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Anthony | 1 Nov 01:02
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Re: Recent firing?

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 7:24 PM, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
> 2009/10/31 Anthony <wikimail@...>:
>> On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
>>> As I said above, he wouldn't be working a month's notice if he had
>>> been fired.
>>
>> You correctly qualified that with "In my experience people don't
>> usually" the first time.
>>
>> In any case, the difference between "laid off" and "fired" is often
>> quite blurry, and people certainly often get notice when being "laid
>> off".
>
> Perhaps this is a wrong-side-of-the-pond issue. In the UK if an
> employer calls it redundancy when actually they just want to replace
> you they would get sued for wrongful dismissal in an instant.

Yeah.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

Here in the US, if a company doesn't mind its unemployment tax rate
going up, they can do pretty much whatever they want.

In the UK, what, if anything, can a company do if they want to
redefine a position altogether?

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Thomas Dalton | 1 Nov 01:08
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Re: Recent firing?

2009/11/1 Anthony <wikimail <at> inbox.org>:
> Yeah.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
>
> Here in the US, if a company doesn't mind its unemployment tax rate
> going up, they can do pretty much whatever they want.
>
> In the UK, what, if anything, can a company do if they want to
> redefine a position altogether?

If you are genuinely redefining the position so the existing job will
no longer exist then you can make the employee redundant (you have to
pay at least the statutory redundancy pay, which depends on length of
service). If you are just using it as an excuse to get rid of someone
you don't like, you'll get sued. If you want to fire someone they have
to have done something either really seriously wrong or have received
lots of warnings and not improved.

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Anthony | 1 Nov 01:10
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Re: Recent firing?

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 8:08 PM, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
> 2009/11/1 Anthony <wikimail@...>:
>> In the UK, what, if anything, can a company do if they want to
>> redefine a position altogether?
>
> If you are genuinely redefining the position so the existing job will
> no longer exist then you can make the employee redundant (you have to
> pay at least the statutory redundancy pay, which depends on length of
> service).

Like, say, if you have two offices that combine into one big office?

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Thomas Dalton | 1 Nov 01:19
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Re: Recent firing?

2009/11/1 Anthony <wikimail@...>:
> On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 8:08 PM, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
>> 2009/11/1 Anthony <wikimail@...>:
>>> In the UK, what, if anything, can a company do if they want to
>>> redefine a position altogether?
>>
>> If you are genuinely redefining the position so the existing job will
>> no longer exist then you can make the employee redundant (you have to
>> pay at least the statutory redundancy pay, which depends on length of
>> service).
>
> Like, say, if you have two offices that combine into one big office?

Yes, that would generally result in genuine redundancies.

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Pedro Sanchez | 1 Nov 01:31
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Re: Recent firing?

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Nathan <nawrich@...> wrote:

>
> Gregory Maxwell argues that the Wikimedia Foundation should
> voluntarily submit to the type of openness required of government
> agencies; I suspect this is a fundamental difference of philosophy,
> and relates to why I mentioned "majority shareholder" in my initial
> post. As the Wikimedia community, what level of detailed control are
> we entitled to? We have some of the hallmarks of the role of the
> shareholder but not others, in that legally we have no particular
> rights to the Foundation but practically we control the Board
> composition through elections.
>

Greg raises a very strong point that demolishes your reply. You say
"wikipedia is a business, therefore..." and of course... Wikipedia is not a
bussiness (perhaps you mixed up with wikia?)
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Anthony | 1 Nov 01:34
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Re: Recent firing?

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 8:19 PM, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
> 2009/11/1 Anthony <wikimail@...>:
>> On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 8:08 PM, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
>>> 2009/11/1 Anthony <wikimail@...>:
>>>> In the UK, what, if anything, can a company do if they want to
>>>> redefine a position altogether?
>>>
>>> If you are genuinely redefining the position so the existing job will
>>> no longer exist then you can make the employee redundant (you have to
>>> pay at least the statutory redundancy pay, which depends on length of
>>> service).
>>
>> Like, say, if you have two offices that combine into one big office?
>
> Yes, that would generally result in genuine redundancies.

And, of course, is exactly what the Wikimedia Foundation just did.

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Nathan | 1 Nov 01:35
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Re: Recent firing?

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 8:31 PM, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez@...> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Nathan <nawrich@...> wrote:
>
>>
>> Gregory Maxwell argues that the Wikimedia Foundation should
>> voluntarily submit to the type of openness required of government
>> agencies; I suspect this is a fundamental difference of philosophy,
>> and relates to why I mentioned "majority shareholder" in my initial
>> post. As the Wikimedia community, what level of detailed control are
>> we entitled to? We have some of the hallmarks of the role of the
>> shareholder but not others, in that legally we have no particular
>> rights to the Foundation but practically we control the Board
>> composition through elections.
>>
>
>
> Greg raises a very strong point that demolishes your reply. You say
> "wikipedia is a business, therefore..." and of course... Wikipedia is not a
> bussiness (perhaps you mixed up with wikia?)
> _______________________________________________

I'll stipulate that "corporation" is a more accurate term. I don't see
how the semantic difference impacts my reply. But thanks for making
sure I wasn't confusing the various entities.

Nathan

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WJhonson | 1 Nov 01:43
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Re: Recent firing?

In a message dated 10/31/2009 12:32:11 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
thomas.dalton@... writes:

> 
> It's possible, but since that would require the WMF to intentionally
> mislead the community and there is no evidence to support it, I think
> it is unlikely to be the case.>>

That would be true only if the Foundation had actually made a statement of 
some sort, and they haven't.  So they aren't misleading by silence, they 
just aren't commenting at all.

Will
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Thomas Dalton | 1 Nov 01:54
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Re: Recent firing?

2009/11/1 Anthony <wikimail@...>:
>>> Like, say, if you have two offices that combine into one big office?
>>
>> Yes, that would generally result in genuine redundancies.
>
> And, of course, is exactly what the Wikimedia Foundation just did.

Sure, but in this case there wasn't any duplication of roles between
the offices, to the best of my knowledge. The Staff page on the
foundation site mentions two people involved with Office IT Support,
Ariel Glenn and Steve Kent. I may be completely wrong, but I was under
the impression they both worked in the main office prior to the move.
I didn't think there was anyone in the usability office handling IT
support - half the group are programmers, so I doubt they have many
problems on a day-to-day basis and someone could go over from the main
office pretty quickly if needed.

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Anthony | 1 Nov 02:03
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Re: Recent firing?

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
> 2009/11/1 Anthony <wikimail@...>:
>>>> Like, say, if you have two offices that combine into one big office?
>>>
>>> Yes, that would generally result in genuine redundancies.
>>
>> And, of course, is exactly what the Wikimedia Foundation just did.
>
> Sure, but in this case there wasn't any duplication of roles between
> the offices, to the best of my knowledge.

But "the best of your knowledge" is that you don't know what happened.
 You're quick to criticize the rumor that he was fired, but then you
yourself engage in speculating that he wasn't fired (and presenting
that speculation as fact).  We don't know what happened.  It could be
any one of a large number of things.

If you'd like to respond to this, fine.  I'm done commenting on this
subthread.  Sorry for the multiple messages, everyone.

Anthony

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