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In Turnabout, SunTrust Removes Contentious Severance Clause (computerworld.com)
dcblogs writes: SunTrust has removed a controversial severance clause requiring laid-off employees to be 'reasonably available' to help without pay during the two years after their employment ends, the bank said today. The severance agreements received by employees included a "continuing cooperation" clause requiring each worker "to make myself reasonably available to SunTrust regarding matters in which I have been involved in the course my employment with SunTrust and/or about which I have knowledge as a result of my employment with SunTrust." Bank IT employees believed this broadly worded clause was essentially an on-call provision, requiring them to provide technical help as needed without additional pay. The bank disputed that interpretation, and said the intent was to limit such help to legal matters. The bank, in a statement released late Friday morning, had a change of heart, and said it would be removed from the severance agreements.
a sanity clause? it's Friday, i'm done.
Good on them for showing some sense. I mean, I'm still canceling my SunTrust mortgage next week, but now it's just because I'm selling my house, and not because I find their policies personally reprehensible. Before it was both a coincidence of timing AND a sense of disgust. I'm happy to drop the disgust.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
They have too much power. These assholes would have gotten away with this, too.
If a party to a contract puts language into a contract, the only safe assumption you can make is that said party wants to some day be able to do that thing.
The only appropriate response to "oh, we'd never actually do that" is "then remove it."
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I'm happy to be available to a previous employer - at my standard consulting rate. They can pay the going rate, just like everyone else.
The notion that I should be available to work for free, after leaving, for 2 years? Insane.
I had a similar clause in my severance contract at a previous employer (only 6 months, though), and started getting calls frequently because the guy to whom I handed over decided to quit after a row with my old boss.
I had covered myself by notifying the new employer of the clause during interviews, but suddenly getting 4 or 5 calls a day that took up 1-2 hours of the working day was a problem and as the new guy on the team, I did not have a huge amount of good-will with my team to be able to "slack off" from the team's projects.
The old employer also had a vested interest. Knowing the way my old manager's mind worked, he would have had no problem with making calls to the point where the new employer terminated my contract because of it, so that he could try to rehire me.
My new boss got his legal team talking to the old company, and when the possibility of either legal action or invoicing for my time came up, the call volume dropped to near zero - 2 calls in 3 months, if I recall correctly.
The project they were calling about was well documented, thanks to me and a detail-oriented intern who had been working with me for a couple of months, but these clauses still leave an ex-employee on the hook for a lot of potential problems if they are vaguely worded.
Didn't actually intend anything nefarious. Just the usual over-reaching language by a lawyer who doesn't really do anything that matters.
You'd think that after all these bad-pr-because-our-lawyers-need-muzzles incidents, companies would hire someone to keep an eye on the lawyers. The amount of time, effort (and therefore money) they spend cleaning up these messes isn't small.
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
The new article seems to imply that the severance package for the workers is the "standard severance agreement amount[ing] to two weeks of pay per year of employment."
If this is the severance package being offered the workers, it is an utter outrage to even consider putting in the clause that they would be required to assist the company, without additional compensation, for two years after their employment with the company is terminated. For better companies, two weeks per year of service is a very typical severance package (the most generous companies offer four weeks severance per year of service) and comes with no special conditions.
It seems the workers have not saved very much for a rainy day. Even with the amended terms, I would quit immediately, using the work-at-will terms that companies such as this lousy bank fight so hard for against itself, and let the replacements figure it out. If they can't, I wouldn't accept anything less than $600/hour as a "management consultant" to fix up this mess of their own making.
Contracts are frequently thrown out entirely when they contain unconscionable provisions. Having it there might have been better for the employees laid off.
I was fired by an employer with a long track record of constantly calling former employees about matters they were involved in. Fortunately at the time I had the sense to not give this employer my home number but a number than rang in my home office only. Once terminated I simply unplugged that phone for a couple of months. I was available, they just couldn't reach me. At the time cell phones were around, but not to the extent they are today.
Directly sabotaging anything is illegal, but if you coerce me into two years of free consulting because you outsourced my job, the advice may not be the best, you know? There is going to be negative value in this.
Yes, I'm assuming their stated intent is just another PR lie from a terrible corporation.
How about NOT laying off your US IT workforce, and how about NOT outsourcing this work?
How about hiring people within our country first and only hiring abroad if you cannot find local talent?
This sort of thing is going to destroy our country if it keeps up. We really need some regulation in this area that makes it unprofitable to outsource IT to other countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Some one told them they were being unreasonable fuckers,,
I also wonder how many threats individuals have received since this all started?
I also wonder whom had the bright idea to stop this, considering your leveraging this against the people whom hold ur data dear..
These are the the times when Jerks whom even beleive this is reasonabe need to be UN-brain washed,,
or need to be extinguished
these attempts just breed dishonesty, anger and greed.. Fuck you all
""to make myself reasonably available" means for me: not available unless they pay me as a contractor whatever I ask. For $10,000 / hour I will be available for consultancy work.
I can see several practical solutions:
Proposed Law 1)Any contract found to have an over-reached term means that the contract writer is required to pay all legal costs - even if they win all legal issue.
Proposed Law 2) All un-negotiated contracts (versus one where both sides paid for lawyers of their choice) are to be judged by the laws of the state of residence of the non-represented party and can not be arbitrated.
Proposed Law 3) Any non-disclosure clauses (a) do not apply to testimony in a closed court - as long as all members of the court sign a non-disclosure clause and (b) it is illegal to attempt to use such a clause to hide a crime - doing so is a separate crime that the lawyer may be prosecuted for. Lawyers don't have to report a crime done by their client, but they can't bribe or threaten a witness to not report it - not even with a contract.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
As defined by whom?
My definition is VERY different from the ST corporate one, I'm certain, especially after being replaced by low-cost-foreign-workers who I was required to train.
There are workers in my area impacted by this. They didn't think ST was going to call them-ever. If a 15 minute call could help them out, fine. That was their thinking.
It was a dick move. We've all seen non-compete agreements. I've simply refused to sign and the matter disappeared most of the time. Nobody tracks that too much. Once I signed "John Doe" throughout the entire paperwork. Nobody noticed. At the last job, the CEO handed me a 2 yr non-compete clause. I asked how much the compensation was for that 2 years. $zero. I scratched through the 2 years and wrote 1 day. Asked him to initial it. He did and I signed.
The company has 3 choices when we balk.
a) drop it, because it really doesn't matter for our skill level
b) agree to our new terms, because we ARE that important to the company
c) decide to fire us/me - which means unemployment rate increases to the company. Smaller companies are more hit by this.
If you are skilled, none of these things really matter. It is best to work for a non-dick company. There are cool companies who will hire you today, for more money and greater flexibility.
BTW, I've worked at 11 different companies.
The bank disputed that interpretation, and said the intent was to limit such help to legal matters.
This simply means that their lawyers were either:
(1) too incompetent to express their "intent" when they drafted the severance agreement, or
(2) in cahoots with the management to try to screw the ex-employees
We might never know which it is, but we know for certain that something is rotten with those lawyers.
This looks to me like a "OMG somebody told the press" PR damage control.
...isn't the severance package or the B.S. clause about availability. The problem is that they laid off their U.S. staffers and replaced them with outsourced IT from India. The severance clause was just the peanut chunks atop the turd sandwich, and the bank isn't doing anything about that.
I don't mind that clause at all. I would have asked my next employer to put into the employment contract that I am not allowed to work for anyone else while employed, either for free or for payment, except that on request they would allow me to work for Suntrust, as long as Suntrust pays my employer $2,000 per day.
I'd say that is quite reasonable.
To have an unenforceable agreement thrown out you have to spend money out of your own pocket on a lawyer. This isn't cheap. Can you afford that? Also, it is also 'legal' for the company to contact your current employer to demand that you are fired. Are you sure you are important enough for them to want to deal with lawsuit threats?
Then to make matters worse every company does a background check. A lawsuit against a former employer will show up. That is a red flag for HR. MEans you are a potential problem. Further if they find out about this crazy agreement, they have to decide whether its worth the trouble to hire you and risk threats from a previous employer. To make matters worse if your last employer got you fired... then you have a triple whammy.
All this can easily happen before you get the agreement thrown out. If you even have the money to pay the law when you are unemployed.
Businesses know this. Its why the issue them.