Laid-off Oracle employees tried to negotiate better severance pay. The Oracle answered, “No.”

As widely reported, Oracle announced via email on March 31 that it was laying off an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people.

One employee who was fired that day told TechCrunch about his experience: “I had this weird feeling in my stomach. I tried to sign into the VPN, and it was like, ‘This user no longer exists.'” Then I called a friend and said, “Can you meet me on Slack?” And she said, “No, your account has been deactivated.” ”

The person immediately received an email informing them that their role had been terminated with immediate effect. A few days later, I received my resignation letter. But Oracle’s terms will quickly become a point of contention, and some fired employees will likely push back.

Oracle offered fairly standard US corporate terms to the terminated employees. In exchange for signing a release form waiving the right to sue, the employees received four weeks’ pay in the first year and one additional week of work per year, up to a maximum of 26 weeks. The company also paid one month’s worth of COBRA insurance premiums.

Pitfall: Especially at Oracle, the company did not accelerate the acquisition of RSUs that were about to vest, even though stock compensation often makes up a significant portion of technical employees’ salaries. All shares not vested by the termination date were forfeited.

This also applies to stock awarded as a retention incentive or in lieu of a pay increase associated with a promotion. A long-time employee lost $1 million in stock just four months after vesting. RSUs made up about 70% of his compensation, according to Time.

The company also revealed that some employees are not eligible for WARN Act protections if they are classified by the company as remote workers and do not work in states with stronger labor regulations, such as California or New York.

The WARN Act requires companies that carry out mass layoffs to notify employees two months in advance of layoffs. Triggers when 50 or more people are affected in one location. You can avoid minimum location requirements by classifying your employees as remote workers.

Some did not know they were classified as remote workers because they were close to the office and worked hybrid schedules.

Even if your company is covered by the WARN Act, it doesn’t necessarily mean your severance benefits will be extended, former Oracle employees said. This is because Oracle included two months of WARN notice payments in its previous calculation of four weeks plus one week per year.

For a brief period, a group of employees tried to negotiate with Oracle en masse, according to a letter obtained by TechCrunch. At least 90 people have signed a public petition calling on the database and cloud computing giant to match the terms of other big tech companies implementing mass layoffs in the name of AI.

For example, Meta’s severance package was 16 weeks of base pay plus two weeks for each year of employment and 18 months of COBRA coverage, according to an email published by Business Insider.

The Seattle Times reported that Microsoft has expanded its voluntary severance offer to long-time employees, offering early stock vesting, at least eight weeks of pay, and an additional week or two for every six months of service, depending on rank.

And Cloudflare, which just cut 20% of its workforce, is offering a lump-sum severance package equal to base salary through the end of 2026, plus medical insurance through the end of the year, and accelerated stock vesting until August 15th. So if an employee is close to getting another tranche, they will get it.

Oracle declined to negotiate, according to an email seen by TechCrunch. According to employees, it was a “quit or quit” scenario.

Asked about the terms of the termination, the classification of employees as remote, and the employees’ failed attempts at further negotiations, Oracle declined to comment.

This reaction from the company is not surprising even to those who were hoping to negotiate. But it highlights how tech workers, while theoretically entitled to high salaries (often in equity) and perks when they are in the employee market, have little protection when they are not.