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Honestly that doesn't sound all that bad. They even chose temporary staffing agencies that already paid benefits. The lawsuit was basically over whether recurring temp workers could utilize the stock-option plans that permanent employees got. The worst part about this case is that it went on for 8 years before Microsoft settled it.
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Microsoft's appeal of a lower-court ruling that as many as 10,000 workers hired on a temporary basis should have been allowed to take part in the stock-option plan that the company offers its permanent employees. The case was filed by the Seattle law firm of Bendich, Stobaugh and Strong PC.
Pilla noted that Microsoft changed its policies for temporary employees earlier this year. It now has a 12-month limit on temporary employment, after which workers have to take a 100-day hiatus, Pilla said, adding that the average length of a temporary employee's time at Microsoft has dropped to just 10 months. The company also tries to use temporary employment agencies that already pay benefits to the workers.
Despite the settlement, Pilla reiterated Microsoft's contention that it didn't set a formal policy aimed at keeping temporary workers on as virtually permanent employees in order to avoid having to pay benefits and Social Security taxes.
"I don't think you can look at it as a broad policy," he said. "A lot of times, it just happened. [Temporary workers] moved from project to project." But he added that Microsoft executives eventually "did recognize that" and moved to institute the new requirements for temporary workers.
Wow you really are a corporate simp. The lawsuit would never have been necessary if MS hadn't been trying to stiff their workers.
The article you linked claims it was never a corporate policy, plus I mean, I've never heard of a corporation that gives temporary workers stock-option plans. I agree it would have been a lot cooler of MS to just have more permanent roles available, though. Would have also saved them the lawsuit and settlement.
lol at "it was never corporate policy".
So you, with a straight face, are claiming that companies always write down and distribute policy to govern their intentional unethical behavior?
You are ignorant about this. I happened to work for a company that changed their practices as a result of this lawsuit (or maybe a later one? if so, further proves the point which you're jumping over). That company let about 8 contractors go that I know of, and replaced them with about 3-4 permanent hires. Kind of shows you how much money they were saving by hiring people as "temps" which they intended to renew indefinitely until it was no longer convenient for them. They, like MS, required contractors to report in person during specific hours for work. Something you legally cannot do with contractors. They got scared of a lawsuit so they stopped. They admitted that was the reason to me and referenced MS by name.
Believe what you want, this isn't actually debatable though...
I feel like you're getting a little off track with the personal anecdotes. We're discussing if Bill Gates is a bad person, if Microsoft is comparatively evil, and I don't think you've really established that.
I do think that taxes should disallow the existence of billionaires, though, so maybe we agree on that?
Right, when an entire industry shifted after they got into trouble for doing that, it was just my anecdote...
Yeah the conversation went off the rails because you took it there. You're wrong about most things but instead of conceding or going away, you just keep moving goalposts. Bye.
Goodbye.