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she agreed to it to get a severance payment


That should be illegal, too. Or the permissible scope of such an agreement heavily limited.


“Sign this or starve” isn’t much of a stretch when you think about it


As if Meta employees live on the cusp of starving.


https://www.npr.org/2020/05/12/854998616/in-settlement-faceb...

> Some of the content moderators were earning $28,800 a year, the technology news site The Verge found last year.

In this particular case, the legal costs are probably pretty ruinous.


I think you'll find the person in question's title is quite far from content moderator.


I think you'll find that's why the "in this particular case" line is there.


Nobody forced her to break her contract and thus come up against that. She would have been perfectly fine on the leftovers from ~$500k/y while searching for her next job. The parent makes out like she simply had to get the extra money, lest she starve to death. Which is patently ridiculous.


I agree with you there, but I think that may be the only reason this app isn’t cast in a darker light.

I can also imagine that with SF living expenses that there are a lot of people without a big safety net

I don’t really mean for this to be related to any one person. The general population doesn’t have a choice but to sign terms and get the severance , in general, in America


It's called a Hobson's choice.


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It's Hacker News, not I'm Thirteen And Just Discovered Anarchism And It Sounds Cool Because Now My Parents Can't Tell Me To Brush My Teeth Before Bed News.


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Hackers should absolutely oppose unconscionable contracts, yes.

As we should and do oppose unconscionable punishments like jail for marijuana or the current copyright setup. Because they're wrong.


You understand that this is an entirely different form of argument than just linking to statute or case law.


I have consistently said "should be illegal", not "is currently illegal".

I'm entirely aware that these sorts of contracts are legal in US law. They should not be.


But your glib response above was just to quote "the law", like this was a sufficient justification. If merely quoting the law is enough, then great, we already justified perfectly the copyright and jailing weed smokers stuff. It's only now that you changed tack to make a different argument, which... I mean I might disagree with or not, but it's not what I took issue with above.


> But your glib response above was just to quote "the law", like this was a sufficient justification.

And this is not true for your (false!) cite of "Hacker News"?

At least my quote from the law was accurate.


She had serious debilitating medical issues from pregnancy where she lost a ton of blood and was in a coma for several days and nearly died. Of course she's going to take her severance to help care for her family given the atrocious state of our healthcare system.


I hate seeing this down-voted. It is such an important warning to people here. Severance agreements are pretty strong. Also, be very careful of snap settlement offers.

So many of the greatest tragedies I've seen inflicted on people come from accepting an expedient way to get what is really a small amount of money quickly. So often the drive is paying the rent/mortgage or fear of losing health benefits. If you are in a bad situation and offered a settlement and you really feel like something isn't right please talk to an employment lawyer. Most US States have expedited processes for quickly resolving these cases, and the lawyer can help you a lot when you feel like your only choice is to take the severance.




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