't forget, backups run faster when directed to /dev/null

Re:memory loss defence?

[AK Marc]

Not even bother with that. Sign it to get your money, then explain it's slavery to work for no money, and your rate is $500 per hour. What did you need help with again?

Re:memory loss defence?

[AK Marc]

They can't win the suit for severance. You can't sign yourself into slavery. So you can sign the contract, and take your money, then not come when they call. I'm sure it has a severability clause, almost all contracts do, so the slavery would be ruled illegal, but the rest of the contract stands, with that one deletion.

The employee would win and never have to go to court.

Re:memory loss defence?

[hairyfeet]

Am I the only one thinking this would be a great chance for some epic trolling? Show up in some nasty t-shirt that says something like "pussy hunter" smelling like beer and do a "super" job, if you define "super" as "halfassed and wrong".

Hey they said be available, i couldn't predict that they would call when I had been on a bender and was having issues, could I? ;-)

Re:memory loss defence?

[QuasiEvil]

Better yet - run the new guys around in circles for a while before coming to the, "Huh, well I guess I really don't remember how that works..." It only requires you to make yourself available, not to make yourself helpful. Maybe it's just because I enjoy !#@$ing with my enemies.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

Of course not.... that's what the severance is for... essentially the severance is acting as a retainer fee.

Obviously, if you end up working more time for them beyond what the retainer can actually cover based on wage laws, they would be required to pay you more money, regardless of what their contract says.

Employees that don't agree to to it can obviously just quit, but I'd be willing to bet that the size of severance is attractive enough to make a person's head turn and at least think it over.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Tablizer]

"Oh, I remember now. You wet your finger and quickly stick it into this little socket here..."

Re:memory loss defence?

[Z00L00K]

Who are you?

Re:memory loss defence?

[Z00L00K]

I can imagine the number of possible alternatives that people can show up as. Fully armed stating "where I go my gun goes" and so on. Even better if you have clothes that smell of cattle and horses exposure for at least a month. As long as it's not explicitly stated in the contract anything goes as long as it's legal.

Or you can get a 900-number "this call costs $50 per minute" and only provide support via phone.

Re:memory loss defence?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Ka tu nori?

That's my unfortunate trauma of suddenly only being able to speak in lithuanian.

This accidental trauma might occur again with the two other languages I know.

It's my failsafe for a lifetime non-compete. I was supposed to let the company know every job change I have had since I left. I told a friend of mine at the former workplace where I worked that I was working for my dad's consulting business - In lithuanian, which he didn't understand - and since the non compete never mentioned second jobs to the one you told them - well, that's their fault right?

I've never changed from working for my dad, I don't get paid mind you, and I don't actually do anything - but I am employed as a consultant.

Keep the paperwork and just be a dick. The law lets you find a bigger companies rules and will use that documentation if the business decides to come after you.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Darinbob]

There has to be SOME compensation, otherwise who would ever sign the agreement? And it would seem illegal otherwise. I suspect they get the normal severance pay, Cobra benefits, etc, but this extra clause by itself says that they can call and ask questions without *additional* compensation.

Overall, probably some idiot lawyer shoved that clause in without the executives really understanding it. Lawyers are good at that sort of thing. However asking them to remove it later is always a problem since they'll charge the company to fix it. I know someone in a situation where one company says the contract is being misinterpreted incorrectly and it's not what the meant, but they seem reluctant to change the contract or allow the relevant clause to be struck out (just sign the contract and we'll promise verbally to not enforce that one part), even though there's another much larger company threatening to cancel all business if they don't.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Jane Q. Public]

If nothing of value is offered in return, it's not a contract.

I've tried to tell people this many, many times here on Slashdot. You might be surprised at how many people said I was nuts.

Don't forget, also, that a contract is supposed to be negotiable by both parties... otherwise it's pretty much impossible to call it an "agreement". A take-it-or-leave-it "contract" offered by a corporation is often considered a "Contract of Adhesion", over which judges traditionally give greater weight to the signer's position.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just draw a line through it. They tried crap like that with an employment contract where I once worked. I just kept drawing a line through it, initialising it, and signing the contract until they gave up trying and signed it as well.

Re: memory loss defence?

[whoever57]

For example, it's totally legal here to force an attorney or developer to work 100 hours per week, and not pay them any overtime or comp time.

It's not going to supersede Federal law. Federal minimum wages still apply.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Jane Q. Public]

It doesn't really matter. If there's no consideration offered by the company, they can sign it 10 times in blood and with their children's names too. It's still unenforceable. It might be funny to see them try.

Re: memory loss defence?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could strike out the offensive clause, with signature of both parties and the date beside stricken clause. And this on both copies, of course.
Bonus points if it's with the same pen.

Re:memory loss defence?

[tlhIngan]

Not only is this "just deserts", but it's also quite probable. Institutional and architectural information tends to fade quickly, at least for myself. 6 months into a new job and I will only have passing knowledge on the systems. 1 year out and I'm back to almost square one with a weird sense of deja-foo ( on purpose ).

Even worse, in between the time, things change. Just because server Foo handled the security when you were around, doesn't mean Foo is doing it 6 months down the road. So you remember you were toggling security options on Foo, but in reality, it's done by Bar the past 3 months. Just no one's bothered to update Foo and remove the now-unnecessary software.

So now security issue Baz caused by Bar is hanging around because everyone's concentrating on Foo because well, it was Foo. A couple of weeks later, someone asks why you're messing on the wrong server.

And in the meantime, you've reinstalled, you've restored, you've acquired new hardware. All because Foo was the way to do it when you left.

Not only is institutional knowledge fragile temporally, it's fragile in that a snapshot of the way things were 1 month, 2 months, 6 months, a year or more is woefully out of date.

Hell, perhaps you had some server TheMaster doing something vitally important. They decommission TheMaster, and things start failing. A month later of trying to fix the issues they call you back, and you ask about TheMaster, to which no one remembers, and whose remnants are now at the local recyclers.

I really don't see what's the point - the moment you leave, the knowledge you have is outdated and stale. Even if you remember it, there's a very good chance your outdated knowledge will lead you down the wrong rabbit hole. So what might have taken a day to fix had you been around, now costs the bank weeks in down time chasing the wrong lead because someone did a change.

So "I forget" is not only valid, it's a safer answer than "I fixed this before, you do A, B and C".

Re:memory loss defence?

[shione]

Common law already has an eminently sensible solution to this problem - You can’t enforce specific performance on a labour contract. If the IT workers performance is poor, the bank needs to find a new IT worker. End of story.

Re:memory loss defence?

[matunos]

I have to assume that they're getting some lump sum payment as part of the severance package, and getting that payment is contingent on agreeing to offer support later without *further* compensation.

Otherwise, you'd be an idiot to agree to it-- enforceable or not-- and who wants idiots providing operational support down the road?

Re:memory loss defence?

[Opportunist]

That's what I always wonder when I hear someone ask "Where have you been on June 26th 2005"? Fuck, I barely remember where I have been on a specific day last week!

Re:memory loss defence?

[Opportunist]

You mean, what alread happens when training your replacement?

I never fully understood why anyone would think that you could tell someone that he is basically already fired, that the new guy is his replacement and then expect him to train him honestly. Yes, I used to be "professional" like that, until I noticed that this kind of "professionalism" gets abused too easily. You want to replace me? Do it. But expecting me to be stupid enough to help you with it insults my intelligence.

Re:memory loss defence?

[viperidaenz]

That's convenient, your H1-B replacement is from Lithuania!

Re:memory loss defence?

[Opportunist]

Not to mention that things change in companies. What used to be the correct way to do something can break things beyond repair 6 months later. Faster even in a financial environment where regulations change every other month.

Re:memory loss defence?

[AK Marc]

Though (going off what's been represented as what's in it, I haven't read the contract in full), the "make available" clause is slavery and illegal, thus would be stricken. And the contract, having standard severability clause, would allow the one invalid clause stricken, and the rest remaining, leaving full severance payment and no recourse from the employer.

The slashdotters defending the company are assuming a level of competence in the contract that hasn't been proven. There was no "up to" in the clause shown here, so the clause is simply invalid. You have no legal obligation to follow an invalid clause until you think it's invalid.

Re:memory loss defence?

[GNious]

Simpler:
"'make myself reasonably available'"
"do so without compensation"
The level of "reasonably" achieved "without compensation" is a great big "not at all".

Re:memory loss defence?

[dbIII]

It does seem unenforcible but it's still an excuse to harass you by lawyer until you do what they say or serve as an example to others. It's the sort of thing that attracts fines to companies that try such things in other countries. In this case there is likely to be zero consequences for the pricks that are trying to impose this.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Anonymous Coward]

And for something like software engineering or complex IT projects, do you really want people with good reasons to hate you and absolutely no incentive to do more than bare minimum touching anything? You've already axed them, so they have no incentive to do anything more than whatever is required to avoid legal action.

In companies that care about IT security (which, as it should be clear by now, does NOT include banks), the standard procedure - even in countries like Denmark where you get three to six months notice depending on how long you worked there - is to remove all access to the systems the same moment you give a person his notice. As in "we're going to keep paying your salary for the next six months (as you are still officially an employee), but you can go home and enjoy life". If they need your help, you're going to tell someone what to do, you are not going to get access.

Re:memory loss defence?

[LordWabbit2]

Exactly, have them chasing their tails and looking in all the wrong places.

I knew a company who outsourced all their stuff, they kept insisting that we send them files, kept telling them we don't send ANYONE files, but we do send swift messages. Even had to go to their office for a meeting about the files we send them. So somewhere in their building the previous developers had set up a server, which was receiving switft messages from us and writing them to a file. I don't know if they ever found the server.

Re:memory loss defence?

[pslytely psycho]

Oh, yes, I remember now, we need the CEO to urinate on the servers to cool them, yes, I'm certain that will fix the problem....

Re:memory loss defence?

[ArsenneLupin]

If nothing of value is offered in return, it's not a contract.

But is actually "nothing of value" offered. Supposedly "severance" means that you get a (huge) lump sum at departure, and the bank could argue that the reason why the same was so big (rather than the bare legal minimum) was as a consideration in exchange of having the soon-to-be ex-employee "on call" for the next 2 years. Of course, he would be able to refuse it (... and get a much smaller severance payment...).

Re:memory loss defence?

[ArsenneLupin]

being that they probably had to sign something waiving all rights to the money if they do not complete the term of the agreement,

... but would they have to give back everything or would it be prorated on the time of the incident (i.e. if the incident happened one year after, would they only need to give back half of the severance check, or everything?).

Even, "in good faith", it might not be obvious for the ex-employee to uphold the deal. Obviously, being laid off, he'll be looking for other opportunities. And might be working for another companies a couple of months after the layoff. And if the bank called after that time, with a problem big enough that it requires on-site presence for several days, the employee may have trouble getting enough vacation days from his newer employer to cover that.

And being not allowed to look for other opportunities during those 2 years would be hugely unfair, as normally the purpose of a severance check is to allow you to survive until you've got a new source of revenues. If you're barred from doing that, it defeats the whole point.

Re:memory loss defence?

[nospam007]

"That's my unfortunate trauma of suddenly only being able to speak in lithuanian."

You are joking, but does the deal also forbid you to move to Lithuania or Canada?

It's just crazy, if you want people to help out in specific circumstances, you should at least pay for it and for all transportation etc.
In most countries, it would be illegal anyway.

Re:memory loss defence?

[tburkhol]

A severance agreement is supposed to involve compensation.

And that's exactly the way this one works. These deals are something like "Your job has been made redundant, effective today. We can offer a one month contract to train a foreign worker in a newly created job with very similar responsibilities to your old job and a further three months salary equivalent if you agree to make yourself available for consultation over the next two years."

Don't agree to train your replacement, and you're out of a job today, instead of next month. Find that you've forgotten all your old skills when they call you a year later, and they can ask for that 3 month severance back.

This is where a union would be useful. If the company offers that deal to 100 individuals, it's in each person's best interest to take the deal. If one or two uppity fools decline, it doesn't impact operations. If everyone declines the "deal," then the company is fucked. A union is the way to escape the Prisoner's Dilemma that is salary negotiation.

Re:memory loss defence?

[amiga3D]

I'd make it hard for them to even find me.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Half-pint HAL]

Yes, but the contract says "reasonably available" and the reasonable amount of availability under law for a terminated contract of employment is approximately 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 hours per millennium.

Re:memory loss defence?

[RabidReindeer]

Well, see, they had to bring in all those H1-B workers because they couldn't find qualified Americans!

Sorry. There's no "Irony" mod.

Re:memory loss defence?

[j-beda]

That's what I always wonder when I hear someone ask "Where have you been on June 26th 2005"? Fuck, I barely remember where I have been on a specific day last week!

The podcast "Serial" which revisits the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, and the 2000 conviction of Adnan Masud Syed for that murder. It is clear that a huge number of people could not recall details about the time of the murder, and that the details from people who were in the same room witnessing the same events are significantly different.

It is a very engaging series. For me at least I am left with almost no confident idea of who did it.

http://serialpodcast.org/

Clearly we should all be wearing body cams at all time.

Re:memory loss defence?

[deadweight]

I *would sign this* for the fun of it! You are so right. Sit down and crank the porn! You know I can't work without 3-women-and-2-donkey-porn running. Have issues with basic stuff like forgetting del *.* and dir are not the same commands. Forget your password about 300 times a day and open a ticket each time to get it reset. Don't shower the whole time. Etc Etc ROFLMAO

Re:memory loss defence?

[jittles]

Not only is this "just deserts", but it's also quite probable. Institutional and architectural information tends to fade quickly, at least for myself. 6 months into a new job and I will only have passing knowledge on the systems. 1 year out and I'm back to almost square one with a weird sense of deja-foo ( on purpose ).

So fuck them. Take the money, develop amnesia and when they come calling, create chaos under the guise of "being helpful".

Ahh but why even bother with that? The contract supposedly requires only "reasonable" help. Who considers working for the bank for free to be reasonable? I don't think a judge would. I would sign the contract and if they called me even a day after severance I would tell them that I can't reasonably afford to help without compensation as I'm too busy trying to find new employment in order to ease the burden on government unemployment resources.

Re:memory loss defence?

[kilodelta]

Yeah - you have me train replacements and then want me to be available for two years? Pucker up!

Re:memory loss defence?

[TheGratefulNet]

lots of people like to hate on calif, but in this state, its a true 'right to work' state and that means no employer can deny you the ability to work in your field (even if it means working for the competition) and no employer can force you to be OUT OF WORK. this is pants-on-head levels of crazy, here, with this bank bullshit!

look mr. company man, you are telling us that you have low confidence in your CHOICE to fire us all and hire h1b's. its not our fault you went full retard on this one; and you cannot make it our problem once you let us go.

it should be interesting to see what happens. does the bank get slapped down or are they allowed to let this die quietly? I cannot see this non-contract standing once it gets public scrutiny. banks DO need customer confidence and if this goes truly public and is NOT spun so that it makes the employees sound bad, maybe a good example could be made.

there really needs to be a LOT more company bitch-slapping since the companies are so out of control right now. they get anything they want and the US government keeps giving them this, that and the other.

Re:memory loss defence?

[freak0fnature]

My coworker waived his severance because he wanted to keep his right to badmouth his former employer. Not sure his head is screwed on straight.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Half-pint HAL]

It's a difficult one, because the contract says "reasonably available". What is a reasonable availability to do unpaid work for a company that made you redundant? Some would say "zero". I would be one of them. The former employer would have to stand up in court and define "reasonable" before they could do anything else. No-one's going to Streisand themselves on this one -- it's an unenforceable term, and they'd be mad to chase anyone legally over it, but it'll be a good opening gambit if and when they need someone to come in.

Thinking about it, it's quite possible that the point of the exercise is to torpedo attempts by middle managers to bring back experienced (previously redundant) hands as contract consultants, which is kind of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Re: memory loss defence?

[Applehu Akbar]

"It's not going to supersede Federal law. Federal minimum wages still apply."

The SCOTUS hasn't had a real live Thirteenth Amendment case in years. This will get interesting.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Shortguy881]

I searched but couldn't find more on the severance package. This could be an attempt by the company to pay severance only while the prior employee remains unemployed. I'm not saying that that's right either, I'm just saying its hard to paint a clear picture of whats going on with only one piece of information.

Re:memory loss defence?

[jbmartin6]

It would fall under the reasonable person doctrine, as the agreement stated "make myself reasonably available". Would a reasonable person make themselves available for anything more than a short phone call without compensation? I expect not.

Re:memory loss defence?

[oh_my_080980980]

Not for consulting work which this clearly is...so the bank would need to pay them. That clause would not be enforceable in court.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Z00L00K]

At least he's honest, that's something he has in his advantage.

Too few people aren't honest because they are afraid of repercussions.

Re:memory loss defence?

[TheGratefulNet]

(ring, ring)

"hello?"

"we need you to come in and fix our system."

"busy now; just reinstall windows."

"really?"

(click)

Re:memory loss defence?

[tj2]

... and who wants idiots providing operational support down the road?

I have to assume this is a rhetorical question, based on my past experiences with situations such as this. "Down the road" is a mythical place to many people, whereas the "savings" by firing expensive people and replacing them with inexperienced dipshits occurs in real time.

Re:memory loss defence?

[bluefoxlucid]

Yeah came here to say this. It's a contract for...? Legally, it's not even a valid contract if you're not exchanging anything; the contract is not valid until an exchange occurs.

If you contract to provide service, and then don't get paid, and so don't provide service, there's no contract. Mind you, if you contract to provide service, agree to back out by a certain date if you can't, then don't provide service, the first exchange is bidding: you provide service, and your client doesn't get anyone else to do it. If your client contracts a second guy as back-up without your informed consent, that's a firing offense, and you fire the client.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

Ordinarily, you are right.... but since *THIS* severance is tied with a provision that the person should continue be available to work for them for two years without further compensation, essentially making the severance package act like a retainer fee, and why I suggested that it might be sizeable enough to consider it. Typical severance packages that I've seen are more like what you describe, such as "you agree not to sue us", etc, and have nothing in common with a retainer fee.

Re:memory loss defence?

[TheGratefulNet]

I'd like to see a court go along with a company demanding their SEVERANCE back due to a worker (who was away from the job for months) not remembering something.

then again, this is the deep south and they have zero respect for workers down there. if a southern judge rules on this, the employees COULD be toast. its not legal, but that never stopped the south from being, well, the south, before.

Re:memory loss defence?

[beelsebob]

It seems easy to circumvent. The bank asks them to be "reasonably" available. The level of availability that's reasonable is ... not being available. So, just don't provide them with any help.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

It's not slavery if they are being paid for it.

And in this particular case, the employees that agree to the terms will get paid for the additional work that they do with severance at the time of termination, making the severance act like a retainer fee.

Based on the amount of time they would actually be called on to do further work for the company during that two years, the severance should obviously have to be enough to cover that time. If it is not, then that would still be covered by wage laws, and the company would have to pay them more money to do more work than what the severance package covered anyways. This is why I figure the size of the severance must be pretty big... probably amounting to no less than a quarter of a person's annual salary. If it were any less, nobody but those who felt they would be unable to find future employment would ever consider agreeing to it. Some others may not consider agreeing to it as well, but in the end, if the actual amount of extra time that they may need someone to do any work only amounts to an extra day or two over the next two years, they would be only shorting themselves. If it somehow amounted to more than what the severance could cover (in the case of my example of 1/4 of a person's annual salary as severance they end up working for more than 3 extra months after termination without further pay , then the company *STILL* has to pay them more money because of wage laws).

Re:memory loss defence?

[cob666]

This is also the first thing that popped into my head when I read the story. H1-B workers are only supposed to be brought in if there are no American workers that are capable of doing the job available. If that's so then why are you letting the current workers go but keeping them on retainer? Surely they are capable of doing the job if you are keeping them on retainer, thus the H1-B workers is in violation of the intent of the H1-B program.

This looks like an incredible opportunity to take legal action against the entire program and expose it for what it really is, a Visa loophole exploited by American companies to screw higher paying US workers.

Re:memory loss defence?

[grimmjeeper]

(ring, ring) "Hello, laid off IT. Turn it off and turn it back on again." (click)

Re:memory loss defence?

[nerdbert]

And that's where it's actually fun.

IF you were to sign this and IF they actually called you in for something it's pretty obvious that their H1-B guys and the Sun-Trust management are clueless as to what was done, so milk it. You have to be reasonably available -- which doesn't mean you have to lose your current job, so the only time you can work is at night, right? At night, with your feet on the desk and obviously struggling really, really hard over this intractable problem. "It's gonna take months, and months of work ex-boss. You better plan on this taking years of work, with you hiring me at consulting rates after the severance has run out. Oh, you don't think so, you think I should finish this faster? Then why'd you call me in if someone should do it faster?"

Dumping the "why the hell do you think I'd help someone who fucked me over" attitude, my guess is that Sun-Trust is trying to cover their ass. According to the article, the H1-B folks were shadowing the workers for a month or two, meaning that they've not really had a chance to see everything that the employees really do. So down the road when something that they haven't seen comes up (annual RedHat upgrade, or whatever) and something unique that their setup/software requires breaks they want to be able to come calling the ex-employees asking for help.

In a normal layoff due to rough times for the company, I don't think the ex-employees would fight those severance terms too hard. The thing is, when you're being replaced by less qualified H1-Bs for no good reason I think you'd be hard pressed to expect much cooperation. If it was happening to me there would be a decision tree that goes like this: (1) It's an easy fix, but it was a weird customization we had to do to make specialized software work -> "Damn, ex-boss, that's weird. I have no clue, it's been too long since I've been there for me to remember how we did that. I know it was something really strange, sorry." (2) It's a harder fix, requiring more than a day of customizations -> "Oh that. Yeah, I vaguely remember we used to have to have to heavily modify packages u,v,w,x,y,z with some wrappers and a bunch of new procedures. Of course, if anything else was modified in the environment it'd take even more changes and analysis. You're talking a couple of man-years since I don't remember everything we did and frankly your environment is totally different from where I'm working now. Sure, I can be "reasonably available" for consulting after my current gig. Did I mention that I'm working 60 hours a week, so "reasonably available" is maybe a couple hours a week late at night? Yeah, that might push out that couple of man-years worth of work, I suppose, why do you ask?"

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

Unemployment compensation is weekly or bi-weekly. Severance is paid out all at once. Relating the two makes no sense unless you relate the severance to a duration of unemployment compensation. If it only for a week or two, I wouldn't even consider it... since any severance received only further delays when unemployment compensation may be received by effectively pushing forward the date of termination (ie, if you are paid two weeks normal salary as severance, then your effective date of termination is pushed forward exactly two weeks, and you must wait that much longer to receieve benefits). Severance is generally preferable to unemployment benefits in that it is money that is in your hands right now, and does not have any wait time associated with like unemployment benefits ordinarily does. Ideally, one will find new work before their unemployment benefits even start, and in that case, will be further ahead anyways.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

Or you could, you know, just have a good work ethic and actually try to get the job done that they ask. Given that it isn't expected to interfere with other work anyways (and that includes time you would reasonably spend looking for other work), the amount of time that they will probably request from you is minimal anyways. Plus, if you do good by them, they will be that much more likely to provide a good reference to your next employer.

Re:memory loss defence?

[serviscope_minor]

The thing to say is:

"have you tried urinating on the servers to cool them?"

Technically you're just asking if they've tried it. I can't see how it's your problem if they misinterpret a simple question as a suggestion.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Cederic]

Exactly.

It's not reasonable for me to take time away from my new job to help you. It's not reasonable for me to work outside normal hours to help you. It's not reasonable for me to work for you without payment.

If my skills, knowledge and time are that valuable to you, demonstrate it.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Enigma2175]

Supposedly "severance" means that you get a (huge) lump sum at departure and the bank could argue that the reason why the same was so big (rather than the bare legal minimum)

By the "bare legal minimum" do you mean "nothing at all" or are there states where severance is mandated by law?

Re:memory loss defence?

[omnichad]

They're moving the jobs offshore. No H1-B required for that.

Re:memory loss defence?

[omnichad]

If it isn't two years of salary in severance, it's not enough to make it worth it. For one, if it's not limited, they could technically ask them to work every day for 2 years. Yes, that's covered under labor laws and they might have to pay more but it could end up being 2 years of minimum wage employment.

Imagine worse. Your new employer won't take kindly to you constantly leaving to go take care of this company. So not only do you lose the first job, you may lose the second job as well. And that loss of employment won't be covered by the first severance package.

Re:memory loss defence?

[chad.koehler]

The union in your example could mean that everyone agrees to take the deal or not, but in my opinion, in this industry it's just not worth it.

The "IT" industry is in a hiring fervor right now. Competent individuals can get a job almost immediately.

Re:memory loss defence?

[ArmoredDragon]

Or you could do something like claim your new job has some work hours that won't make you available most times, and if they ask you when you can be available, tell them Saturday night.

When that day comes you're going to be highly boozed up and you'll need a taxi. Make sure to be 1 hour late to catch your taxi, and if the taxi driver leaves before you're ready then fuck him they'll have to hire another one. Of course don't mention all of this, just you're making yourself reasonably available in that it's not a time that you normally work, and last I checked there aren't any rules to show up sober to a job that you aren't getting paid for.

Re:memory loss defence?

[blue9steel]

It's not slavery if they are being paid for it.

True, that would be more akin to bonded labor, sharecropping or company towns, all forms of quasi-slavery.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

Any requirement that interferes with other employment exceeds the parameters of "reasonably available", and would not be enforceable. As it stands, the contract even explicitly states that availability des not extend to that level.

Re:memory loss defence?

[omnichad]

So evenings and weekends for 40 hours per week. Even an hour of extra work on a weekday could make you tired the next day for your new employer.

Re:memory loss defence?

[deadweight]

EVERYONE knows H1-B is a program to screw American workers. Apparently no one cares.

Re: memory loss defence?

[AvitarX]

Additionally it shows the bank has no faith in the outsourced workers they are laying off Americans for.

Giving fuel for regulation on that.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

So evenings and weekends for 40 hours per week

Evenings and weekends, probably, but only to the extent that it does not interfere with current employment. If the employee has shift work, the former employer would be required to accommodate that, not the former employee. Further, it would not be 40 hours per week, it would be weighted by the estimated probability that they are even likely to call the person in at all. If they end up calling someone in more than that amount, such that the amount of severance does not actually cover the amount of time actually worked the employee could rightfully refuse any further service (or could work for more pay at a newly negotiated pay scale) but I expect that the bank does not anticipate this to happen.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

It's not unpaid.... they received severance. In this particular case, because of the requirement that they may be called upon to do additional work that is otherwise unpaid, this severance can be thought of either as a retainer, or as payment in advance for work that may be expected to be done later. If the bank is wrong and the amount of time required actually is less than what they would have paid in wages for the extra time actually worked in that period, then while they are apparently out money, that's not the employee's problem. If the bank is wrong and the amount of time required is more, then they will have to pay the person for extra time worked beyond that amount to be compliant with wage laws, regardless of what the contract says. The worst requirement of the severance is not that they should be available for two years, its that they should be expected to stay on for a period of time to train their lower-paid replacements.

Re:memory loss defence?

[ACE209]

If your job gets offshored, that might hurt work ethics a bit.

Re:memory loss defence?

[ACE209]

"and be sure to aim for the power supply - those definitly need the most cooling"

Re:memory loss defence?

[HornWumpus]

Cheap beer, kimchi and hard boiled eggs for dinner for the duration.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

I see your point... but that being the case, I would probably just decline the terms of severance in the first place unless the severance was really really large. They could either fire me on the spot or let me stay on without training my replacement (although I would start looking for other work immediately).

Re: memory loss defence?

[erikscott]

Bobby? Bobby Tables? Is that you? Haven't heard from you in ages, dude. What have you been up to? Things went to pieces here right about the time you left...

Re:memory loss defence?

[Coren22]

With a one week minimum.

Re:memory loss defence?

[fahrbot-bot]

It's more insulting than that. For example, I have ~30 years experience as a systems programmer and administrator on just about every Unix system known and multiple scripting / compiled programming languages. For management to think I could "train someone up" in a month is a little insulting.

For a similar actual example, I once had a new manager, w/o a heavy tech background, who wanted me to explain a LOT of stuff to him adding the phrase, "don't worry, I'm a quick learner". And I'm thinking, so you're going to pick up my BSCS and (at that time) 20 years of experience during our lunch meeting?

An opposite example was a manager, actually with a tech background, telling me that he didn't need *all* the details because, "that's why I have you." He just wanted information he needed to make higher-level decisions and wanted me to translate geek to manager.

Re:memory loss defence?

[AK Marc]

The "advance" was to be available. The pay is for work done, or slavery. As they are not paying for the work done, it's slavery.

Re:memory loss defence?

[AK Marc]

And in this particular case, the employees that agree to the terms will get paid for the additional work that they do with severance at the time of termination, making the severance act like a retainer fee.

A retainer fee pays for availability, but not work performed. So by your words, they are paid to be available, but not paid for the work performed.

And in this particular case, the employees that agree to the terms will get paid for the additional work that they do with severance at the time of termination, making the severance act like a retainer fee.

So it's not a retainer, it's a pre-payment for work. But there is no clause that caps the work hours to those pre-paid for. So you are arguing that the clause, as represented here, is invalid. When the invalid clause is struck, the employee gets to take the severance and run, no obligation.

Re:memory loss defence?

[HornWumpus]

A retainer agreement has to have a rate. Otherwise it's meaningless.

I would assume my rate for contract 'come back and fix' is a multiple of my previous full time employment rate. A 10x multiple.

No way are they getting me on contract for the same rate they had me as full time employee.

The severance is not a retainer. It might be a 2 year on call fee.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Locke2005]

My theory is that business schools now teach all MBA students that employees are fungible assets, that is, replaceable parts, therefore replacing a highly experienced yet highly paid employee with a no-nothing contract employee make perfect business sense -- your headcount remains the same, but your cost plummet. Obviously same headcount means same level of service, right?

Re:memory loss defence?

[Darinbob]

It is a contract in that you are paid, just up front as part of the severance. The snag is that the back end is unclear - how often will they call you, what will happen if you don't give them a satisfactory answer ("I forgot the password"), etc.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

The only reason I suggested it would be like a retainer is because it differs too radically from payment in advance for work in that it is paid out whether or not the future work (if any) is ever actually performed. If you are paid in advance for work that you do not actually do, then you have to pay it back. Even in this case, the severance would not have to be repaid if the company does not have them do any further work.

I would assume my rate for contract 'come back and fix' is a multiple of my previous full time employment rate. A 10x multiple.

You say that like you doubt the severance would be that much. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it were... or even more. I'd expect it to be something like at least 8 to 10 weeks worth of wages, if not more. That's a fair amount of money to get at one time for most people, so it might make even a very skeptical person's head turn and consider it. If a person is only ever asked to do some otherwise unpaid work only one or two days over the next two years, they've come out quite ahead.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

So it's not a retainer, it's a pre-payment for work.

No it is not, because pre-payment for work must be repaid if the work is not done. You are right that it is a lot like pre-payment for work, but in this case, it acts like a retainer in the sense that they receive it whether or not they *actually* do any further work.

Re: memory loss defence?

[MooseTick]

"Federal minimum wages still apply"

Federal minimum wages only apply if your business deals in interstate commerce. I suspect most attorneys don't. That said, I doubt any attorneys work for less than minimum wage. Also, you can't really force anyone to work 100 hours a week. You can ask, and if they don't you can fire them, but you cant really force them to do it.

Re:memory loss defence?

[MooseTick]

"sue them for violating minimum wage laws"

They would likely just say the severance is a prepayment for consulting services. I could see this being the wave of the future. Why just give money away with severance when they can prepay you for xx hours which they may never need, but if they do they have you.

Really, if you left some place and they said, "Hey, we will prepay you $250\hour for 10 hours of consulting services which we may\may not take advantage of in the next 24 months." Would you take that $2500 or not?

Re:memory loss defence?

[jjbenz]

Agreed in full.

Re:memory loss defence?

[bluefoxlucid]

When I left one job that I did a lot of work for, I gave them documentation on all the shit I did. We signed a contract in which they could commission me for up to 80 hours of consulting work over the next 6 months at $37.50/hr and I had to respond, in case they needed support.

Up-front pay is a lot of risk for the client: what if they never use you? They're doing this with 1,000 workers; if severance is 10% of their salary for 1 year, they're paying 100 workers full-time 1 year just in case they need to pull any of them back for any amount of time over the next 2 years. There will likely be a lot of IT workers winning big on this, pulling $10k out of their employer for nothing, and a few getting the shit end of the stick; the employer will likely pay for more work than it uses.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

And if the bank called after that time, with a problem big enough that it requires on-site presence for several days, the employee may have trouble getting enough vacation days from his newer employer to cover that.

Interfering with other employment negates any notion of "reasonably available", and is even explicitly stated in the contract that availability shall not be expected to extend to that level. The contract also says that any costs incurred by the employee to fulfill the obligation of being available would have to be covered by the employer, so if you moved to another state, they would have to pay to fly you in and back.... and they would still have to time such a trip that you do not miss any work.

Re: memory loss defence?

[whoever57]

Federal minimum wages only apply if your business deals in interstate commerce. I suspect most attorneys don't.

If what you grow in your own back garden and subsequently consume yourself (without selling to anyone else) is "interstate commerce", then I suspect that the work of attorneys is also "interstate commerce".

Re:memory loss defence?

[AK Marc]

Right, and since it's not returned, regardless of whether work is done, it must be a retainer, as it's obviously not pre-payment to be returned. If it's a pre-payment without return of overpay, then it's an illegal clause because it doesn't indicate an end to the work required if the pre-payment is exceeded, making it slavery (well, indentured servitude, which is legally slavery).

And a retainer without pay is slavery.

The clause to require work is illegal. It will be stricken if enforced, and the employee will retain 100% of the severance and not have to work.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Darinbob]

They pay the severance anyway in most cases. I've seen a lot of cases of 4 weeks pay as severance with no cooperation agreements. I don't know if that's normal in the IT world though, where outsourcing and employee interchangeability is more common.

Re:memory loss defence?

[HornWumpus]

Without an hourly rate, you are at the mercy of their definition of 'reasonable'.

8 weeks pay, for 2 years at 5 hours/week? Not just no, hell no! That's a pay cut for working part time.

8 weeks pay, for 2 years at 1 hour/week? Maybe.

8 weeks pay, for 2 years at 1 hour/month? Yes.

But I'm not about to just trust them.

More basically, I'd walk during the 'train your replacement' initial period.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

And a retainer without pay is slavery.

It's my understanding with retainers, or at least certain classes of them, is that if a person is on retainer and their retainer happens to be sizable enough that the demand of work to be done will not exhaust the retainer at the agreed rate of pay, no further payment is required... the portion of the retainer so worked for thus falling into the category of advance payment after they have worked for it, and also diminishing the amount of the remaining retainer.

Re:memory loss defence?

[metrix007]

It's not unenforceable.

They don't have to provide a severance package (outside of whatever may be in their current contract), and they are offering one, likely attractive offer on the deal that they remain in a support role for 2 years. They don't have to sign, but if they do it's a voluntary agreement on their behalf. Not employment, and minimum wage laws are irrelevant.

Re:memory loss defence?

[MiniMike]

Might be awkward (for them) should they call you while you're getting your costume ready for Comic-Con, Ren Fest, or some other 'role playing' activity. This of course would mandate that you stay in character for the duration (I'm thinking 'gimp' at minimum).

Double points if anyone flees/quits while you're there.

Triple points if you do anything that makes them want to burn the keyboard and/or chair you used after you leave.

Quad points if it's while you're still there.

Re:memory loss defence?

[mark-t]

Without an hourly rate, you are at the mercy of their definition of 'reasonable'.

Fortunately, there's such a thing as arbitration in employee/employer disputes, and it is their definition of "reasonable" that ultimately matters, not the employer's. Having actually had a share of such disputes in my lifetime, I can fairly confidently state that barring highly unusual circumstances, the equating to severance to a rate of pay over a period of time would *NEVER* evaluate to any less than the rate of pay at the time of termination. This is based on anecdotal evidence, however, and should not be construed as legal advice.

8 weeks pay, for 2 years at 5 hours/week? Not just no, hell no! That's a pay cut for working part time.

Well, at 8 weeks pay, you are being paid for 320 hours of work, which at 5 hours per week would actually take only 64 weeks to fulfill. after which you would be entirely free and clear of any obligation to them. Any further work that you do for them would have to be paid according to wage laws.

Re:memory loss defence?

[AK Marc]

Those types of retainers are written with an hourly wage built in. So they are a deposit, not a "retainer". The traditional retainer is like a credit card annual fee. You pay it to have the service. The amount paid counts towards nothing, and is never returned. The deposit only works if the work is paid. A deposit for free work is buying a slave. You pay an upfront cost for free work. It's explicitly illegal, and the laws are quite harsh on it, as slavery was once a thing around these parts.

The contract specifies work for no pay. There is no provision in the contract for a wage for the free work. It's slavery under any definition of slavery that includes indentured servitude (which is legally slavery in the US).

Re:memory loss defence?

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

"We need you to help us fix X as per your severance clause."

"In order to help you fix X, I would need access to server/database Y. Will you grant that access?"

"No."

"Then there's nothing I can do to help you."

"We'll sue."

"You'll lose. I told you what I would need to help you, you refused to provide it. Requiring me to fix X without access to Y would be unreasonable."

Re:memory loss defence?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The clauses don't have anything to do with providing free advice on how to fix things. It's to cooperate with audits, regulators and lawsuits.

Which seems strange, because on common defense against lawsuits is usually "the employees responsible for that no longer work here, and cannot be found".

It almost seems reasonable that the alternative is tht they may have to pay a seven-figure expert witness fee.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Jane Q. Public]

They don't have to provide a severance package (outside of whatever may be in their current contract), and they are offering one

Do you understand what "no consideration" means?

According to GP, the company was offering nothing in exchange for this. No "severance package". Nothing.

If they actually are, great. But that wasn't the context in which my comment was made.

And no, there is no such thing in the U.S. as a "voluntary", one-sided "contract". That's not what "contract" means. If the other side isn't offering anything, it's not a contract. It's an unenforceable promise. Not even a "promise", in the technical legal sense.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Jane Q. Public]

Pro bono, consumer legal services, and State AG haven't disappeared.

Re:memory loss defence?

[madhi19205]

Thanks Obama. Training your H1B replacements is proof positive that the talent exists in the US, but our dear Obama has done jack shit about that. At least we know the Republicans kowtow to their corporate overlords, the Democrats are just dirty liars.

You know that not a bad angle to deal with this bullshit. Asking anybody to train their H1B replacements is pretty much a admission of fraudulent use of the program.

Re:memory loss defence?

[forbin_meet_hal]

King of the Hill OCD defense: "I'd do that, but if I do, Garth Brooks will die.

Re:memory loss defence?

[swalve]

I kind of see it from another angle: the employer is paying out severence, which they don't have to. In exchange for that money, you are agreeing to answer thier calls. Nobody is making you take the severence or negotiating your own deal. But when the new guy wants to know where that binder is, they want to be reasonably sure you will tell them.

Re:memory loss defence?

[HornWumpus]

Ending pay rate is an unreasonable rate for returning contract work.

But reasonable is in the eye or the arbitrator, who is paid by the employer.

Entering into this kind of deal without an explicitly stated rate is insane.

Re:memory loss defence?

[RockDoctor]

Worse. Don't understand the problem. when someone has wasted half an hour of their time explaining the problem to you, pick up the phone again (you were shooting aliens, or watching porn) and say "I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understood ..." and repeat the second thing they said.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

You're cooperating. but your car needs fuel to get to their site, you can't remember what was happening in the past, and you no longer work with that system, so what the fuck can they do.

Management idiots cost money. Occupying their time this way costs them money and hurts their business.

Re:memory loss defence?

[metrix007]

Did you even read the summary? It's clear that this is being asked as part of a severance contract, which they have no obligation to sign.

And yes, there are one sided contracts. That's perfectly legal. We can make a contract where you agree to do me something for nothing, for credit, for 10c, and all of that is legal as long as it isn't explicitly illegal. I really have no idea why you think a one sided contract, which is extremely common, is for some reason unenforceable.

The only way a one sided contract is unenforceable is if it's an abuse of power. If someone holds all the cards and the other person has little choice but to accept a shitty deal...those types of contracts tend to be unenforceable.

Any two parties can make a one sided contract and as long as it isn't illegal, it is entirely enforceable.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Jane Q. Public]

Did you even read the summary? It's clear that this is being asked as part of a severance contract, which they have no obligation to sign.

Indeed I did read it and understand it.

And yes, there are one sided contracts. That's perfectly legal. We can make a contract where you agree to do me something for nothing, for credit, for 10c, and all of that is legal as long as it isn't explicitly illegal. I really have no idea why you think a one sided contract, which is extremely common, is for some reason unenforceable.

They're not "extremely common", and they're unenforceable because unless there is consideration on both sides, it doesn't meet the legal definition of "contract". A contract is a voluntary agreement between two parties for their mutual benefit... not just the benefit of one party.

Here's an example: I agree to pay you $10 if you agree to not mow your lawn before 8:00 am on Sundays. There is consideration on both sides, because his NOT mowing his lawn at the agreed time is a benefit to you... which you negotiated. That's not a one-sided contract.

But now let's say we both sign a "contract" saying you will pay me $100. Period. Nothing else, no expected behavior from or by either party, except the handing over of the $100. That's not a "contract", and it's not enforceable, because there isn't consideration on both sides. If something (pretty much anything) is expected from me for that $100, then it's a contract. Otherwise not.

A contract selling me your house for $1.00 is technically legal... though a judge might well wonder if there was some coercion going on somewhere.

And to be clear: sure, a one-sided "contract" is perfectly legal. Just not enforceable. Again, technically it's not even a "contract" at all.

The only way a one sided contract is unenforceable is if it's an abuse of power. If someone holds all the cards and the other person has little choice but to accept a shitty deal...those types of contracts tend to be unenforceable.

No... that's a "contract of adhesion", as I mentioned earlier. They might be enforceable -- barely -- but a judge is compelled to look askance at them. A good example is your "contract" with your cable company. The cable company pretty much has all the power, and often, the terms are not negotiable by you. At best, that's really pushing the limits of what is meant by "contract".

If there is actual coercion, it's not voluntary and so is not an enforceable contract. If it's not negotiable, again in a sense it's not really "voluntary" and at best it's a contract of adhesion.

But a wholly one-sided "agreement"? Not only do they almost never exist (each party almost always expects something from the other), they really aren't enforceable. There must be consideration of some kind, no matter what kind, or how small. Again, that's the very definition of "contract".

Re:memory loss defence?

[metrix007]

Indeed I did read it and understand it.

If that were so, this conversation would not be happening.

They're not "extremely common", and they're unenforceable because unless there is consideration on both sides, it doesn't meet the legal definition of "contract". A contract is a voluntary agreement between two parties for their mutual benefit... not just the benefit of one party.

It's a good thing you are not a lawyer. Yes, they are extremely common, That's just the facts. As I already explained to you, there does not have to be benefit to both parties, at least what you're thinking of as benefits. There has to be consideration, but this can take many forms. A voluntary agreement between two people, one to render services with no compensation, is enforcable, because it was a voluntary agreement. It's that simple.

This link has some more information on the few times a contract would actually be unenforceable due to lacking consideration. The situation in the summary does not match.

No... that's a "contract of adhesion", as I mentioned earlier. They might be enforceable -- barely -- but a judge is compelled to look askance at them

A contract of adhesion is when a stronger party forces a weaker party to sign a contract in some fashion. A cursory search would have revealed this. ou should quit the armchair layering, it's making you look foolish.

As has been pointed out to you numerous times now, a voluntary agreement between two parties, neither being remotely forced into it, is completely legal. A judge may look at it, if the court bothered to even hear the case, and would likely dismiss it, as courts are not obligated to compensate poor decisions.

If there is actual coercion, it's not voluntary and so is not an enforceable contract. If it's not negotiable, again in a sense it's not really "voluntary" and at best it's a contract of adhesion.

Finally, you've written something correct. In this case, the severance package is an offer. It isn't something that has to be negotiated, unless they were promised it in some form. That would literally be the only legal issue with this; if they had promised severance previously and are now trying to tack on this clause. Failing that, the contract would be entirely legal and enforceable, because it would be completely voluntary from both sides.

Your last sentence appears to have been made up of what you think the law is, rather than what it says, so I think I'll just ignore it.

Re:memory loss defence?

[Tamerlin]

If the severance package isn't spectacular, than anyone signing that is basically an idiot, unless the demand to have that clause stricken. Odds are however, since it stipulates "reasonable availability" and no compensation that they'll get no help from any of their laid off staff who are employable, since they'll get jobs. The best will of course simply quit rather than accepting the insult of training their replacements who the bank is already admitting will not be competent enough to do the job they were hired for.

Re:memory loss defence?

[TheWitness]

"I'm sorry, it seems I've forgotten how to fix that. Good luck" Spoken like Bill and Hillary Clinton. This would such a F'you moment for me. Likely blackmailing them with their pensions. TheWitness

Re:memory loss defence?

[Meski]

I was in that kind of position where I got retrenched (80/90s), and the company asked me to do some contracting after. At the time I wasn't all that happy with them, so I squared my usual hourly rate and added a zero on the end. They paid. I was the *only* one that knew that design and could finish it. :)

Re:memory loss defence?

[dave87656]

I'm not saying I agree with the bank but they are saying it's part of the severance package. Any employee can just quit if he/she wants to according to the terms of their employment.

But I agree with you, it is highly questionable. What's reasonable? I could say I'm on vacation at any given point in time. If they are asking me to come in I could say "Sure thing, as soon as my doctor says my aids is not contagious". It's just stupid on the part of the bank. They should just offer it with compensation and for the few bucks it would cost them they wouldn't have this bad press and people would be happy to come in. IMHO YMMV

Re:memory loss defence?

[JoeMerchant]

I think I heard that the bank withdrew the terms after the publicity hit, they defended their position for about 36 hours before reversing.

Sure..

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, sure, I have to cooperate and provide help completely free of charge. But that doesn't mean I have to provide competent help, or that I will actually remember everything.

So? Let them find me

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. I just changed my phone, moved to a new state.

I'm available. You just have to find me.

I don't think there is anything in there which says that the employee must keep them informed as to their whereabouts and current contact info.

lack of information.

[bloodhawk]

seems to be a lot of missing information here. I would assume part of the severance package is some sort of final payment, otherwise no sane individual would agree to such terms. depending on what that final package was this could be a completely insane illegal request for free labour or it could be a quite reasonable request that they were compensated for up front in case it eventuates.

Re:lack of information.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was let go one time like this. Got 3 months severance (was Directory of Technology), they didn't ask for anything like this

... then it sounds like you were not actually let go one time like this. You were just let go one time in a manner completely unlike this.

Re:lack of information.

[dfn5]

LMFAO. This was the only post all day to make me laugh. Thank you.

Re:lack of information.

[Dutch Gun]

I too find it slightly odd the article doesn't even mention what the severance package benefits are. This is almost certainly compensation for what's likely at least several months of pay after termination. Unless I badly misunderstand the legal issues involved, I'm pretty sure there's absolutely no obligation to accept the agreement if they're willing to decline the severance package.

When I was laid off, I signed an "I won't sue you" agreement for a couple of month's pay. I was being laid off for legitimate financial reasons (i.e. too many expenses, not enough revenue), and the company was honest with us and tried to be up front about everything. I certainly wasn't planning to sue them, so I didn't mind signing.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not defending the bank here, especially since they're laying off these folks and outsourcing the work, but I think some people may be misunderstanding how these severance deals work - there's often some conditions as a part of the package. I've just never heard of conditions like these before.

Re:lack of information.

[tsotha]

I think you're probably right.

I can't get worked up over this story. People are signing agreements which has the company giving them something (probably money) in exchange for their time at a later date. It may be unusual, but it's not nefarious. If you work at a place like and it doesn't seem like a good deal then don't sign and forgo the severance package. Companies are not obligated to provide severance packages.

Re:lack of information.

[Jason Levine]

He was let go exactly like this... except for all the ways that it was nothing like this. But other than those, completely like this!

Re:lack of information.

[Jason Levine]

That's what I was wondering. My father was laid off years ago and signed a severance package that amounted to "you won't even talk to a lawyer about us, including this severance package or you forfeit all the money in this package including the stuff we've already paid you." At the time, he had our entire family to support and he didn't know how long he'd be out of work so his employer knew they had him.

Now, if the severance package was "you agree to get paid 3 month's pay and are available for 2 years, then I'd refuse that. I'd get paid more flipping burgers at McDonald's than being their unpaid worker for two years.

Re:lack of information.

[atticus9]

Per an earlier agreement by SunTrust the severance package was a lump sum $100,000, I'd probably sign it

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/ed...

Re:lack of information.

[Harlequin80]

This. I have seen similar type clauses for senior engineering roles. Usually it is when a particular function is no longer required though rather than an outsourcing. For example I have seen geophysicists let go once the exploration to production phase is completed. They are given a bonus and a lump payment to come back in if required. Usually this would happen if something goes pear shaped with the models later, or if they are required to do more analysis for a compliance issue.

However in those cases they are also usually paid a consulting rate. The bonus / payout figure was a keep you happy amount.

Re:lack of information.

[mysidia]

Didn't ask for anything, but it would be completely reasonable if they did ask for some help during those 3 months.

What would not be fair would be for them to try to use the severance to "retain you" to do 3 months worth of work perpetually at any unknown date in the future.

Presumably, within a short period of time, you will have a new job, because you need a new job to support yourself, And any attempt to pull you off your other work for a while to help them out of a bind; would unreasonably harm you.

About the only thing they could reasonably do would be to give you a few 5 minute calls to politely ask if you happened to remember the root password.

Re:lack of information.

[plopez]

"I too find it slightly odd the article doesn't even mention what the severance package benefits are. "

Another quality /. posting

Re:lack of information.

[mysidia]

"you won't even talk to a lawyer about us, including this severance package or you forfeit all the money in this package including the stuff we've already paid you."

It's not possible to legally sign away your right to counsel in this manner. What you have there is called an unconscionable contract term.

No matter what the language says, meetings with your attorney are legally privileged.

You can still discuss or show as much information as you like in a secure private location under duty of confidentiality, with your conusel, and show it to your lawyer with total confidence.

I suppose the only reason to do so, would be if you think you have a bonafide legal claim against the previous employer.

Even a 'promise not to sue' the previous employer might not actually be enforceable. If, for example, the employer did something illegal (such as discrimination based on race in setting salary), or other employees received this payment who had no reason to sue, or the severance payment was expected compensation, then after suing on the other claim, the plaintiff could be awarded that claim, plus possibly a claim for any severance the employer attempted to withhold.

Ultimately, a good employment lawyer would be able to suggest the best course. If there is a legitimate claim though, then most likely no normal severance would really deter suing.

It's probably more of a psychological trick to dissuade any employee who might have some sort of claim or beef from pursuing it.

Re:lack of information.

[dwywit]

That was sort of my first thought: what if I get a job elsewhere, and even more interesting, what if I get a job with a competing bank?

Most employers wouldn't be inclined to give me time off to help them, but if my new employer was a competing entity, they might say "sure, take as much time as you want to help them out, just remember you're employed by us, not them, and we'd appreciate you reporting back any interesting information you discover while you're there. In fact, there'll be a bonus in your pay for any such information received."

It'll only take one court case to have the offending clauses in these "contracts" declared invalid.

Re:lack of information.

[dwywit]

Just that - you CANNOT sign away your right to counsel, or your right to sue. You can only choose not to pursue those options.

It's like the various waivers you have to sign to be allowed to do certain potentially dangerous things - "no matter what happens, you can't sue us for negligence" - it's nothing more than a bluff.

Re:lack of information.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, thanks for finding that.

It looks like SunTrust says "in 2 years we will pay you $100k if you do do the following" from which it looks like:

  I agree, beginning on September 1, 2009 and continuing for a period of twenty-four (24) months immediately thereafter, to provide assistance and to make myself reasonably available to SunTrust and its employees, attorneys and/or accountants with respect to investigations, audits, litigation or potential litigation regarding matters in which I have been involved in the course of my employment with SunTrust or any subsidiary and/or about which I have knowledge as a result of my employment with SunTrust.

so just legal stuff. But really I've never heard of that for non-execs. Maybe the ones they signed (this was from 6 years ago) was different.

Re:lack of information.

[whoever57]

Per an earlier agreement by SunTrust the severance package was a lump sum $100,000, I'd probably sign it

I don't think that the linked agreement would be applicable to the IT guys. Did you see the job title? "Vice Chairman".

Actually, I would be very surprised if a "Vice Chairman" would accept $100k for a 2 year non-compete and non-solicitation agreement.

Re:lack of information.

[jabuzz]

Even though I am not a lawyer I know that you are wrong, you can of course sign away your right to sue.

However you can only do this by signing a settlement agreement on what you might be about to sue over. Think about it for a moment, if you cannot sign away your right to sue then settlement agreements would be dead in the water, because you would sign the settlement agreement take any money and then immediately sue anyway.

Further (in the UK at least) before filing court documents you must (or at least failure to do so will prejudice your case) sent the defendant a letter before action giving them the opportunity to settle. So a settlement agreement can take place without even a case being registered at the court.

I guess logical thinking is not something to expect on slashdot.

Re:lack of information.

[KingOfBLASH]

Yes but the devil is in the details. If you really need to be available to help them for 2 years, $100k might not be worth your while (as you don't want to lose a job paying $100k a year for one that pays $50k)

Re:lack of information.

[Lunix Nutcase]

Unfortunately, forced arbitration clauses have been upheld by the Supreme Court. Which means you need to invalidate the contract to remove those terms.

Re:lack of information.

[Jason Levine]

If I recall correctly (this happened a long time ago), my father pretty much knew that the "no talking with a lawyer" clause was illegal but he needed the severance money to hold us over until he found another job and his old company was vindictive enough that they would withdraw it over the slightest perceived infraction. So he took the severance money and found somewhere else to work as quickly as possible.

Re: lack of information.

[Half-pint HAL]

Do I get to sue if the stress causes me to comfort-eat, leading to late-onset diabetes...?

Re:lack of information.

[jbmartin6]

Possibly having people sign the waiver has some effect on the number and frequency of lawsuits, and this has nothing to do with how enforceable it may be.

Re:lack of information.

[oh_my_080980980]

You are making an assumption. As reported they are provided a severance package and expected to provide consulting work while not being paid.

Re:lack of information.

[oh_my_080980980]

And you have your head up your ass. The article clearly stipulates that employees received severance pay and not compensation for future work.

Re:lack of information.

[Matheus]

" investigations, audits, litigation or potential litigation regarding matters in which I have been involved "

*If this is the same agreement that was signed by the IT guys (I'm guessing the amount at least was smaller but the terms are probably the same) then this isn't weird at all! They are not asking these employees to help with technical matters. As a severely regulated business will loads of liability their employees are credible witnesses and subject to subpoena or to answer to regulators inquiries. This contract is saying just that quite literally. I'm not saying they won't get any calls of a technical nature but the wording above doesn't even require them to respond to such calls. If the SEC comes calling though they better step to.

Now really hoping one of these employees actually produces the wording of their contract to clarify because if it's the above then this is a lot of fuss over not that much.

Re:lack of information.

[omnichad]

And only minimum wage labor laws are keeping them from requiring you to work 60 hours per week for all of those 2 years. That severance package would have to be pretty large to even make that worth it.

Re:lack of information.

[Dutch Gun]

What assumption am I making? They ARE being paid - they're just being paid up front. Would this be a fair package if they got six months severance pay in exchange for what may be a very rare trip into the office, or the occasional phone call or e-mail over the next two years? How about if they only got a month's pay? I think it makes a difference. Note that the agreement specifically forbids SunTrust from using this clause to the extent it causes an employee hardship with their new job.

Also, apparently this damage-control statement from SunTrust came in later (check out at the bottom of the article):

It is a rare occasion when we need to call a former employee. The “continuing cooperation” clause is designed to assist the company under scenarios that arise infrequently when we need access to knowledge possessed by a former employee. Those scenarios primarily relate to regulatory or legal matters. For instance, we may need to reach out to former employees to ensure we accurately understand situations in which they were involved while employed by the company. SunTrust has never used this provision to require a former employee to be “on call” to help conduct day-to-day business in any way.

Since it's apparently rare for people to get called in, it's stupid of SunTrust not to offer their ex-employees a fair market rate for consulting work. It would hardly cost them anything (assuming it's as rare as they claim), and it would make this whole thing a non-issue.

Re:lack of information.

[mysidia]

I am not a lawyer I know that you are wrong, you can of course sign away your right to sue.

No... not really. it's not your right to sue that you can sign away. You can sign away your right to compensation for damages related to specific matters, that's about it: you still have the right to go through the judicial process (and probably foot your opponent's legal bill), even if the likely outcome will be against you.

Insurance companies write those sorts of agreements all the time, where the buyer of a certain kind of policy is protected but loses a right to claim certain damages, and instead, their insurance company gets to be the plaintiff in court and collect any damages through subrogation.

You always have the right to come back to court. The question is only going to be, will the judge be willing to even consider your case, with depends on the merits of your specific situation, and is it likely to end in your favor.

If you sue without a leg to stand on, there can be all sorts of negative consequences in the end, such as penalties for abusing the judicial process, and rights to damages you signed away can eliminate your legs to stand on.

Re:lack of information.

[mysidia]

They only have the possibility of forcing arbitration on a contractual dispute initiated by you.

They cannot prevent you from pursuing remedy or suing them in the courts, if the claim is they actually violated employment or other laws (that's not a contractual dispute).

They can only force arbitration on you if you or the claimant. If they already paid you severance, and now they want to take the $$$ back, because they say you weren't reasonably available, then you can refuse their arbitration, and insist upon your constitutionally protected right to a jury trial for their civil claims.

Serves them right

[Billly Gates]

They should have done the honest moral profit center of packaging risky loans and betting against their customers on wall street. Good for nothing cost centers

You think tech support sucks now

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait till you call someone unpaid on one of those deals.

Fuck that, even for Georgia

[Curlsman]

Time lawyer up.

Re:Fuck that, even for Georgia

[tsotha]

There's no need for lawyers. All they have to do is refuse to sign.

Re:Fuck that, even for Georgia

[dcw3]

Except that then they get no severance pay. Sign away, and you'll never have to actually provide support because the clause is already against federal labor regulations....it's unenforceable.

Re:Fuck that, even for Georgia

[tsstahl]

Time lawyer up.

Is that who you call when you feel Dr. Who screwed you over? :)

Re:Fuck that, even for Georgia

[tsotha]

The company is under no legal obligation to provide severance pay. It's more than a little dishonest to agree to do something for money and then welsh out because they can't force you to honor your end of the bargain.

Below minimum wage?

[Billly Gates]

After all they can be sued for getting another job to feed their families as they can't work for free or severance pay for 2 years right?

Re:Below minimum wage?

[Harlequin80]

No because of the reasonableness part of the clause. An employee must make themselves reasonably available, taking time off from your current employer would fail any reasonableness test imposed by a court. However if they asked you to pop in after work on a Tuesday for an hour you would be hard pressed to say it was unreasonable.

Re:Below minimum wage?

[Opportunist]

This is the moment when I would start looking for a job on another continent. At least for 2 years or so.

Re:Below minimum wage?

[Cinnamon Beige]

Likely the two-year period was picked also because that's how long they feel it will need to be since you were employed by them for them to be able to just cheerfully inform any court attempting to get their aid in subpoenaing you that it is now entirely the court's problem and not theirs.

Most places that would be illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the severance included two years full pay ....

"I'm sorry, I can't get time off my current job" - which isn't 'unreasonable'.

Re:Most places that would be illegal

[ColaMan]

"Sorry, I have a non-compete clause in my new contract, here, I'll give you the number of my company's legal department, you guys go talk amongst yourselves"

Re:Most places that would be illegal

[houghi]

Why the excuse? "No!" should be sufficient. As I do not work for that company anymore, that isn't unreasonable.

What if another random company where you do not work calls?

Re:Most places that would be illegal

[Phreakiture]

Why the excuse? "No!" should be sufficient. As I do not work for that company anymore, that isn't unreasonable.

I suspect that it is necessary to sign the agreement if you want to collect your severance package. Want to leave three months pay on the table?

That said, I would consider a duress defense.

Re:Most places that would be illegal

[pak9rabid]

Why the excuse? "No!" should be sufficient. As I do not work for that company anymore, that isn't unreasonable.

Because they paid you to be available? If you didn't like it, don't take the money.

This reminds me of an old song...

[__aaclcg7560]

Take this job and shove it! I ain't working here no more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPrSVkTRb24

one word

[Anonymous Coward]

unenforceable.

Just like the clauses that say you cant go work for a competitor.

Not sure about the US but in Australia those clauses cant really be enforced. Still companies include them because the rely on people simply believing that they must comply.

Re:one word

[Anonymous Coward]

They're mostly legal in the US. A few states have cracked down on some of them, and California in particular has cracked down on most of them. But the vast majority of the time, these kinds of bullshit tactics are perfectly legal in the US.

Of course, there's nothing like a little subterfuge and counter-marketing to make it clear that it's a bad idea from a business perspective. Running ads in every SunTrust market stating that their infrastructure is likely to fall into disarray and become less secure and that you should move your business (and your money) elsewhere would work wonders against this sort of bullshit. The main site for SunTrust Bank is suntrust.com. As I write this, both suntrustbanks.com and suntrustbank.com are wide open. A smear page on a legit-looking domain that explained how they shipped all of their critical electronic operations to BFE could destroy that company at this point.

Just sayin'. *wink* *nudge*

To piss off 100+ tech workers and demand this sort of severance ultimatum and leave possible alternate domains open for a smear campaign might as well be called "attempted corporate suicide".

Re:one word

[mark-t]

They are legal, but in practice, are still generally unenforceable. In most real-world cases, an employer would not have any way of knowing what a former employee was up to unless the former employee actively kept them informed of his or her whereabouts, or the company that the employee was working for did something that visibly demonstrated they had knowledge they could only have obtained if an employee or former employee of theirs had violated an NDA.

Re:one word

[mysidia]

Just like the clauses that say you cant go work for a competitor.

Often those clauses are fully enforceable on a severance agreement, Or if presented at the time of hiring, or as a condition of an increase in pay.

They might not be enforceable, if signature is being coerced and no compensation is offered for signing the no-compete.

Re:one word

[KingOfBLASH]

What most people don't realize about general non-competes is to be enforceable, your old employer needs to PAY you for the period of the non-compete -- a non-compete clause is not allowed to deprive you of work.

Note that a GENERAL non-compete is different then a specific non-compete. It's generally permissible for a company to enforce a non-compete against a few competitors (e.g. you worked for google, now may not work for Apple) but they can't have an across the board stoppage of all work unless they pay you

Re:one word

[oh_my_080980980]

LMOL if the contract is not enforceable it's not legal. If it were legal it would be enforceable.

Re:one word

[mark-t]

You have it backwards... it is *ILLEGAL* things that need to be enforceable. Legal is just whatever is not illegal.

Not news?

[postmortem]

Seems that they have been doing this for 6 years at least. Looks like a "standard template"... see section 8.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/ed...

Re:Not news?

[quantaman]

So here's the clause in question:

8. Continuing Cooperation. I understand and agree that, in my role at SunTrust, I have been responsible for and involved in numerous matters and projects of a significant and/or confidential nature and that, in some instances, I possess knowledge regarding those and other matters that is unique to me and of value to SunTrust or any subsidiary, and that SunTrust or any subsidiary may have need of my continuing assistance in the future with respect to investigations, audits, litigation or potential litigation related to these matters. I understand that SunTrust’s willingness to provide me with the Consideration is expressly conditioned upon the promises made and obligations assumed by me in this Paragraph 8. I further understand and agree that my fulfillment of these promises and obligations hereafter is a condition precedent to SunTrust’s obligation to provide me with the Consideration set forth herein. I agree, beginning on September 1, 2009 and continuing for a period of twenty-four (24) months immediately thereafter, to provide assistance and to make myself reasonably available to SunTrust and its employees, attorneys and/or accountants with respect to investigations, audits, litigation or potential litigation regarding matters in which I have been involved in the course of my employment with SunTrust or any subsidiary and/or about which I have knowledge as a result of my employment with SunTrust. It is understood and agreed that such assistance, to the extent possible, will be requested at such times and in such a manner so as to not unreasonably interfere with any subsequent employment. Such assistance may consist of, without limitation, telephone or in-person meetings with SunTrust employees, attorneys and/or accountants, or the provision of truthful testimony by way of deposition, hearing, trial or affidavit. SunTrust will be responsible for any reasonable and necessary expenses incurred by me in connection with such assistance. I understand that I will not be entitled to any additional consideration or compensation of any kind from SunTrust in exchange for such assistance.

My gut says that for 95-99% of ex-employees this never matters and for the majority of the remainder it's either a couple emails a few months later asking about where they stored some project no one else remembers.

That being said "reasonable" is a bit of a fuzzy term, yeah a couple emails asking if I remembered where I put that old script is reasonable, but what about a 5 minute email every week for six months? Or coming in for 4 hours to answer questions for an internal audit? I suspect different people will have very different expectations of what reasonable is.

Re: Not news?

[JWW]

Hell then what's the problem. I'm sure all of these employees can make themselves available for 24 months after Sept. 2009!!!

Oh look at the time, I guess they're not available now...

Re:Not news?

[Khyber]

" I agree, beginning on September 1, 2009 and continuing for a period of twenty-four (24) months immediately thereafter, to provide assistance and to make myself reasonably available to SunTrust and its employees, attorneys and/or accountants with respect to investigations, audits, litigation or potential litigation regarding matters in which I have been involved in the course of my employment with SunTrust or any subsidiary and/or about which I have knowledge as a result of my employment with SunTrust."

It's well past 24 months after Sept 1, 2009. Clause therefore nullifies itself.

Re: Not news?

[hsmith]

I must be missing the outrage, the clause deals with litigation, audits, etc - it isn't asking to be on call tech support for 2 years.

Re:Not news?

[Xyrus]

My gut says that for 95-99% of ex-employees this never matters and for the majority of the remainder it's either a couple emails a few months later asking about where they stored some project no one else remembers.

That being said "reasonable" is a bit of a fuzzy term, yeah a couple emails asking if I remembered where I put that old script is reasonable, but what about a 5 minute email every week for six months? Or coming in for 4 hours to answer questions for an internal audit? I suspect different people will have very different expectations of what reasonable is.

Reasonable. Let me think for a moment about reasonable.

You're laying me off. But before you lay me off you want me train my overseas replacement. In addition to that, you want me to provide free services to you for up to 2 years after you let me go.

There are two words and exactly two words that are reasonable in this case for any person in this situation: FUCK YOU

You want me to answer questions after you forced me to change jobs, uproot my family, and drain my savings? And for free?

FUCK YOU

You nuked that bridge from orbit. After pulling that shit you're going to pay, and pay dearly for any services I render. I don't care if it's a texted yes or no question. I don't care if you're being audited. I don't care if your whole company is going up in flames and the one thing that can save it is my help. I will give one single response to any request for help, and that will be a quote containing the price for my consultation services, which will be a minimum of $500K, up front, after taxes plus any additional fees I damn well see fit to add. The price will be non-negotiable. If the response is anything other than "we agree", then requests for help will be ignored.

i see a lot of enginered failures in there future

[Anonymous Coward]

yeap see lots of shinagians going on

Wrong answers are still free.

[Mal-2]

Quite some time ago, I led an IRC channel called #badadvice. As you can probably gather from the name, the purpose of the channel was to give plausible-sounding but hilariously and catastrophically bad advice to submitted questions. The more the responders knew about the subject, the better they were at dispensing bad advice. We did this for free, but our raison d'être was right there in the name of the channel. Anyone taking our "advice" seriously was a moron.

Guess what? That's the quality of service the bank should be expecting from its former employees. If they have to do it for free, many lulz are going to be had.

Re:Wrong answers are still free.

[viperidaenz]

"Hi, our backup restore failed, and you're the guy who we used to employ to manage it. The H1-B you trained doesn't know shit"
"Oh right, first thing you need to do is re-format the backup tapes, to make sure there are no bad sectors.."

Re:Wrong answers are still free.

[jhol13]

But they are not doing it for free! If you do not like the deal, refuse from the severance! (TANSTAAFL)
I have done a teeny-weeny similar deal (free time for later help), and of course I kept my side of the bargain.

Re:Wrong answers are still free.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh! That one is very important, you'll have to restore manually. The command is "rm". Try "rm backup-2015.bak"

Re:Wrong answers are still free.

[Opportunist]

Hey, it's the best advice I could possibly offer. Sorry it didn't work out, but hey, what do you expect from someone you fired already? You didn't do it 'cause I was so great, did you? And that replacement you hired for me surely would have been so much smarter and should have noticed that my idea wasn't so clever since you preferred to employ him instead of me!

Re:Wrong answers are still free.

[Mal-2]

Done properly, it should be extremely difficult to tell incompetence from malice. The more you know about doing it right, the easier it is to lead someone wrong. Even if they ask multiple people the same question to try to weed out such answers, they're more than likely going to get multiple answers that would actually work (or at the least are slightly wrong but non-malicious), but don't look the same. Who do they trust?

Re:Wrong answers are still free.

[c]

"Hmmm. Okay, well, the last backup tape I know for sure was verified was the one I made a couple days before I was laid off..."

Re:Wrong answers are still free.

[GORby_]

Of course... everybody knows rm is shorthand for 'restore manually'!

WOW. Just. WOW.

[zenlessyank]

Fuck these guys with a dull chainsaw. So when exactly does the Bill Of Rights actually supposed to kick in? I can't be the only one tired of the slavery.

Re:WOW. Just. WOW.

[JoeMerchant]

I had somebody put a non-compete for 20 years in front of me. I said "ain't no way" they said "we all signed it" I said "I'm not in your position, I might need to work again after this is over" we agreed that I didn't need to sign it, at all.

If I got presented with that...

[erp_consultant]

I'd tell them to go fuck themselves. Unless the severance package amounts to 2 years salary then you are basically working for free. Oh and by the way...we want you to train the offshore people. No thanks.

Re:If I got presented with that...

[Opportunist]

I'd take the money AND burn that bridge. Why would I want to maintain a bridge that leads to nowhere? I'm not Alaska.

Re:If I got presented with that...

[dcw3]

And then you get no severance package. Sign the damn document, collect your money. The clause is totally unenforceable, and against federal labor regulations.

Re:If I got presented with that...

[Kagato]

I certainly would be hard pressed to sign something like that unless it included absolute indemnification of liability. Otherwise you're on the hook for bad advice.

nobody is forced to take a severence package

[Anonymous Coward]

If the terms are unreasonable, walk away.

Re:nobody is forced to take a severence package

[ClickOnThis]

If the terms are unreasonable, walk away.

Before you walk away, get a lawyer to look at it and advise you. The unreasonable terms may be unenforceable. They may just be an attempt to intimidate you into doing something you don't need to do.

Re:nobody is forced to take a severence package

[guruevi]

Or they may be enforceable by you. The unpaid clause may be deemed illegal and they'll have to compensate for all the time that you're "on call". At least that's what I would think is legal.

Wow.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That is unbelievably ballsy. I'd want a fantastic severance package to even consider an offer as insulting as "2 years of unpaid on-call for your cheaper replacements".

Maybe, if the severance package happened to be generous enough to roughly approximate 2 years of being on retainer plus some consulting time; I'd be willing to charitably describe it as 'poorly worded'; but anything less is just bullshit.

I sincerely hope that SunTrust Banks enjoys a...truly service-oriented...response any time they attempt to tap one of the employees they axed.

Sounds familiar...

[lionchild]

To some extent, doesn't this sound somewhat similiar to the story about Disney replacing longtime IT staff with H-1B workers?

A story like this, even with only "100" workers, generates heaps and heaps of bad publicity for SunTrust.

Re: Sounds familiar...

[JWW]

Yep. Could we get some congressional hearings about how it is possible that the bank can only find foreign workers to do a job previously done by an American worker who gets laid off after training the foreign worker? I would love to see politicians actually stand up for actual citizenship. Back in the old days it used to be their Fucking job.

Re:Sounds familiar...

[msmonroe]

What is really truly sad is that I think it's all a scam. I would be surprised if any money is actually saved after it's all completed. I have seen multiple offshoring efforts and not one has yielded the expected results. My conclusion is that in the end management doesn't care about what IT does and doesn't care what kind of results they see. I always see offshoring as the last resort of a uninspired and lazy executive team.

Re:Sounds familiar...

[lionchild]

I would be surprised if any money is actually saved after it's all completed. I have seen multiple offshoring efforts and not one has yielded the expected results. My conclusion is that in the end management doesn't care about what IT does and doesn't care what kind of results they see. I always see offshoring as the last resort of a uninspired and lazy executive team.

Management seems to see IT the same way they see power and water in their buildings. They just flip a switch, they expect it to work the way they expect it to work. Or, perhaps a better analogy might be thinking of IT as office furniture. They take it for granted, because it's always there and are aggravated when it's broken. And when it gets old, (yes, that could be a reference to age discrimination), they look for a cheap vendor who can replace it for less than they paid the first time. Because, after all, office furniture is just office furniture. You simply take it for granted because it's always there, like you expect your lights to come on when you flip the switch.

If they end up spending the same or a little more.. "Well, ..oh, well. " It's done, they just move on, little concern about what they've disrupted, and the fact that they've disrupted productivity all the way around.

Re:Sounds familiar...

[msmonroe]

Agreed!

I'd do it

[hawguy]

I'd sign it, and every time they'd call for help I'd say "Oh yeah, we ran into that before, I don't remember exactly how we resolved that problem in the past, but you can try 'sudo rm -rf /' and see if that fixes it". I'm pretty sure they'd only call once.

Re:I'd do it

[SQLGuru]

You're missing the obvious.....

Ok, in order for me to fix your problem, you'll have to give me all of the admin passwords. It's required for all of the low level commands I need to issue and the traditional break-glass procedures will just get in my way.

sudo "transfer funds to numbered swiss account"

Re:I'd do it

[whoever57]

but you can try 'sudo rm -rf /' and see if that fixes it"

I bet that they would be on to that. Instead:

su - -c "rm -rf /"

Re:I'd do it

[ClickOnThis]

I'd sign it, and every time they'd call for help I'd say "Oh yeah, we ran into that before, I don't remember exactly how we resolved that problem in the past, but you can try 'sudo rm -rf /' and see if that fixes it". I'm pretty sure they'd only call once.

Um ... no. Just no.

Don't be an unprofessional jerk, even if your former employer is one. Karma, etc.

Re:I'd do it

[iggymanz]

I am amused at this mythical "professionalism" you invoke. An employer can treat you like shit and you're supposed to forever be their slave? You are to be a doormat for the one percent, sacrificing your life and happiness for theirs?

Let's instead contemplate concepts like "righteous vengefulness", "malicious compliance", "taking down the oppressor", etc.

Um..yes. Just YES

Re:I'd do it

[ClickOnThis]

Well, go ahead and see how that works out for you. My guess: you'll be behind bars, while the rest of us will knock the dust off our sandals and go on to the next job.

Professionalism begins with a sense of self-respect and value of the work we provide for others. I for one won't sully that with sabotage, no matter how impertinent a former employer behaves.

Re:I'd do it

[QuasiEvil]

There's a line between intentional sabotage - aka telling them to delete the working filesystem - and induced incompetence.

I worked for a small company many years ago (as in about 20 years ago, during college). First there were pay cuts, then paychecks started to be late, and eventually creditors started showing up... So basically I knew I was screwed, but I figured if I quit, there was no chance at unemployment. Let's just say anything done in that last month wasn't exactly quick or robust. The firmware written in those last days pretty much skipped any error checking, met only the barest of requirements, had total crap for comments, etc. Plus, half the time I was sitting there, the programmer/debugger was hooked to one of my projects rather than theirs. As long as there was code on the screen and I was cursing at some board, nobody still there could tell if I was working on their stuff or mine.

Showed up one day to a locked door and the place cleaned out. My old boss - the owner - called me one day when he tried to sell the technology to another company. Couldn't make it work for the demo and wanted my help. Since I hadn't seen more than 25% of my pay in the last three months, I offered to help for some additional compensation up front. Went in, screwed around for two or three hours, and then declared that something must have gotten fried or jostled when they hastily packed up the place and fled in the night. Basically, unfixable, sorry, and if you want me to repair the hardware it's going to cost a lot more.

The real answer is that if you want code to run, you should probably burn it onto the EEPROMs before putting them in the product. But hey, with little financial incentives, there's virtually no end to the problems I can't solve.

Re:I'd do it

[ClickOnThis]

There's a line between intentional sabotage - aka telling them to delete the working filesystem - and induced incompetence.

Please let's not tolerate "induced incompetence" either. You are competent, and you have a fiduciary responsibility to provide your employer with your expertise in exchange for a fair wage. If you're paid to solve only 25% of the problem, then solve that part of the problem with pride. And then tell your employer what it will take to solve the rest of the problem.

Inevitably you will encounter employers who are jerks. Rise above them. You're better.

Re:I'd do it

[Opportunist]

And this is why management thinks they can get away with stunts like this.

Re:I'd do it

[Opportunist]

And that pays my bills in what way?

Sorry, but I've been in this game for too long to still turn the other cheek. I have a contract with my employer. He pays money, I do work. There is no emotion attached there. We have a deal. Same applies to the country I live in. I pay taxes, they provide services. And for both applies that if they don't hold up their part of the contract, I'm in no means required to uphold mine.

I'm tired of people mistaking "professionalism" for allowing others to screw them over. It's by no mean professional to deliver good work for shabby compensation. It's stupid. That's all.

Re:I'd do it

[ClickOnThis]

I suppose I wasn't as clear as I could have been. Not for a moment was I trying to suggest that anyone should work for free, or allow themselves to be screwed over without acting. I'm just saying don't screw back. If you have mobility (or hate the job) then leave. If you don't have mobility (or like the job for other reasons) then stay and try to negotiate or organize.

In any case, know that your work has value and you deserve to be paid fairly for it. Strive to act in a way that enhances, rather than diminishes that value. That's the kind of professionalism I'm talking about -- the kind that no employer can take away.

Re:I'd do it

[iggymanz]

Funny you think your words somehow don't apply to executives at corporations.

Who said anything about sabotage; you're stupid if that's what crossed your mind.

Re:I'd do it

[iggymanz]

we are speaking of those who DON'T give a fair wage, want SOMETHING for NOTHING because they believe we are their slaves.

How should enslavers be treated?

Re:Don't sign it

[MobSwatter]

I would, then I would slap it down on the desk, pull out my junk and promptly piss all over it just as they have the economy through predatory lending and price manipulation of precious metals. If the hire process survived that then they know what to expect on the desk when I leave. The simple fact that they were required to be bailed out by tax money indicates that these pricks really should not be bankers. If anyone should be sent back to paper and pencils it should be those bastards at the top of the list.

yep

[rsilvergun]

and if it's one thing I know about folks who've been laid off, they have no trouble affording lawyers. They're certainly not vulnerable after 20 years of outsourcing.

Re:yep

[ClickOnThis]

It won't be long before some lawyer weighs in as to whether this is even consistent with Georgia's public policy. And IANAL, but if it isn't then I assume it's unenforceable.

Re:yep

[Z00L00K]

It may work if the lawyer smells a lot of money out of the suit too. If they say "This will be fun" you know that they really want this case.

uhm no

[Anonymous Coward]

One of my favorite lawyer terms... "reasonable". Reasonable is that if you don't pay, I don't play.

There are a lot of smart people who will just ignore this and go on with their lives. But there is also a large group of people who will still work for free. If you're foolish enough to work for free, well then, you deserve it.

Get ready for it.

[Anonymous Coward]

1: Suntrust is deeply, deeply underwater. Texas Ratio of 17+. That means if they went under right now, their creditors, including depositors, would get 5 cents on the dollar. This is a company deeply affected by the subprime mortgage racket, literally they paid a billion bucks to the justice department to settle foreclosing on people's homes they didn't own or have titles to. It is a company that needs to fail and it's current and previous management needs to be imprisoned.
http://www.bankregdata.com/allAQmet.asp?met=TXR
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/suntrust-settles-with-justice-dept-over-mortgages-talks-continue-for-citigroup-and-bank-of-america/?_r=0

2: This is not just a desperation move, it's almost certainly a move made by an Indian manager, coming from India, where there are no worker protections, and this kind of deal is going to result in a huge class-action lawsuit after a few months or so of "on-call" support. If you are reading this and from sun-trust, call lawyers, get contacts lists NOW, and strategize to get as much money as humanly possible from these scum. Make sure to discuss pressing whatever criminal charges you can as well, make sure to muck up the case where they are assuredly mucking up black-letter FSLA laws. Make sure the world knows if you're an IT manager from Sun-trust that you cannot manage a department competently.

3: Now that I know you are off-shoring IT and are badly underwater, I also know you are probably off-shoring accounting. The problem here for the bank is when the new serfs start stealing things; there's no downside since the Indians don't go to jail since they're remote, and they have all the motive in the world. If you have stock get it out NOW!
.

Re:Get ready for it.

[fred911]

" That means if they went under right now, their creditors, including depositors, would get 5 cents on the dollar."

A little misleading. Everyone is covered by the FDIC, which I believe covers $250k per person. So if they "went under" it would be significantly more of an issue then the bank failure (or being out of trust).

https://www.fdic.gov/deposit/d...

 

Re:Get ready for it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to be sure: depositors are protected by the FDIC. Shareholders and bondholders are not.

Re:Get ready for it.

[netsys]

According to this their Texas Ratio is 3.04% as of Q2 2015 https://www.depositaccounts.co...

Re:Get ready for it.

[dj245]

1: Suntrust is deeply, deeply underwater. Texas Ratio of 17+. That means if they went under right now, their creditors, including depositors, would get 5 cents on the dollar. This is a company deeply affected by the subprime mortgage racket, literally they paid a billion bucks to the justice department to settle foreclosing on people's homes they didn't own or have titles to. It is a company that needs to fail and it's current and previous management needs to be imprisoned. http://www.bankregdata.com/all... http://dealbook.nytimes.com/20...

2: This is not just a desperation move, it's almost certainly a move made by an Indian manager, coming from India, where there are no worker protections, and this kind of deal is going to result in a huge class-action lawsuit after a few months or so of "on-call" support. If you are reading this and from sun-trust, call lawyers, get contacts lists NOW, and strategize to get as much money as humanly possible from these scum. Make sure to discuss pressing whatever criminal charges you can as well, make sure to muck up the case where they are assuredly mucking up black-letter FSLA laws. Make sure the world knows if you're an IT manager from Sun-trust that you cannot manage a department competently.

3: Now that I know you are off-shoring IT and are badly underwater, I also know you are probably off-shoring accounting. The problem here for the bank is when the new serfs start stealing things; there's no downside since the Indians don't go to jail since they're remote, and they have all the motive in the world. If you have stock get it out NOW! .

Your post is a bit racist but this explains why they sold my loan. I had an auto loan with them arranged by the dealership (I negotiated the rate down to market rates). I have excellent credit, never a late payment, and my interest rate was fair to them (market rate basically). 3 months after writing that loan, they sold my loan to CSC Logic / aka BB&T, and it seems that I am not the only one they did this to. The paperwork involved for me was a nightmare and I will never use a big bank for a loan again. When your loan is sold, it is rarely to an outfit with good customer service. It's sold to the "highest bidder" which generally means they have low margins and don't spend money on customer service. I couldn't understand why SunTrust would sell my very safe loan, but now it makes sense- they need cash NOW. I'm going to buy a bottle of Don Julio 1942 and drink it on the day they go bust.

Re:Get ready for it.

[MoreThanThen]

"issue then the bank failure"

syntax error, then without if, goto 4th grade or type 'man than'

When will this shit end ?

[Anonymous Coward]

OffShoring, Outsourcing, H1B, L1B, etc has been going on since 1998 (maybe before that). Why is any of this tolerated ? The Unions don't care. The Politicians don't care. American citizens don't care. Does anyone care that American Citizens are losing everything? What's the end goal from all this? When will the whole sale of Americans end ?

Re:When will this shit end ?

[BECoole]

When programmers have some trust in their skills and marketability and refuse to train offshore replacements.

Tell the employer to KYA and quit!

After 20 years of pay cuts

[rsilvergun]

and inflation you'd be very, very lucky if you had the savings to say no. Also, at least here in Arizona businesses have a million ways to weasel out of unemployment, and Georgia isn't exactly well know as a bastion of workers rights. There really isn't a safety net out there, and unless you're very, very lucky you won't be knitting one yourself...

Re:After 20 years of pay cuts

[pete6677]

If a business is letting people go in a layoff there is no way they can get out of unemployment in any US state.

Re:After 20 years of pay cuts

[scsirob]

Regardless of your savings or lack thereof, you cannot afford to agree to such a clause. It simply means you are not 100% available for your next job. You would have to disclose this to any future employer and no-one in their right mind would hire you for the next two years because of it.

Re:After 20 years of pay cuts

[Cederic]

No. If you have to be reasonably available then it's perfectly reasonable to get a new job, which makes you unavailable.

Re:After 20 years of pay cuts

[RogerWilco]

I've heard describe the USA as a democracy. Maybe you should vote in some politicians that stand up for workers rights?
I would guess that employees outnumber employers?

I'm always amazed by the US situation.

KMLBA

[YrWrstNtmr]

Kiss my large brown ass.
If the 'severance package' includes a single check equaling 2 years full pay, payable on the day of my exit, then we'll talk. Otherwise? KMLBA.

A bank outsourcing IT support?

[SylvesterTheCat]

If my bank ever did this, they would lose a customer and most of their other customers

Fortunately, I never have to worry about that, because they know how the PR disaster would end.

Re:A bank outsourcing IT support?

[YrWrstNtmr]

I am a Suntrust customer. Have been for years.
There aren't a lot of alternatives, unless you go to a small local Credit Union or similar. The mergers and buyouts over the last decade means BoA, Wells Fargo, or other large asshole bank.

(and your bank has probably done something similar)

Re:A bank outsourcing IT support?

[ShanghaiBill]

If my bank ever did this, they would lose a customer

SunTrust is a holding company. If you live in the Bible Belt, it is quite likely that they own your bank.

... and most of their other customers

You are vastly overestimating how much typical customers know/care about the labor practices of the businesses that they patronize.

Re:A bank outsourcing IT support?

[SylvesterTheCat]

You are vastly overestimating how much typical customers know/care about the labor practices of the businesses that they patronize.

For a lot of people and businesses, I think you are absolutely right.
Originally, I was not going to say who my bank is, but.. what the heck...

It's USAA.

They quite proudly proclaim that a very high percentage of their customers stay for life.
They have been in the "Top 100 Companies to Work For" for many years.

Given that their target customers are current / former service members & veterans, I think they recognize that it would be a disaster to outsource any part of their operation.

Or else what?

[PPH]

You agree to be available. What if I don't agree to the severance deal? They won't fire me?

There has to be some consideration involved in any agreement. An exchange of something. If the terms are good enough, sign. If not, just walk out. Two weeks notice.

From TFA:

"contract requires them to be on call for two years and they agree to not be paid for any time used to assist the company."

Really? When did they negotiate that? And why didn't the workers just walk out then?

Re:Or else what?

[Greyfox]

Usually, or else they contest an unemployment claim, meaning you have absolutely no income coming in for the duration of your unemployment. Of course, you could just quit and not be eligible for unemployment either. All completely legal.

Re:Or else what?

[dcw3]

What if I don't agree to the severance deal? They won't fire me?

No, you'll still get laid off, but without any severance. Contrary to some folks belief, severance isn't a requirement. My own company has been letting people go with a clause saying they promise not to sue for a variety of reasons. Funny that when they did that about 5 yrs back, everyone who got laid off was over the age of 40...can't sue for age discrimination if you want that severance package.

Add some fine print

[spiritplumber]

"... at whatever my hourly consulting rate happens to be at the time".

The "FUCK YOU SUNTRUST!" Thread

[Shoten]

I'm a SunTrust customer...in fact, myself and my significant other both are. We've got a few accounts there. Well...that is, we have them until a day or two from now, when we will be closing them and taking our money to another bank. (I just spoke about this with her...I told her the terms of the severance package, her chin dropped...literally, I'm not exaggerating...and she's in.) All of you who are on board, able to do something like this to these galactic pigfuckers, and who pledge to do the same...do chime in?

Who's with me? :)

Re:The "FUCK YOU SUNTRUST!" Thread

[LVSlushdat]

Do yourself a favor and skip going to *another* bank... They're ALL pig-fuckers... Credit unions are the way to go.. The wife and I have had our accounts in one credit union or another for the past 30 years. I'd had mine in one prior to us hooking up in 1985, and she'd had her account in one also, so when we got hitched, we moved them to one credit union. I have ONE exception, where I have a self-managed IRA with USAA Bank, but they're one of the VERY few good banks...

Re:The "FUCK YOU SUNTRUST!" Thread

[Greyfox]

I can't boycott them any more than I already am. I joined up with a credit union a decade and a half ago. Prior to that I was eligible for two separate class action lawsuits against national banks for their inventive and apparently illegal ways of fucking their customers. There has been surprisingly little fucking from the credit union. None, in fact. You'd think over the course of a decade and a half, there would be some fucking. Not even a bit of surprise anal at year 10. More like surprise no-anal.

Anywhoo, just switching doesn't do anyone a whole lot of good. You could also write an actual letter to their CEO explaining that you're switching banks because of this. One guy doing that won't get a whole lot of notice. If a few thousand letters start showing up, that might actually get their attention.

Re:The "FUCK YOU SUNTRUST!" Thread

[YrWrstNtmr]

I am also a SunTrust customer. Which other asshole bank do you plan on switching to?

Re:The "FUCK YOU SUNTRUST!" Thread

[whoever57]

Well...that is, we have them until a day or two from now, when we will be closing them and taking our money to another bank.

My unsolicited advice: find a credit union instead of a bank. Much more friendly. Also my credit union's Android app works better than Wells Fargo's app.

Re:The "FUCK YOU SUNTRUST!" Thread

[dj245]

Do yourself a favor and skip going to *another* bank... They're ALL pig-fuckers... Credit unions are the way to go.. The wife and I have had our accounts in one credit union or another for the past 30 years. I'd had mine in one prior to us hooking up in 1985, and she'd had her account in one also, so when we got hitched, we moved them to one credit union. I have ONE exception, where I have a self-managed IRA with USAA Bank, but they're one of the VERY few good banks...

If you happen to be in Illinois or Wisconsin, Consumers CU is very good. They currently pay 3.09% interest on checking accounts for the first $10k of balance if you meet some very reasonable criteria. You can get an even higher rate if you meet some stricter conditions (use their credit card so many times/month, etc). They also refund ATM fees from other banks. Their customer service is basically average, and their website is slightly clunky, and they won't write loans for states other than Illinois (I think), but it is a great place to keep a checking/debit account.

Re:The "FUCK YOU SUNTRUST!" Thread

[Bob C. Cock]

USAA is the best and I have been a customer of theirs for years. I try to give as much of my financial business to USAA because they have always been stellar with every aspect of their services. If you're military or have family in the military look into becoming a USAA member, they also have services for non-military folks too.

Define reasonable

[ne0n]

It's a bank. "Reasonably available" means "commensurate with compensation" in my books. If they're paying 2 years salary as severance that's another matter.

Re:Define reasonable

[kimanaw]

Actually, I think its better than that.

(IANAL, but have negotiated numerous consulting contracts) Most contracts require fairly explicit language to be enforceable. "Reasonably available" == "meaningless" as far as a contract is concerned. If someone declined to cooperate with Suntrust's definition of "reasonable", Suntrust now has to decide if its worth their legal teams' time/money to pursue legal action. My guess is they'd threaten, then disappear. And if it was really urgent, they'd start discussions for a consulting contract. As stupid and draconian as their contract may be, they are in the business of finance, and know that money talks, and bullshit walks.

Frankly, I'm surprised their legal team even put that in the contract. Probably some AVP forced it in over legal's objections.

Unconscionable contracts

[WaffleMonster]

What is missing from TFA is any mention of severance compensation. This makes it impossible to know whether to feel sorry or happy for affected souls.

Assuming your getting fucked by the deal...

Require all communications and in-person visits to be scheduled with your "agent" who will charge various administrative fees in order to schedule the free assistance you will be providing without compensation.

it depends

[david_bonn]

If "making yourself available" means answering a short phone call and answering a quick question (e.g. 'what is the root password for "fitzroy"?) then it is not unreasonable. As the article says, it violates the fair labor standards act to contract to work without compensation. So it isn't probably enforceable in general.

Outright refusal

[whoever57]

"F.O.!"

Really what can they do? Sue the former employees to force them work for no compensation? I doubt that any court is going to support the bank in this.

Re:Outright refusal

[Z00L00K]

Add to it that the current employers may want to have a word in the discussion too. Could be fun if someone transfers to the IRS.

Would make looking for a new job impossible

[stabiesoft]

Exactly how would this work exactly boss (soon to be my ex-boss), I get a new job that forbids me from working for someone else. Now suntrust needs help and you want me to break the terms with my new employer who is paying me money so I can help you(suntrust)? I'll check with my new boss, but I think the answer will be no.

Re:Would make looking for a new job impossible

[MikeJones8766]

Not a problem. Since they aren't paying for you help it isn't really work.

Alternative approach when asked by the bank

[whoever57]

Here's the solution to your problem, just run this simple command and everything will be fixed:

sudo rm -rf /

Re:Alternative approach when asked by the bank

[Raxxon]

technically doesn't work anymore as rm has some stupidity checking built in....

sudo find / -type f -exec rm -f {} +

Re:Alternative approach when asked by the bank

[chmod a x mojo]

Shouldn't

rm -r --no-preserve-root

still work?

Re:Alternative approach when asked by the bank

[fahrbot-bot]

Shouldn't rm -r --no-preserve-root still work?

Not every system is Linux and I would imagine that the larger bank systems definitely are not. They're probably something like Solaris or HP-UX. The commands on those systems generally only support more legacy Unix options, not newer GNU/Linux options. (Of course, YMMV.)

Somehow....

[Snotnose]

My experience is training H1-Bs how to run 'rm -rf /' on critical servers, whilst maintaining my innocence regarding teaching them said commands.

Re:Somehow....

[Snotnose]

Wow. When I started my post some 2 minutes ago there were 0 replies. Now there are dozens. Do I detect a hot button issue?

outsourcing banking support?

[LostMyBeaver]

I live in Norway where one of the largest banks moved their IT operations out of the country to TCS (think Tata) and I immediately changed banks.

I have some little problems with outsourcing banking... especially to India.

Laws in different countries are different and enforced differently than they are in your own country. If you've ever visited India and spent any time there, you would know that one dishonest person in the flock can grab a bunch of money and run like hell and never be found. India is huge, has language/communications issues between villages and an enterprising criminal would never be caught.

India is also the country which brings us "Windows Care" and other similar companies which are call centers to scam people. They call your house (sometimes up to 5 times a day) and make threats and intentionally misrepresent themselves as Microsoft. After tracking their IP addresses to a registered company (it has changed again) and calling their local police department to report racketeering and international wire fraud charges, I was informed that :
  1) Gartner (when paid by Symantec) reported that 90% of all computers are infected by a virus
  2) As such, if you're willing to pay the $300 and give them access to your computer to install anti-virus, it's perfectly reasonable to assume there's a 90% chance they're performing a good service for you.
  3) It is not illegal in India to claim you're someone you're not unless it infringes the cast system.
  4) Thank you for calling... please don't let the door hit you on the ass as you leave.

Would your nations money in the hands of a company located in a country which provides you no recourse against criminal activities taken against you so long as they can provide some convoluted logic as to how they're helping you?

Re:outsourcing banking support?

[frank_adrian314159]

Would your nations money [sic] in the hands of a company located in a country which provides you no recourse against criminal activities taken against you so long as they can provide some convoluted logic as to how they're helping you?

Thanks, but I already bank in the US.

Re:outsourcing banking support?

[dj245]

3) It is not illegal in India to claim you're someone you're not unless it infringes the cast system.

This is the most surprising part of your post for me. I knew that India has lots of fraud, and I knew that they have a strong caste system. But I did not realize that fraud is seen as a lesser crime than disturbing the caste system. It explains quite a lot about the way many indian people behave.

Re:outsourcing banking support?

[SuiteSisterMary]

I vaguely remember, when the 'India Windows Help Scam' story originally started, somebody saying his response was always to announce that he was a member of such-and-such caste, presumably one of the lower ones, like the Eta or Burakumin type, and the Indian on the phone would always immediately hang up.

That's what a severance package is

[Sycraft-fu]

Employers aren't required to give you anything when they let you go, other than your final paycheck for whatever time you've worked but they haven't yet paid. However sometimes they will give you a "severance" which is additional pay. It can range anything for a meager token to a pretty hefty chunk of change. Generally better employers will offer one. Also employers will sometimes use them as a way to get people to leave voluntarily to avoid forced layoffs.

Usually, they don't come with strings attached. This one is extremely irregular. Either the severance package is really good so they expect people will take it despite the shit condition, they figure their employees are really desperate for money and will take it anyhow, or they are really out of touch.

Personally in a situation like that I'd be really tempted to do as other have suggested and take it, but then act like a completely forgetful idiot whenever I'm called in and generally be completely useless. Realistically I'd probably strike the availability cause in the contract and sign it. If they countersigned, great I get money with no strings, if they refuse I'd walk without the extra money because I don't need those conditions over my head.

Re:That's what a severance package is

[plopez]

I my area 30 days or severance is required.

Re:That's what a severance package is

[bitingduck]

Employers aren't required to give you anything when they let you go, other than your final paycheck for whatever time you've worked but they haven't yet paid.

It depends. If they've got 100 or more employees and they're laying off 50 or more in one geographical area it's likely considered a mass layoff and they're required to publish a 60 day notice under the WARN act. Usually the way companies get around it if they want to give no notice is pay everybody for the 60 days that they would have still had a job. They could say in the severance "we're paying you to keep working for us for 60 days, but we don't want you to come in unless we call you" and that might not be considered unconscionable. But paying you for 60 days and expecting you to be on call for 2 years? That probably won't fly anywhere.

Re:That's what a severance package is

[houghi]

In Belgium you do not get any severance pay. Howeber what most companies do is instead of letting you stay for the 3 or more months, they will let you go sooner or even imediately.

That way many confuse the money they get with severance pay. It is 'just' time you do not need to get into the office AND can start working at another company AND they pay it out all at once.

That said, if they require me to be available for 2 years, than they better pay me something. If I were an asshole, I could even not come in, wait till the two years are over, go to court, claiming I was still working for them and probably get away with it, so they need to pay me those two years+ all extra costs.

Re:That's what a severance package is

[tburkhol]

Usually the way companies get around it if they want to give no notice is pay everybody for the 60 days that they would have still had a job.

I suspect that's very much what was done here. Remember, these people are training their replacements - they've been told about an impending mass layoff, but for the next XX days, they are training Asok in their previous duties. I suspect an additional lump-sum severance is in exchange for not taking a new job that would prevent them from consulting for the old job. Individuals are, no doubt, free to decline those terms and quit immediately. Doing that consulting for "no additional compensation" sounds pretty fishy, and I suspect the contract would say something like 'severance includes non-refundable pre-payment for XX hours of consulting time.'

I mean, companies do try contract scams, where they get you to sign away inalienable rights in hopes that you just don't check, but it's far more productive to have the lawyers write up legally enforceable contracts, especially if you have 1000 lawyers on staff. In this case, they may look at it like a lottery - they've got 100 chances to find someone who believes his word is a bond in the event that the H1B's turn out to be fuckups. That seems completely counter-productive: why not write a legally defensible retainer clause?

I also suspect these contracts would be a lot more negotiable if the 100 affected workers organized themselves and agreed, en masse, not to train their replacements or to remain 'available.' If only there were some mechanism for arranging such collective bargaining...

Re:That's what a severance package is

[argStyopa]

"Employers aren't required to give you anything when they let you go"
They are, if they're requiring you to sign a new "contract" - there has to be compensation, or it's not a contract.

Besides, what are they doing if you don't sign: fire you?

Re:That's what a severance package is

[tommeke100]

They have to give you at least a couple of weeks notice depending on your seniority. If you've been working there for over 10 years, this adds up to almost a year and over. In case of massive lay-offs and sensitive jobs ( sales, IT, R&D , .. ) they will just put you on the street directly and pay out "the due wages" for those months. So yes, that could amount to a nice severance bonus, given that you find work soon thereafter since you're not allowed to collect unemployment while in the severance period.

Re:That's what a severance package is

[Lunix Nutcase]

Wow what great legal analysis that is invalidated within seconds by a Google search.

Re:That's what a severance package is

[oh_my_080980980]

Wrong. If an employer provides severance pay it is for years of service provided. It is not compensation for future work. That would be a consulting contract.

FYI the lawyer in the article already addressed this point so your post is meaningless.

Re:That's what a severance package is

[evil9000]

You're missing the forrest from the trees.

3 months severance package, 2 years of free priority 24/7 support.

What would be an appropriate severance package for those demands?

In the developed world long term employees retrenched this way would be paid additional compensation for time in service. Not in America.

More dangerous memory loss

[Roger W Moore]

"Oops sorry that was the wrong command but it has been a while. Did I remember to tell you to run a backup before we started? No? Oops well I suppose its a good thing I can't get fired!"

Re:More dangerous memory loss

[mysidia]

Yeah.... combine this with giving their replacement incomplete training, or showing them obvious ways of doing things that are not "your refined/optimized method" and are certain to get them into trouble eventually, and you have a killer.

Re:More dangerous memory loss

[Z00L00K]

SQL update statements without a WHERE clause. They are always fun.

UPDATE accounts SET debt=0;

Re:More dangerous memory loss

[Applehu Akbar]

"UPDATE accounts SET debt=0;"

There's a whole TV series based on this single SQL statement.

Re:More dangerous memory loss

[ArsenneLupin]

SQL update statements without a WHERE clause. They are always fun.

Has happened to me by (genuine...) mistake a couple of times. Fortunately I had a backup.

Re:More dangerous memory loss

[Z00L00K]

Show me a person that have been working with SQL that haven't made that mistake and I think that person is very pedantic.

Re:More dangerous memory loss

[Enigma2175]

I assume he is talking about Mr. Robot

Re:More dangerous memory loss

[I'm New Around Here]

Is it "To Catch a Pre-Dater"?

You're too naive

[rsilvergun]

Or living in a very, very liberal district. There's lots of ways. The most common is just to make the employees contract to hire and never actually hire them. You can also move the site to somewhere they can't get to and declare anyone that doesn't move has quit. You can cut pay/benefits/hours until they're more or less forced to quit. These are just the one's I've seen first hand. If all else fails most states use arbitration to decide if unemployment benefits were legitimate. Wait 6 months and sue the employee to get your benefits back. The Arbitrator is appointed by the local chamber of commerce or some other right wing, pro business group. They'll side with you.

I meant what I said. You're safety net's gone. Clinton & the blue dogs started dismantling it in the 90s and Bush finished the job. Now would be a good time to notice and do something about it...

Re:You're too naive

[Wain13001]

The kind of safety net I'd want for people would be...

A very basic income.
$250/month for 21 and under
$500/month for 22-66
$750/month for 67+
However, if one has social security benefits already, it's either or, the highest, not both.

If we scrap SNAP, I'd add an additional $200/month to the above figures.

Considering the widely varying costs of living in this country you might want to consider where you're getting these values from, and what it is they are supposed to cover and replace hard constant figures with something more adaptable. On this income "safety net" I can almost pay 2/3rds of the monthly rent on what would be considered the absolute lowest end dirt cheap studio apartment in the greater area in which I live, and it wouldn't be enough to help me move to said sinkhole.

Re:American IT needs to be a profession

[ClickOnThis]

American IT needs to form a union, or at least a guild.

FTFY

I hope anyone on the chopping block has setup an array of sabotage protocols.

No, not sabotage. Never. Totally uncool and unprofessional. Not to mention potential grounds for incarceration.

FUCK THESE MBA ASSHOLES

Well, at least the clueless RIF ones.

I did provide help to former employer ...

[perpenso]

I did provide help to a former employer. The employer had experienced prolonged financial distress. I survived numerous rounds of layoffs but #5 or so got me -- I liked the project I was working on, liked my coworkers, was located next door to the university I was attending grad school at and they were paying for it.

Most people found out they were getting layed off that day but received two months severance pay. I actually was told my layoff went into effect in a month so I could finish up some specialized tasks I was working on alone, same two months severance.

I was asked if it would be OK to call if they had any questions. I said yes, and asked if I could keep a copy of my more specialized source code for reference and of course I would respect the company's intellectual property. The VP of engineering said sure and gave me a signed letter authorizing my retention of a personal copy. The VP was an actual engineer, he knew and trusted me.

I had a few short phone calls with former co-workers where I answered some questions in the first six months of my departure.

About a year after my departure I was asked if I would like to return. I did not, I had a new job that I liked.

If there is a decent severance payout or if there is a reasonable chance for re-hire I would suggest offering some help. Even if not if you think the former boss or coworker might make a good future reference, or you might work together again somewhere else -- networking works, don't dismiss it -- you may want to offer some help too.

Re:I did provide help to former employer ...

[plopez]

That is called handling things in a professional, reasonable, humane, and human manner. The way it should be.

Re:I did provide help to former employer ...

[nerdbert]

I've done this, too. When one employer when through tough times I survived numerous layoffs until they decided to let the whole hardware group go. Even though I wasn't required to, when some of the lawyers from the ex-company called a few years later about a patent suit I helped them find where I'd documented some research I'd done on a patent I got. So even though I left that company and they did that division in, they called 5 years later to offer me a new position. I declined politely, but I wished them success.

So in normal situations, be polite, helpful and go the extra mile. It's good for you, your morals, your self-respect, and your reputation Generally a company is in trouble if you're reasonably competent and they're laying you off, so helping them only helps you by keeping options open down the road.

But this situation is not a normal one, I'm afraid. When you're training your outsourced replacement in a situation like the one described in the article, I don't consider that a situation where I'm willing to go 1e-9 meters more than absolutely necessary to help the company (in this situation, when those H1Bs started shadowing me my new first priority would have been trying to find another job, even at great impact to the present one [taking lots of vacation time to go out interviewing, etc]). Last I heard, Sun-Trust wasn't hurting for profits. In this case they were just making a business decision that US IT workers weren't worth employing, so if I'm one of those US IT workers why would I help a company that made an incorrect decision for no good reason that hugely hit my life? Now if Sun-Trust were going struggling I might change my mind, but that's not the case here. They'll say it's just a business decision to out-source, and my response would be that if they are asking me for something after all that, they've obviously underestimated what my time is really worth.

Unions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Solving the Prisoner's Dilemma in the U.S. since 1886.

rm -rf *

[ZipK]

As I remember, and it's been awhile now so you'll have to excuse me if my memory isn't what it used to be, that's how you restart the system.

Oh yeah

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"Oh yeah, I'll fix it. I'll fix it soooooooooo good you'll need to call in an actual paid contractor to unfix it."

Lol, I would love to get a call from an old employer like this, the schadenfreude would be delicious, as would be the myriad excuses I would come up with in lieu of a more direct "Fuck off and die!"

I'm in Bahrain for the tulip festival and won't be back for a couple of months.
I fell and have a head injury...who are you again?
My new employer says they'll sue me if I help you in any way, sorry, it's a no-compete clause in my contract.
I converted to being Amish and I am no longer able to do your technological Devil's work!
My parole officer says I cannot associate with any of my old co-workers.
I can't come to the building, it's within 1000 feet of a school....

Re:Don't sign it

[plopez]

They don't care because they don't have. The taxpayer will always bail them out. A great way to institutionalize incompetence.

Boycott 'Em

[RandCraw]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Sun Trust Bank
Fifth Third Bank
Crestar Bank
Farmer's Bank
National Bank of Commerce
Central Carolina Bank
Florida Community Bank

And their close partners:

Grand American Road Racing
Coca Cola
Atlanta Braves

Re:Boycott 'Em

[dcw3]

You left off two of the worst...

Shitty Bank
Skank of America

Hi I've become Amish

[plopez]

I can't help you. Forcing to use the Devil's Tools would violate my Constitutional rights. (Message exchange brought to you by the USPS)

The one year "Rumspringen" is only a guideline after all, not a dictate :)

I signed a deal similar to this

[rickb928]

A client signed a contract for services with my employer, and included a clause that I would be available even if I left their employment, binding me to be available to provide information, specifically passwords, but also any information I 'developed, maintained' blahblahblah related to the design and administration of their systems,

And they let the contract end at the end of the first term, moving to another provider. I answered a lot of questions during and after the handover. No problem, ethical and professional behavior I would have engaged in even without a specific contractual obligation, if the former client made the request.

Then more than a year later, and after I had left that employer and moved to another state, I was contacted by the current provider. They were frantic to recover an administrator password for a server, change the technical and administrative contacts for the client's domain, and locate backup tapes for the system from a year before, did I happen to have any?

Well, sadly;

0. The current servers were all Windows Server 2003, upgrades from Server 2000. I left the system with NetWare 5.1 servers. I never knew the Windows Administrator passwords.

1. The backups they were looking for were, sadly, Windows Server backups. I didn't 'happen to have any'.

2. Very soon (days) after this call, I was contacted by an attorney explaining that they would sue me for the information. I explained as best I could what I had, and assured him that I would countersue for expenses, and that I had no useful information for them.

3. I started getting more calls from this former client begging me to relinquish the domain. I directed them to the current records, where my name and contact no longer appeared. I was powerless. They contacted my former employer, now out of business, and he thankfully dismissed them.

4. Finally I got a really official-looking letter from the attorney threatening me with all manner of unpleasantness.I am bless to have a dear friend who is an accomplished attorney, retired, and he gave it a cursory look and assured me that it was pure bluster. He even encouraged me to respond with some key phrases that would give that attorney the right way to tell their client to let up.

5. And I found that the former client somehow managed to file a professional lien against my name. I'm not a licensed professional, engineer, or bound by any fiduciary duty other than ethics and a contract that was long lapsed and had actually been fulfilled. This took three years to remove, and ultimately resulted in censure for the attorney involved, little bits of bad press for the client and their current provider, and a lot of questions from my friends, family, employer, and reporters thinking there was a story there. I tried to keep it quiet. My former employer still doesn't know, and I wouldn't bother him.

In hindsight, I should have responded to the initial requests with all the info I had, and then, if approached, refused and threatened action if they persisted in asking me questions I could not answer.

If I were in the OP's position, I would sign. It's not like they could take my severance, and goodwill is either worthless or priceless. Even if they started calling me at all hours, I can fake a disconnect and ignore their calls until the next morning.

But 2 years is a long time. 6 months is reasonable, perhaps.

Ultimately, we often have to work for real jerks. A paycheck overrules pride when you have responsibilities..

Re: I signed a deal similar to this

[Anonymous Coward]

When someone even threatens with a lawyer, the correct answer is "I apologize. As this is now a legal matter I am unable to provide assistance except through my attorney. If you would kindly provide a mailing address, I'll be certain he gets in touch with you." And that's that. Most will just give up. These people wouldn't have, but then you'd have selected a decent attorney and nailed their incompetent asses to the wall. :)

Once someone throws the hardball, quit being nice.

Re: I signed a deal similar to this

[91degrees]

And they let the contract end at the end of the first term, moving to another provider. I answered a lot of questions during and after the handover. No problem, ethical and professional behavior I would have engaged in even without a specific contractual obligation, if the former client made the request.

Right. The way I see it, the clause just makes this reasonable expectation a legal requirement.

0. The current servers were all Windows Server 2003, upgrades from Server 2000. I left the system with NetWare 5.1 servers. I never knew the Windows Administrator passwords.

Starting lists at zero. I can see we're dealing with a techie here! But seriously it does show something to watch out for. It's fine until the client decides that you have information or expertise that you don't have.

Re: I signed a deal similar to this

[DNS-and-BIND]

The person who fucked up was desperately trying to deflect the blame onto someone else. Rather than admit that she screwed up bigtime, she decided to persecute another person. Pretty sad, but then she was just a piece of human trash.

Re: I signed a deal similar to this

[dbIII]

Didn't work in San Francisco so best to not try that against an employer with their own police force - not being seen as providing all info after dismissal resulted in jail.

Re: I signed a deal similar to this

[rickb928]

In hindsight the first replacement was probably sacked, though neither would admit it. The emergency replacement either hosed something up or had no working though with their predecessor. I thought I had an excellent relationship with the client, but they were difficult.

Re: I signed a deal similar to this

[rickb928]

Had you read my notes, you would know I agreed to assist. Yes, passwords should have been changed. But the agreement was the agreement. Their complaint was that I didn't actually have any useful info, and their attitude was inappropriate.

Re: I signed a deal similar to this

[rickb928]

And recalling this more, a half hour downtime and the ebcd, they could have cracked any account. I would never ask why. Had the client asked us, we would have quoted a fee to do so.

Re: I signed a deal similar to this

[david_thornley]

If you're referring to Terry Childs, that's not why he landed in jail. Against policy, he kept the passwords to himself, so the only copy required both Childs and his laptop. When he tried to flee the area, leaving the city network unchangeable, he was arrested.

The jurors wanted to find everyone involved guilty, but could only convict Childs.

Re: I signed a deal similar to this

[nerdbert]

What an interesting contract. Every one I have ever signed has stated that I would return or destroy any company confidential or proprietary information I possessed upon expiration of my employment there. And as I've always told them upon leaving, I will delete all such information, especially passwords.

Tell me, are such contracts common in your experience? Normally folks are very happy when I tell them I am deleting all records I have of passwords I had on systems there, but this seems to be a unique requirement and normally one that would trigger all sorts of red flags since it would create multiple intrusion points and security risks. But maybe I've been exposed to too many sensitive projects for big companies or agencies.

Re: I signed a deal similar to this

[rickb928]

That and other contacts we wrote had all those provisions. This one added the 'assistance' rider.

No one defined 'assistance'. It's possible to forget passwords, and I did. But if I were called 3 months later and asked if I recalled the secret for the gateway router, I probably could. 6 months later.? I dunno.

Re: I signed a deal similar to this

[dbIII]

Yes "not being seen as providing all info after dismissal resulted in jail".
He's just one and there will be others where the "he's an ex-con and deserves jail anyway" attitude seen on this site will not apply. If it can happen to him it can happen to others who may have passwords that have been otherwise lost, or like in the case of Childs, where incredibly poor management wished to make an example of someone to scare the others.

At least one person won't be taking the offer...

[forevermore]

Any time I've had to accept a severance agreement, part of that agreement included a gag clause (presumably to prevent employees from comparing their benefits). I can't imagine this being any different.

This shouldn't be necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

These kinds of agreements ought not to be necessary. I've been in IT for so long I was there when you soldered together your own microcomputer... video games didn't exist yet.

I took pride in every system I worked in or supported. If I left a company on good terms, I'd answer any question at any time day or night if they needed me to.

Hell, I got calls from a company I hadn't worked at for 15 years, 3AM - moron in the computer room claimed my name was still on the list as the Level III to fix the printer bridge... No one else was available. It was in a Hospital - I knew that if that printer didn't work, patients didn't get their meds.

So I dug out my old ID badge, got dressed and drove over. The guard let me in, told me to get a new badge in the AM, and I rebooted the damn thing (still the same system - just running on a VM in a newer box now).

I called my old boss the next day (he's the CIO now) - told him what happened, and to take me out for dinner... I got a nice steak and a great conversation out of it. Consulting deals too. And WE updated the list in the computer room :-)

If I left on less than great terms, then screw 'em. I don't remember unless there's Benjamin's per hour for me to remember.

Compensate me well, I'll treat you well. Treat me like shit, send my job overseas, and expect me to train my replacement? hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.... ummmm, no.

Bad free work

[manu0601]

I can perform good paid work, but if you are out of cash, I will gladly provide bad work for free.

Seriously, how such a clause can be remotely legal? Last time I heard about it, unpaid forced labor was called slavery.

All you need to know

[avandesande]

Illegal contracts are unenforceable.

Re:So? Let them find me

[Z00L00K]

Or another country.

Good luck to try to enforce that contract for someone that has moved to a country where the laws protects the employee more than the employer.

And even more legal in Hollywood, too.

[ConstantineM]

And don't forget the people working in Hollywood. If you're working as an extra for background actions, for the minimum wage already, and it takes you half the time to find jobs where you match the requirements, as well as extra money for costumes etc, then you're effectively working for half the minimum wage. Not to mention hour-long commute times!

I've recently visited LA for the first time, and participated as an unpaid extra (just for fun) in Ted 2 (just happened to be the movie available), also talked with the locals on the set who work as paid extras. I got the impression that overall they totally hate the unpaid ones, because that's further reinforcement for their minimum wages.

Re:And even more legal in Hollywood, too.

[DNS-and-BIND]

Extra isn't exactly a job that requires skills. In fact, the evidence that you just walked in off the street with no training and were able to do the job pretty much proves it. Makes me wonder, why are all those other people even doing the job? Even flipping burgers needs training, if you went into a McDonald's and started trying to make burgers you'd fail.

Re:And even more legal in Hollywood, too.

[Crowd Computing]

Every extra should at the very least be given a free copy of the movie they're appearing in.

Sure you can sign away your right to sue

[Eric Green]

You can bet that these contracts have forced arbitration in them -- you must agree to forced arbitration, or you don't get your severance pay. Because that's how evil banks roll.

So why is that bad? Well, consumers win 40% of the time when they sue a bank in court. But if a consumer instead is forced into arbitration because of a forced arbitration clause in the contract, consumers win less than 4% of the time, according to a study of arbitration decisions in California. I.e., forced arbitration basically means you signed away your right to sue in any meaningful way -- and the Supreme Court has upheld those agreements as fair and reasonable, so you can't even appeal to a "real" court.

Re:Sure you can sign away your right to sue

[oh_my_080980980]

It's still not enforceable. Contract law is very clear you need to provide compensation. Severance pay is not compensation for consulting work. Consulting work would be a separate contract. Many corporations do that - provide consulting contracts for employees no longer in their employ.

Re:Sure you can sign away your right to sue

[Eric Green]

Tell that to the arbiter who is being paid by the Big Bank to arbitrate your case :).

Agreed: Extremely bad advertising

[Futurepower(R)]

Mod parent up. Reasons why that arrangement is bad advertising:

1) Exactly what FuzzyFuzzyFungus said.

2) Ruined the company's name on Slashdot.

Many managers have no insight into technology. Moving work to India seems better to them. But in many cases it isn't.

I called CitiBank for information on why all charges to a credit card were pending. (No money owed.) Someone in India answered and was completely incompetent. I asked for that person's supervisor. The supervisor was almost completely incompetent.

Don't people have to be paid for work?

[Streetlight]

It seems to me this requirement is illegal as people must be paid for work - at least at a minimum wage. Another way to look at this is that such work could be considered slavery which surely is illegal. Also, you can offer people a job but they don't have to take it. And if one gets another job there may be a giant conflict of interest in transferring knowledge, no matter how trivial, from the new job to the slavery position. What idiot in HR came up with this idea?

Re:Don't people have to be paid for work?

[david_thornley]

Since there was presumably a cash severance payout, that would cover the cost of working for free for some time. As far as the other stuff goes, "reasonable" is not a word I'd care to use in a contract, unless defined in the contract. Any attempt to refuse working for the old company on grounds of reasonableness could wind up in court, which would likely throw the clause out entirely.

Re:Don't sign it

[gl4ss]

it's severance, so there is pay involved. if the compensation is a joke then the contract is not valid anyways - also the compensation better be same as normal pay because you can not move and get a new job while under it anyways...

FEAR

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all about fear. In a fair court with a fair judge and jury, you are right, but the company will use the threat of litigation to terrify them into the extra work. Expect threats like:"WELCH ON US YOU VILE SCUM AND WE WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE A LIVING HELL IN A NIGHTMARE COURT CASE THAT WILL DRAG ON FOR YEARS AND WE'RE GOING FOR PUNITIVE DAMAGES TOO, YOU ASSHOLE... or you can do a weekends work for us. What will it be?"

This is why we need criminal punishments for powerful entities which abuse their power to force the weak to submit on unjust terms. Civil remedies are too expensive and time-consuming to pursue. That's why we need criminal ones.

Re:FEAR

[HornWumpus]

Once they cleanup the fire damage, I don't think they are going to want a second weekend from me.

Not that I would deliberately set a fire. Perish the thought. But accidents happen.

Re:At least one person won't be taking the offer..

[MikeJones8766]

A gag clause doesn't make you work for free for 2 years.

they don't have to sign

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

You don't have to sign a severance agreement. Presumably, they are offered severance pay as part of the agreement, and they can turn it down if they don't like it.

Minimum wage * 24 * 365 * 2 years + Feb 29th

[davidwr]

Anything less would be tantamount to slavery and very likely to get tossed out of court.

OK, I exaggerate SLIGHTLY, but really, the payout better be at least the equivalent of minimum wage at 40 hours a week for 2 years or the company is going to lose the first lawsuit that has a good lawyer standing behind the plaintiff. Then again, that's "only" about $30K, or 3-6 month's wages for a lot of technical people, which isn't a lot.

Re:Read on

[MikeJones8766]

Yeah i will sign that in a heartbeat and be secure enough until i find my next job. When i get that next job i will make sure the new company knows (As you would have to) about this

And what kind of company are you expecting to hire you when you tell them you may have to leave in the middle of the day with no prior notice to go work for some other company?

Sun trust doesn't own my bank

[davidwr]

My bank has a slot on the top and is shaped like a pig.

Of course I put significant quantities of cash into a Credit Union account.

Re:Don't sign it

[Opportunist]

Only 'cause the slave owners noticed it's cheaper to not house and feed your slaves but instead pay them a fraction of that cost in salary.

Re:American IT needs to be a profession

[Opportunist]

Dude, which side started being unprofessional?

As far as I am concerned, an employer who first of all makes me train my replacement AND then has the audacity to expect me to continue working for free for them should feel lucky if their office is still in one piece the next morning.

Reasonability

[codeButcher]

....where the employee agrees to 'make myself reasonably available'

Unfortunately sir, between me working a current job and being in a fairly demanding phase of the project, having family responsibilities, requiring a few hours of restful sleep per night, and your operation being "offshore", no, your request to make myself available to you is not reasonable.

Re:Read on

[viperidaenz]

Wasn't that from when they let a Vice President go? If it was current, it wouldn't say September 2009.

This is boilerplate

[91degrees]

It's a pretty common clause.

There's no way a court would actually enforce that clause in most circumstances. Perhaps they might plausibly need to call you and ask what the password is for an obscure, rarely used component, or if there's a lawsuit they might need you to make a statement.

Essentially it's a catch-all clause that the bank might use in rare circumstances.

Re:This is boilerplate

[ledow]

Not in my country.

If you sign there, there is a burden on you to prove that their request is unreasonable should they ever execute it. If their system crashes and nobody else but you can recover it, you're going to be working for them, compensated "reasonably" or not, and you already chose not to be there.

If you want those people to transfer skills, then you keep them on to train a replacement. If you don't, you don't get to call them back whenever you feel like. If you only need assistance for the occasional lost password etc. then there's no need to cast it in stone this tightly.

Lawsuits don't come into it. If you're called as a witness, it doesn't matter who you work for now, you might be asked to appear before court.

Whether they use it or not, it wouldn't be there if there wasn't the suggestion they COULD use it. And that might well mean an awful lot of inconvenience even if you ARE paid, and provided for and a lot of bad times in front of your new boss explaining that what you signed before you left conflicts with THEIR contract. If nothing else, having to let a new employer know about the possibility is a burden in itself.

Pay for the proper transition, or don't. It's a simple choice. And if you let the one guy walk out the door being the only person knowing those details, not having anyone else trained or aware of what they did, him being the only person authorised to reset them, etc. then more fool you.

Off shored? "Sorry-I don't understand your accent"

[Bruce66423]

When a techie calls for help. When an English speaker calls, who isn't a techie, use obscure technical terms. If an interpreter calls make sure you have a major domestic emergency...

What is the problem?

[dheltzel]

I don't see a problem with this -- as long as each employee gets a severance package worth $200,000. I'd view it as a retainer worth about 2 years of salary.

If the severance is not enough to act as a retainer for my services, then (as others mentioned) I would conveniently forget my old job if ever asked for help. I would suggest (off the record) that a substantial payment at that time could jog my memory, but without further compensation I just can't be bothered to try.

I did sign a 3 month retainer agreement when (voluntarily) leaving a job. It turned out to be a good deal for both parties. They needed me exactly once -- but wow, did they ever need me then, LOL. Of course, if you are leaving voluntarily, you are in a much stronger position to negotiate, since you have a waiting position and are not facing unemployment and needing a reference.

Would be 'illegal' in Europe

[angel'o'sphere]

If they come to work you have to pay them.
Already for staying 'available', you would need to pay a fee.

Legal system

[Anne Thwacks]

It sounds like America is in need of a legal system!

Severance agreements are contracts

[Antique Geekmeister]

Such an agreement can include a significant lump sum of cash _precisely_ to provide compensation for being available, which helps make it an enforceable contract. That can especially include password information, critical technical contacts, passing along DNS management authority, or fleshing out documentation that seemed complete at the time of departure but was missing critical steps.

I've certainly seen such agreements, usually accompanied by a severance package of several months of pay, when the law required only that they receive vacation pay, and they're certainly not new. I even signed such an agreement a very long time ago during layoffs, since I'd trained the youngster who took over my core role and optimized myself right out of a job, and the severance package was generous enough to cover what I normally would have charged consulting fees for later. I did get a few calls later, especially when someone accidentally deleted my documentation and I pointed them ot the backups.

As other say

[ruir]

You pay me 2 years salary, that is fine, otherwise, I am leaving...

Re:American IT needs to be a profession

[dcw3]

FUCK THESE MBA ASSHOLES

My wife is a double MBA, so I go for more than just the asshole.

Re:Don't sign it

[supremebob]

I would probably sign it IF the severance package was big enough. Hell... if they were going to give me a year of severance for 2 years of part time work that isn't allowed to interfere with my new job, that's a good deal!

The story doesn't say what the actual severance package is, though. If it's only six or eight weeks of pay like most severance packages? Fuck you. Not worth the hassle.

They can't be serious

[Dunbal]

Sure I want an EX employee to still have access to my computers. Not only is it exploiting the worker, it is a major, major security risk. I guess you can "trust" SunTrust bank, huh?

liability?

[mgkimsal2]

What if one of these workers really does give a 'best effort' attempt at helping, say, 6 months from now, but screws something up? Will they be held liable?

Symptoms all around

[DigiShaman]

Like rats jumping off a sinking ship, the ones that stay will also step on and shove others into the ocean in hopes for a dry platform. All this outsourcing spans the entire economy of STEM jobs and not just IT. If they're truly trying to compete with a global economy, then they've already failed; and failed to acknowledge that fact too.

Thankfully, the Severance Agreement is Voluntary

[EmagGeek]

Thank goodness this severance agreement is 100% voluntary and that the affected employees are under neither a requirement, legal nor moral, to sign it, nor to avail themselves to the company for which they are no longer employed.

Re:Labor & Constitution

[EmagGeek]

"Involuntary."

What, exactly, is "involuntary" about this optional, voluntary severance agreement that the employees are under no obligation to agree to or sign?

Re:Don't sign it

[j-beda]

Only 'cause the slave owners noticed it's cheaper to not house and feed your slaves but instead pay them a fraction of that cost in salary.

Well, they didn't notice it themselves, they had to be forced to do so, but they did eventually figure it out.

Re:Don't sign it

[Lunix Nutcase]

Not 2 years worth of pay.

Re:Read on

[Culture20]

And what kind of company are you expecting to hire you when you tell them you may have to leave in the middle of the day with no prior notice to go work for some other company?

The kind that says "Holy $@&! that's a great idea. And he's apparently good enough that they think they might need him again. Let's talk with our lawyers about this severence package idea, and let the new hire know any time missed working for the former company is unpaid leave."

Re:Don't sign it

[Applehu Akbar]

"I would, then I would slap it down on the desk, pull out my junk and promptly piss all over it"

If you don't sign, you don't get severance. If you do as described, you won't have the severance it would take to make bail.

You've got an army of embittered, resentful slaves

[sizzzzlerz]

with access to your critical IT systems with nothing to lose.

Not exactly the type of ex-employee you're looking for, I'm pretty sure.

Sure, I'll sign.

[jdharm]

Everything I am 'forced' to sign that I don't want to gets signed by "Clark W. Griswold".

But frankly, I wouldn't have any problem signing something with obligated me to something as nebulous as "reasonably available".

"No, Your Honor, I do not consider it reasonable to take off work at a paying job for a week to go work for free at a former employer who laid me off."

I'm pretty confident any half decent lawyer would have no problem convincing anyone that this isn't reasonable.

Of course I remember how to fix that!

[Aaden42]

So the first thing you do is you login to the main server. Then you type `sudo rm -rf /`. Yup. Just enter the root password quick, and you’ll be all set!

Yeah right

[EagleRider70]

"Sorry, I am too busy right now", would be my response to any request for my time. It is idiotic provision and any reasonable person would understand that for a clause like that a "'make myself reasonably available'" would be 0 hours, unless they were willing to pay you as a consultant. The judge would laugh them out of court; I doubt many judges would go along with a 2 year period of indentured servitude.

I can't help former employees I'd be WILLING to

[sandytaru]

I got an email last year from a former manager asking if I knew the password to the Word document I'd created four years prior, then assigned all ownership rights to the person who was taking over my role. I totally could not remember. I had to say, "Sorry, Ken should know." The document contained sensitive information and was locked for a reason. Not my fault someone else didn't remember the password I'd given them, or better yet, change it to something the could easily remember.

Re:Read on

[Widowwolf]

A company who sees: "It is understood and agreed that such assistance, to the extent possible, will be requested at such times and in such a manner so as to not unreasonably interfere with any subsequent employment" Isnt that the way it is with all pending litigation/subpoened time

Stupidity of IT workers at work.

[mindmaster064]

Look, I hate to say it but I've never trained an H1B regardless of the money involved and as a result I still have my conscience. IT workers who are completely retarded enable these companies to do these things. The answer the this question is simple: If they threaten your job if you don't train someone... LEAVE... You are not just hurting yourself, but everyone else in this profession. Three months more of pay to permanently lose your job, and worse deny that job to another qualified candidate that lives in this country? This is only a deal for you if you're mentally disabled. Without our direct help they cannot do this, so uh... Stop helping them.. Part two -- most of us are not employed as trainers. Trainers get paid more than IT workers... You actually have no responsibility to train anyone most of the time and you are not being paid for it. Specifically ask to have terms like "excludes H1B workers" if you do get paid to train. We have to stop fucking ourselves... It's really that simple.

Re:Don't sign it

[MobSwatter]

Public urination? Potentially defecation? Pretty sure the judge would have a difficult time staying seated on the bench upon reading the docket out of laughter and the media would have a field day covering a stand against 'the man' like that. If they weren't clear at the urination part that I would not be interested in their severance package to the point of not being interested in the job, well then the unregulated thieving bull headed banksters flat out deserve it.

Would you say that Jesus in this day and age would qualify as a modern day terrorist for getting the banksters of that age kicked out of Temple? Looks a lot like they nailed him to the cross for that one. Jesus died because of their sin, not for them. I am not superstitious, do cast judgment, and unafraid of directly protesting against people that simply should not be handling money based on their previous performance in the industry requiring bailout by the tax payer in the process of double dipping them for paper because apparently robbing their own bank of the gold wasn't enough, they had to come back for the paper too. I am not for kicking the pricks out of a superstitious building, I'd kick them greedy bastards off the planet if I had my way.

Re:Don't sign it

[Opportunist]

Then how comes that a normal "slave level knowledge" job can't pay you rent and food anymore?

It will never survive a court challenge

[macs4all]

and to do so without compensation.

If challenged, that clause will certainly run afoul of the 13th Amendment's prohibition against Slavery.

No Court will order someone to work for free. Even Public Defenders are paid a per diem when ordered by the Court sue sponte to represent someone. Even prisoners are paid a wage when working (however miniscule).

This is asinine, and the provision will be instantly struck down, maybe even with the provision that they have to provide services after being discharged. Any even half-reasonable Court would see that for what it is: The Corporation trying to have its cake and eat it, too.

I am well-aware that you can knowingly and willfully abrogate your Constitutional Rights; but if this was only part of a "Severance Agreement", then there is little chance the Courts will uphold it, and even if it was part of an employment contract, in most jurisdictions, non-compete clauses (which this essentially is; because what happens if you are working at another job, and Sun Bank tries to exercise that clause to drag you back to work on a Project for them?) are pretty-much universally disfavored, if not downright nullified, by the Courts and/or Legislatures.

Good luck finding a safe one

[sethstorm]

What place does that and manages to not be a permatemp country?

How available?

[PPH]

After leaving, I might just move onto a houseboat and pull in to some remote bayou for two years. No phone, no e-mail. I pick up mail at the post office one or twice a month.

But I'm available, if you can find me. And more than happy to help out. Just stop by any time. But mind the 'gators. They ate the last H-1B IT guy that came out here.

Sun TRUST Bank???

[Tribeca1248]

In today's work environment, this sort of thing is expected, I guess. Is anyone pushing back against it? Has anyone threatened lawsuit? This needs to be publicized - widely - so that maybe the bank will have second thoughts. Still and all, it sucks big time.

Re:So? Let them find me

[MooseTick]

This is a bank in Atlanta. No one is moving to another country. I suspect 99% of these people haven't even been to another country. The few who have likely have only made it to Cancun via a cruise out of Mobile AL.

So, indentured servitude for two years...

[gestalt_n_pepper]

If the Supreme Court was still interested in upholding the constitution, I'd be pretty sure that this would never make the first court challenge, but these are the guys that made sure civil forfeiture was legal ( https://www.law.cornell.edu/we... ) and that money is speech ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) so all bets on anything resembling valid legal judgments are off.

They aren't trying to get free labor

[mhkohne]

They are trying to get the employees to decline the severance package. If you make the severance nasty enough, the employees turn it down, and you don't have to pay it - which looks even better on the bottom line.

Just a theory, obviously, but I'd be willing to bet that's what's going through someone's head.

Because if the bank execs actually tried to force one of these people to come back and help, their own internal security people would probably get together with the insurance company and beat the execs up and stuff them in a closet - there's things more likely to cause you trouble than forcing a disgruntled ex-employee into the office, but it's really got to be at the top of the list.

Unenforceable agreement

[spkay31]

That sounds like a legal agreement even a 1st year law student can vacate. If I was an employee I would include my consulting rate as part of the acceptance documentation for the sign-off. Then I would hope they ran into problems and I could collect on my $250/hr consulting gig.

Rotten Bank...

[LinuxLuver]

When ANZ Bank in New Zealand outsourced offshore and sacked 500 staff, I switched to a smaller bank that doesn't outsource offshore. I'd been with ANZ for 23 years at that point. I wrote them a nice letter saying I was disappointed they had so little commitment to their community and the country. I didn't get a reply. But they are typical io the sort of business one does not want to deal with if you want your kids to have a future.

Slavery's back, baby!

[fuzzy2k]

Yeah! We are number 1!

Cannot believe

[Stubbyfingers]

This is enforceable under federal law

Wow, just wow ....

[Miser]

Signed in to say that the severance better have quite a few ZEROS at the end but to the left of the decimal point before I'd be a slave like that.

It also sounds like something like that doesn't sound all too legal, either.

-Miser

Yes, I've considered it

[rsilvergun]

and I've also considered the well documented negative psychological effects. I've also considered why Japan has the highest first world suicide rate.

I would LOVE to "help" a few former employers

[weweedmaniii]

I would greatly enjoy former employers calling me to consult with them..
"Sure just remove that device"
"Are you sure?"
"Yup"
"Everything just went dead!"
"Hmm things have changed since I left...good luck with that." -click-
"Your honor, I had no idea, the system changed since I was employed there...."

Troll contract is trolling

[von Stalhein]

In these here parts any "request" for assistance would earn a very quick "F*CK OFF MATE!"

Surely

[stoatwblr]

The fact that the bank requires the severed employees remain available undermines any claims that they're redundant and replaceable with H1B monkeys?