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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.'"
"I'm sorry, it seems I've forgotten how to fix that. Good luck"
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Unless the severance included two years full pay ....
"I'm sorry, I can't get time off my current job" - which isn't 'unreasonable'.
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.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
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.
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".
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!
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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? :)
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
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.
I stole this Sig
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...
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.
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..
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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.
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.
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.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!