Bank’s severance deal requires IT workers to be on call for two years

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: Edumakated

Someone should tell that to a company I work for. 2 times this month already they have had us sign another more detailed non-compete. I can only guess they are trying to close some holes that cost them.

Hmmm... I'm sure Edumakated has good reason to believe otherwise...

Maybe something's changing in the industry?

and this is why labor unions came into being in the first place......crap like this....and the more you de-unionize, the more this will happen.....all of this was explained 80 to 100 years ago when unions were first starting to form. of course back then, workers were dying because of the corners cut by the owners.

a reply to: Boadicea

Do you. I'm not going to even bother following up on this story. Somehow I think if things were as bad as you think they may be, there would be more news outlets reporting on it. I'll tell you what, if I'm wrong, feel free to let me know and I'll recant my opinion. Promise.

originally posted by: jimmyx

and this is why labor unions came into being in the first place......crap like this....and the more you de-unionize, the more this will happen.....all of this was explained 80 to 100 years ago when unions were first starting to form. of course back then, workers were dying because of the corners cut by the owners.

Yes, this is true... the sad thing is that after doing so much good for the labor force, too many eventually got too big for their britches and sold out to the political interests. It's really amazing how a relative few bad apples can spoil the whole bunch.

Of course, I consider it pretty sad that the labor laws are so shoddy that we even need unions.

a reply to: Boadicea

Not a leap at all.

Yes. It IS a leap... a big one.

The agreement is likely 10 pages long or so. It also deals with remedies and may provide more clarity on the topic.

We've seen only a couple snippets of references provided by a disgruntled employee.

The only need for a binding contract is for future enforcement... as in breach of contract if you do not fulfill their idea of "reasonable" servitude.

Severance agreements are mostly one-sided CYA's for the company that cover things that are not likely to occur.

The one thing they CAN enforce is the confidentiality portion that states employees who sign can't share any details of the agreement with third parties.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Unless any of us were contracted with Suntrust or Urban, it's all just conjecture and annecdotal commentary, right? *On a discussion board*.

a reply to: Zarniwoop

Okay... if that's what you want to believe... what the truth is none of us really know. Those disgruntled employees are obviously disgruntled for a reason. And SunTrust has obviously chosen weasel words to represent themselves. They like contracts so much, it shouldn't be a problem to put it in the contract.

Let them prove me wrong. I hope they do. Regardless of what the current offer is, they have every right and opportunity to do better.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Boadicea

Do you.

[[[ Big Sigh ]]]

I have no choice -- That's all I got!

a reply to: Boadicea

Okay... if that's what you want to believe... what the truth is none of us really know.

My "belief" is based on experience reviewing many of these over the years. Call it an educated guess, I suppose.

I'm just pointing out that the OP article is one side of the story and can't be verified.

a reply to: Boadicea


well---- here's the inside the guts, nitty-gritty, about the secret workings on that deal....



the financially stunned former employees....are forced by immediate necessity to AGREE to the 'severance package' or they won't get the money from the bank that will eventually exceed the anticipated unemployment check for 13 weeks the laid-off IT personnel can sign-up for at their State Employment Security office

but the next 13 weeks and even further on (like a 52 week or even 60 month unemployment check is NOT guaranteed to be there

So the strapped employees get a BS stipend from the Bank employer in return the Government does no have a sudden surge of Sun Trust Bank IT people on the unemployed list ( the economy is great huh)
and the fascist business/corporate-government alliance is maintained & strengthened


5.1 % unemployment reported by the Hussein Obama WH
millions of 'new jobs' created huh

the scam by the fascist powers is looking more like swiss cheese than anything else...

a reply to: Boadicea

I'm not a lawyer and don't play one on TV, nor did I sleep at a Holiday Inn last night. However, I've done enough research on them to know they aren't all that enforceable. My wife is an executive with a major corp and had to sign them. They are standard procedure. We had attorneys review prior to her taking her current position and they came to same conclusion.

The problem is that they are too broad usually in how they define competition, particularly when so many large companies have products and services that cross many different industries. In addition, no company is going to be able to justify keeping someone from earning a living. Your typical middle and upper level executive needs to work to put food on the table. This is why outside of the very top executives, no one will actually be able to enforce. Companies are really just concerned about competitors poaching talent for proprietary knowledge. This is also why many execs also get big severance packages as they can keep them from working for up to a year or more which is about all any non-compete is going to get away with...

the only times you really see non-compete clauses enforced is when someone sells a business and then tries to open a direct competitor or the top executives are prevented from going to a direct peer. Usually they will have ea time period specified like for a year or so. For example, CEO leaving UPS to go to FedEx or examples such as that... Going from Coke to Pepsi and even then a lot of times they still are unenforceable. I believe they illegal in CA which is why so many tech execs can jump ship easily.

a reply to: St Udio

Lump sum payouts from severance agreements have no impact on an employee's ability to apply for and subsequently collect unemployment. Once they are laid off, they can apply for unemployment and start collecting if approved. Being laid off due to outsourcing jobs is pretty much a no-brainer for approval.

not a very smart company, I wouldn`t want a bunch of laid off disgruntled people handling my IT.
if the laid off workers do a crappy job what is the company gonna do, fire them?
The company would be spending a fortune for new computers because I would tell everyone who called that their computer is wrecked and they need a new one.

originally posted by: Zarniwoop
a reply to: Boadicea

I'm just pointing out that the OP article is one side of the story and can't be verified.

Not really... I agree that we do not have the whole story. However, SunTrust was given an opportunity to give their side of the story and chose not to, but did give a statement. SunTrust could easily verify or refute the story. Instead we got weasel words. Their choice.

originally posted by: Tardacus
not a very smart company, I wouldn`t want a bunch of laid off disgruntled people handling my IT.
if the laid off workers do a crappy job what is the company gonna do, fire them?
The company would be spending a fortune for new computers because I would tell everyone who called that their computer is wrecked and they need a new one.

Executives are punished by stock price. While shareholders rightfully want higher returns, this pressure often results in short term decision making. On paper it sounds great to outsource IT to india where the workers get paid a fraction of what comparable IT workers might make in the US. However, they often leave the long term intangible costs out in the NPV calculations. Things never go nearly as smooth as they are lead to believe.

I've often been more in the camp that higher paid loyal employees are better than cheaper employees with high turnover.

a reply to: St Udio

Wow. That I believe and it's even shadier than I thought. Just wow. I never doubted there was more to the story...

Thank you.

a reply to: Boadicea

However, SunTrust was given an opportunity to give their side of the story and chose not to, but did give a statement. SunTrust could easily verify or refute the story. Instead we got weasel words. Their choice.

Their side of the story was fully described in their statement and they refuted the story, which was about employees needing to be on-call for two years.

SunTrust statement:

It is a rare occasion when we need to call a former employee. The “continuing cooperation” clause is designed to assist the company under scenarios that arise infrequently when we need access to knowledge possessed by a former employee. Those scenarios primarily relate to regulatory or legal matters. For instance, we may need to reach out to former employees to ensure we accurately understand situations in which they were involved while employed by the company. SunTrust has never used this provision to require a former employee to be “on call” to help conduct day-to-day business in any way.

What else could they do short of posting the entire agreement?

a reply to: Tardacus
I really don't believe this is in regards to the hardware side of IT. Most likely, it is the coding experts who have tweaked their unix/sap systems codes for all of their secure programming. Many companies, financial, retail, and manufacturers are cutting back on their IT departments since that is not their main focus. Unfortunately, those same companies have learned from past mistakes. With coding issues it may take over a year for an issue to occur and if you have customized coding...no one will understand it except the original programmer.

These companies also have found that even trying to keep contact by just outsourcing the original talent that moved on to a global IT company...they have to pay the new company 6-10 times the price of the original salary of the employee that they sold off. It is all in attempt to lower their initial costs, but most CEOs do not understand that in this day and age, their coding software is what keeps everything rolling. SunTrust is trying to be smart...kudos to them in the business sense....but it does take longer than two years to really train someone to expertly correct some customized coding or even necessary updates. This is better than giving their employees a pension payment then asking them to pay it back when they return to work within a year! Believe me, I have seen this occur! You would think, they can't take that money back...apparently, legally they can.

I was completely wrong about how unemployment works in Georgia (very surprised, but wrong)

The Georgia Department of Labor requires you to report all severance payments received at the time you file an unemployment claim with the agency. In the event you don’t receive severance payments until after the claim is filed, you still have an obligation to report each one to your local GDOL career center. If you’re receiving severance payments over time, and your weekly payment is greater than the amount of weekly unemployment benefits you’re eligible for, you can’t claim any Georgia unemployment benefits until your severance package is paid in full.

Source

I and others when laid of of our IT position to out sourcing had to train replacements or lose our severance pay. We just didn't have to do it for as long. Guess the treatment is getting worse.