In (parts of -- often state-defined laws) the US it might or might not.
- Generally, you can be fired without any particular reason.
- Outside of a few whitelisted reasons (like being fired "for cause"), when fired, you can collect unemployment (a system where the employer self-insures, sending money into a governmental pool to payout in such cases) for O(1 yr), with caps in the $900/mo.range, depending on the state. Not clicking on the link would likely not count as "cause," but Twitter might try to argue it does (not that it necessarily matters since the severance package is probably better and probably precludes filing for unemployment).
- Other labor laws exist, like requiring some sort of notification period for mass layoffs. If this were found to be a mass layoff in disguise, there'd be additional penalties.
- Similarly with race or any of the things you can't fire a person for (e.g., if a person didn't see the email because they were pregnant and doing something medically relevant, a lawyer might be able to say something about the firing being structured in a way that discriminates against pregnant people, which is not legal).
- If the link had any attached terms and conditions, those likely would not be enforceable since the contract was agreed to under duress.
- Any other contracts between Twitter and the employees might matter. Perhaps the firing is allowed, but there are other constraints on the exact manner (e.g., having previously negotiated a better severance package).
- If the link had any specific terms involving lower pay or reduced benefits or whatnot, there's a decent chance that it was criminal extortion or blackmail in various parts of the US.
And so on. We can start tacking on hypotheticals which might apply, but I'll stop there.
> indentured servitude
There's no need to be so hyperbolic when bagging on the US. It's bad that we don't have great safety nets for people, but forcing individual employers to take up the slack isn't an ideal solution either (still no protections when the employer goes bankrupt or when a crisis hits somebody like a college student, and it disproportionately impacts the smallest businesses because you can't spread the risk out across a lot of employees and revenue -- an imperfect but almost strictly better solution is just raising the unemployment rates to match the real inflation we've seen), and it's nothing like indentured servitude which allows the working conditions to degrade nearly arbitrarily without a chance to leave and go someplace better.
- Generally, you can be fired without any particular reason.
- Outside of a few whitelisted reasons (like being fired "for cause"), when fired, you can collect unemployment (a system where the employer self-insures, sending money into a governmental pool to payout in such cases) for O(1 yr), with caps in the $900/mo.range, depending on the state. Not clicking on the link would likely not count as "cause," but Twitter might try to argue it does (not that it necessarily matters since the severance package is probably better and probably precludes filing for unemployment).
- Other labor laws exist, like requiring some sort of notification period for mass layoffs. If this were found to be a mass layoff in disguise, there'd be additional penalties.
- Similarly with race or any of the things you can't fire a person for (e.g., if a person didn't see the email because they were pregnant and doing something medically relevant, a lawyer might be able to say something about the firing being structured in a way that discriminates against pregnant people, which is not legal).
- If the link had any attached terms and conditions, those likely would not be enforceable since the contract was agreed to under duress.
- Any other contracts between Twitter and the employees might matter. Perhaps the firing is allowed, but there are other constraints on the exact manner (e.g., having previously negotiated a better severance package).
- If the link had any specific terms involving lower pay or reduced benefits or whatnot, there's a decent chance that it was criminal extortion or blackmail in various parts of the US.
And so on. We can start tacking on hypotheticals which might apply, but I'll stop there.
> indentured servitude
There's no need to be so hyperbolic when bagging on the US. It's bad that we don't have great safety nets for people, but forcing individual employers to take up the slack isn't an ideal solution either (still no protections when the employer goes bankrupt or when a crisis hits somebody like a college student, and it disproportionately impacts the smallest businesses because you can't spread the risk out across a lot of employees and revenue -- an imperfect but almost strictly better solution is just raising the unemployment rates to match the real inflation we've seen), and it's nothing like indentured servitude which allows the working conditions to degrade nearly arbitrarily without a chance to leave and go someplace better.