Laid-off Oracle workers tried to negotiate better severance. Oracle said no.

被裁掉的甲骨文员工试图协商更好的遣散费，但甲骨文拒绝了。

As was widely reported, Oracle axed an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people via email on March 31. One of the employees cut that day told TechCrunch about the experience: “I had, like, this weird feeling in my stomach. I went to go sign into the VPN, and the VPN was like, ‘this user doesn’t exist anymore.’ Then I called my friend, and I was like, ‘Hey, can you see me in Slack?’ And she said, ‘No, your account’s been deactivated.’” The person soon received an email stating their role was terminated immediately. The severance offer arrived a few days later. But Oracle’s terms would quickly become a point of contention — and some laid-off employees would push back.

据广泛报道，甲骨文（Oracle）在 3 月 31 日通过电子邮件裁掉了约 2 万至 3 万名员工。当天被裁的一名员工向 TechCrunch 讲述了当时的经历：“我当时心里有一种奇怪的感觉。我尝试登录 VPN，结果 VPN 显示‘该用户不存在’。然后我给朋友打电话问：‘嘿，你能看到我的 Slack 账号吗？’她说：‘不，你的账号已经被停用了。’”不久后，这名员工收到了一封邮件，称其职位被立即终止。几天后，遣散费方案送达。但甲骨文的条款很快引发了争议，一些被裁员工开始进行反击。

Oracle offered fairly standard Corporate America terms to laid off employees. In exchange for signing a release waiving their right to sue, employees received four weeks of pay for the first year, plus one additional week per year of service, capped at 26 weeks. The company was also paying for one month of COBRA insurance. The catch: Although stock compensation often makes up a good chunk of a tech worker’s pay, particularly at Oracle, the company did not accelerate soon-to-vest RSUs. Any shares that hadn’t vested by the termination date were forfeited. That held true even for stock granted as retention incentives or in place of salary increases tied to promotions. One long-tenured employee lost $1 million in stock that was just four months from vesting; RSUs made up about 70% of his compensation, Time reported.

甲骨文向被裁员工提供了美国企业界相当标准的遣散条款。作为签署放弃起诉权利协议的交换，员工可获得第一年四周的工资，外加每多工作一年增加一周工资，上限为 26 周。公司还支付了一个月的 COBRA 保险费用。问题在于：尽管股票薪酬通常占科技工作者收入的很大一部分，尤其是在甲骨文，但该公司并未加速行权即将到期的限制性股票单位（RSU）。任何在终止日期前未归属的股票均被没收。即使是作为留任激励或替代晋升加薪而授予的股票也是如此。据《时代》周刊报道，一名长期任职的员工损失了价值 100 万美元的股票，而这些股票距离归属仅剩四个月；RSU 占了他薪酬的约 70%。

Some employees also discovered that if they were classified as remote workers by the company, and didn’t work in a state with stronger worker provisions like California or New York, the company said they didn’t qualify for WARN Act protections. The WARN Act is a law that requires companies conducting mass layoffs to give employees two months notice prior to letting them go. It’s triggered when 50 or more people are impacted at one location. By classifying employees as remote workers, the minimum location requirements can be sidestepped. Some people were unaware they were classified as remote workers, because they were near an office and worked on a hybrid schedule. Even if they were covered by the WARN Act, this did not necessarily extend severance, the former Oracle employee said. That’s because Oracle included the two-months’ WARN notice pay in its existing calculation of four-weeks, plus one week per year.

一些员工还发现，如果他们被公司归类为远程办公人员，且不在加利福尼亚州或纽约州等拥有更强劳动保护法规的州工作，公司便称他们不符合《工人调整和再培训通知法》（WARN Act）的保护条件。《WARN 法案》是一项法律，要求进行大规模裁员的公司在解雇员工前提前两个月发出通知。当同一地点有 50 人或以上受到影响时，该法案即被触发。通过将员工归类为远程办公人员，公司可以规避最低地点要求。有些人并不知道自己被归类为远程员工，因为他们住在办公室附近并采用混合办公模式。这位前甲骨文员工表示，即使他们受到《WARN 法案》的保护，也不一定能增加遣散费。这是因为甲骨文将两个月的《WARN 法案》通知期工资包含在了其现有的“四周工资加每年一周”的计算公式中。

For a short time, a group of employees tried to negotiate en masse with Oracle, according to a letter seen by TechCrunch. At least 90 people signed a public petition urging the database and cloud computing giant to match the terms of other big tech companies conducting mass layoffs in the name of AI. For instance, Meta’s severance package, according to an email published by Business Insider, started at 16 weeks of base pay, plus two weeks for every year of employment and covered COBRA for 18 months. Microsoft, which extended voluntary retirement offers to long-serving employees, provided accelerated stock vesting, a minimum of eight weeks’ pay, and an additional one to two weeks for every six months of service, depending on rank, the Seattle Times reported. And Cloudflare, which just cut 20% of its employees, offered lump sum severance that was the equivalent of base pay through the end of 2026, plus healthcare coverage through the end of the year, and accelerated vesting of stock through August 15. So if an employee was close to obtaining another tranche, they will get it.

据 TechCrunch 看到的一封信件显示，有一群员工曾短暂尝试集体与甲骨文进行谈判。至少有 90 人签署了一份公开请愿书，敦促这家数据库和云计算巨头效仿其他以 AI 为名进行大规模裁员的大型科技公司的条款。例如，据《商业内幕》发布的一封电子邮件显示，Meta 的遣散费方案起步为 16 周的基本工资，外加每工作一年增加两周工资，并提供 18 个月的 COBRA 保险。据《西雅图时报》报道，微软向长期任职的员工提供了自愿退休方案，包括加速股票归属、至少八周的工资，以及根据职级每工作六个月额外增加一到两周的工资。而刚刚裁员 20% 的 Cloudflare 则提供了相当于 2026 年底前基本工资的一次性遣散费，外加年底前的医疗保险，以及 8 月 15 日前的加速股票归属。这意味着如果员工即将获得下一批股票，他们将能够拿到。

Oracle declined to negotiate, according to an email seen by TechCrunch. It was a take-it-or-leave scenario, the employee said. When asked about its severance terms, classifying employees as remote, and the failed attempt by employees to negotiate more, Oracle declined to comment. Such a reaction from the company isn’t a surprise, not even to those who hoped to negotiate. But it does underscore that for all the theoretical high pay (often via stocks) and perks that tech workers enjoy when it’s an employees’ market, they have very few protections in place when it isn’t.

据 TechCrunch 看到的一封电子邮件显示，甲骨文拒绝了谈判。该员工表示，这完全是“要么接受，要么走人”的情况。当被问及遣散条款、将员工归类为远程办公以及员工试图争取更多补偿的失败尝试时，甲骨文拒绝置评。公司的这种反应并不令人意外，即使是对那些希望谈判的员工来说也是如此。但这确实凸显了一个事实：尽管科技工作者在人才市场火爆时享受着理论上的高薪（通常通过股票）和福利，但当市场环境恶化时，他们几乎没有任何保障。