SpaceX Slapped With Wage Class Action Over Mass Layoff

Here is link that goes through Google and bypasses paywall: <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CB8QFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.law360.com%2Farticles%2F564591%2Fspacex-slapped-with-wage-class-action-over-mass-layoff" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd...</a>

(Only tangentially related) If you&#x27;re a space exploration nerd working in the space industry you&#x27;ll realize one day that your salary and benefits are space exploration costs. This produces the following dilemma:<p>Accept a small pay and benefits. Space exploration costs go down. More space exploration is done per dollar.<p>Demand a good salary and benefits. Space exploration costs go up. Less space exploration gets done per dollar.<p>Damn it.

Seems like a clear wrong doing on SpaceX&#x27;s side... Weird SpaceX would lay people off when by all accounts their business is doing fairly well?

Do the affected employees know they&#x27;re in a bad state? Would be courtesy to let them in on their low performance so that they can make a job change before they are &quot;terminated with cause&quot; as that never looks good for future employment. Are they put on a performance improvement plan? It sounds pretty fucked up.

Two comments: First when any &#x27;vulnerable&#x27; company does anything at all out of the ordinary you can see this. SpaceX is vulnerable because they trade on their reputation. Legal extortion is not all that uncommon so it is not necessarily true that the lawyers think they can win, but they may feel they can get a settlement of some sort. Perhaps one of the lawyers in the gallery will chime in.<p>Second, the laws apply differently in different states. California is an &#x27;at will&#x27; state which means you really can be tossed for any non-protected reason at any time (not true if you have a labor contract). But SpaceX employs people in Texas and Florida as well.

Does anyone know why this layoff occurred? Was it a case of their designs maturing, and thus SpaceX no longer needing the large R&amp;D staff they previously did?<p>Quite curious, as they seem to be doing very well. Musk has capitalized on the Ukraine&#x2F;Russian ordeal quite well, and is positioned to become a dominant force in the US Aerospace industry. Wouldn&#x27;t have thought he&#x27;d be the type to let go of productive employees on a whim. He understands better than most that talent is the only resource companies have in the long run.

SpaceX doesn&#x27;t owe anything to you unless it signed a contract that says it has to employ you for this amount of time. I don&#x27;t understand neither laws, nor the people who would foster such lawsuits. That&#x27;s using government to steal someone else&#x27;s money because <i>you feel</i> it&#x27;s unfair that they laid you off.