[TRENCHES] Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - Reversal
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Reversal
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/reversal
For those testers in California
AnonymousThis isn’t a Tale From the Trenches, but hopefully a ray of sunshine for all those testers out in California. The state recently passed a law requiring 60 days’ notice before doing a massive layoff. The text of the law itself:
Cal Lab Code § 1401
(2012)§ 1401. Notice requirements for mass layoff, relocation, or termination
(a) An employer may not order a mass layoff, relocation, or termination at a covered establishment unless, 60 days before the order takes effect, the employer gives written notice of the order to the following:
(1) The employees of the covered establishment affected by the order.
(2) The Employment Development Department, the local workforce investment board, and the chief elected official of each city and county government within which the termination, relocation, or mass layoff occurs.
(b) An employer required to give notice of any mass layoff, relocation, or termination under this chapter shall include in its notice the elements required by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (29 U.S.C. Sec. 2101 et seq.).
(c) Notwithstanding the requirements of subdivision (a), an employer is not required to provide notice if a mass layoff, relocation, or termination is necessitated by a physical calamity or act of war.
Posts
There's a hole in that law: How do you define a "mass" layoff? Could companies just lay off one or two at a time in a slow trickle?
> There's a hole in that law: How do you define a "mass" layoff? Could companies just lay off one or two at a time in a slow trickle?[/quote]
Mass means layoff of 50 employees at a single site within a 30 day period. There is a federal equivalent which requires more affected employees to trigger.
This law (2003) and its federal equivalent (1989) aren't that recent. IANAL but if I read it correctly it applies only to employees and not contractors. Between that and the 50 threshold, it probably doesn't do much for game testers.
Mass means layoff of 50 employees at a single site within a 30 day period. There is a federal equivalent which requires more affected employees to trigger.
This law (2003) and its federal equivalent (1989) aren't that recent. IANAL but if I read it correctly it applies only to employees and not contractors. Between that and the 50 threshold, it probably doesn't do much for game testers.[/quote]
Also probably doesn't apply to temporary employees on rolling contracts. If most of these holes were plugged, most of the offending companies would just upsticks to somewhere else that had less restrictions. It would need to be applied nationally, but as I understand it (from a UK point of view), in the USA that would be almost impossible. Many of our American cousins are so damned paranoid about federal 'interference' in state and local matters, that it probably would never happen.
Well gosh, I suppose I might as well settle in for a nice cuppa ...... this is gonna be good!
Because that is who that is.
I mean, the term "covered establishment" itself generally means "anywhere but where you work" from my experience.
There seem to be plenty of ways around it.
Let's see: So do what the movie industry does: spin out a new shell company for every game, or a new shell company for the testers.
So 5.9 months rolls around? You're fired.
Yeah.
edit: and it was said above, employee contracts for testing will say "you are automatically terminated and rehired at the end of every 5.9 month cycle unless told otherwise". bam loophole.
edit again: pretty sure I would not hire someone who couldn't sit in a chair right in the first 15 seconds of an interview.
As in, supply of people who are willing to sign a piece of paper that contains pretty much anything, provided they can get a job in the industry.
Temp worker? Sure.
No guaranteed hours at all- you sit around and hope we get busy enough that work spills your way? Where do I sign?
An expectation of 120 hours a week working minimum wage with no overtime? Hells ya!
A work space that is actually a janitor's closet, with a single candle for light, the door always closed and 15 people and their computers crammed in there? Well, that sounds a bit inconvenient... but game industry woo!
The problem isn't the laws (or lack of them)- although it sounds like the state of labour laws in the States is pretty unthinkable for much of the 1st world- the problem is that game companies can get QA people who literally do not care what their working conditions, compensation or job security is so long as they are in the game industry.
Personally, I would not mind at all doing QA in the game industry- it sounds like fun. But my alternative is currently making $60k plus bonuses doing QA in the financial industry, with 40 hour work weeks (mostly), full benefits, and very high job security. So... not really something that too many game industry QA positions are willing to offer.
LISTEN TO THIS MAN PEOPLE!!! He makes sense.
Hang on...... someone on the internet making sense. Truly is the end of days....
Well gosh, I suppose I might as well settle in for a nice cuppa ...... this is gonna be good!
The WARN act is actually Federal law, not California state specific. There's more than 1 hole in that law, actually. First, the company in question has to have 100 or more employees over the preceding 6 months. Second, the layoff has to be of 50 or more people. I'd go deeper, but a Google search of WARN Act should get you a lot of information.
Also, this is in no ways a new law. It;s been around since at least the 90s.
IT IS A COMIC STRIP
Yep, what ^this one said.
Although this would... not encourage me to hire Gwen if I were in Cora's shoes.
I don't mean that she's literally attractive to me. But she's drawn in a way to show she has curves and seductive eyes. I take it to mean she's supposed to look hot.
I don't think that particular trick would work. "'Employee' means a person employed by an employer for at least 6 months of the 12 months preceding the date on which notice is required." Doesn't say it has to be 6 contiguous months. If they fire you at 5 months, three weeks and hire you back a day later, one more week of work again puts you at "6 months of the preceding 12 months".
There's plenty of loopholes, sure. Maybe if they played some shell game where they automatically fire you from GameTest Corp. at 5.9 and rehire you at TestGame Industries the next day, that might work. But they can't just say "Nah, she didn't work here for one day in the middle of the year," that wouldn't fly.
your = belonging to you
their = belonging to them
there = not here
they're = they are
All of them.
Forever.
Then they'll just fire 1/4 or so a month into the project and hire replacements, repeating this every month with new people so there's always 3/4 who know the game relatively well but none of them have been on the project for longer than the required period of time.
There are always new testers available to get.
I'm pretty sure that law's designed to prevent companies from surprising the state with masses of people suddenly collecting unemployment. I don't think they're concerned with the slow trickle idea because by the time the last people are on unemployment the first people should be off it.
Agreed twice.
I can think of two reasons to go with fake full time people over temporary people. I would assume temporary workers would expect to be paid more because of the obvious lack of job security. Second, it's probably pretty tough to tell a temporary worker that he needs to be pulling 80-hour weeks without overtime pay.
I still can't figure out why a group of testers from some major company haven't lawyered up and filed a big wage lawsuit against some of these guys.
Hmm.. unemployment and benefits are usually two big ones. Also temps they can let go for no reason whatsoever. Perm jobs they may not either, but it can be more of a hassle if they fight it.
HAHAHA. I'm sorry. As mentioned above, throwing a couple more bucks per hour is A LOT cheaper than benes. Also contract/temps are more likely to take shit jobs (me included) because we already tried to find perm work and didn't.
Well, if they're hourly, that's illegal regardless of their status. If they're salaried, see above about desperation. Also the company feeding into the hopes that maybe they will get hired on.
Because the majority is willing to get screwed. What would the lawsuit be based on? Getting hired and paid for that work?
Sorry, maybe you just haven't encountered a lot of temp workers, but it's a mixed bag - on one hand you get to try a lot of different companies and build a lot of connections, on the other there's no stability (such as it is) and you're basically constantly in JOB SEARCH mode.