And this is literally why people like myself hide my cancer from my employer.
US discrimination laws are a fucking joke.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2024
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I don't know about that. He took like four months off for cancer treatment. And he's going to need to take more off for more treatment. Not sure how you can hide that from your employer.
3 months. End of October to start of February. It shouldn't matter though. How long should he have worked there before he's allowed to? Like if he was CPO for five years and then got cancer, would that have been OK? At what point does it become not ok?
Also he's got history there and this promotion was due to that. I think they just expected from him to take the reigns on some stuff and then wasn't there because of the cancer treatment which is 100% understandable. Mozilla isn't going to collapse in 3 months.
On the day Teixeira returned to his job, it's claimed, he was instructed to lead a company-wide layoff of 50 people, 40 of whom were in his MozProd organization.
That's just shit management from above. That is pure retaliation.
Aren't you allowed to provide a doctor's note that does not specify the ailment?
FMLA. But that's unpaid.
After you spend down your allotted PTO, yes.
Mildly surprised that someone in a position at that level wouldn’t have at minimum short term disability coverage, at least as an option. It’s hardly expensive.
I've actually heard it the other way: if your employer knows you have cancer or other disability, they have to try even harder to fire you to ensure that they could survive a lawsuit.
Yeah, I'm gonna wait a bit before bringing out the pitchforks.
A plaintiff in a civil suit can allege anything they want, but that doesn't mean they're being 100% truthful. Any lawyer will slant the facts as much as possible to make their client look as injured as they can to garner the most sympathy- that's just lawyering 101. We have his version of events but don't have Mozilla's, but the fact that he's publicly shit-talking the company (rather than let the legal process play out) doesn't cast him in a good light IMO.
Did you read the article? It seems like they had a plan to make him CEO, he got sick, they quickly found an interim CEO, and the moment he got back:
On the day Teixeira returned to his job, it's claimed, he was instructed to lead a company-wide layoff of 50 people, 40 of whom were in his MozProd organization.
Followed by:
"Mr Teixeira had ethical concerns regarding the layoffs because they were primarily motivated by a desire to increase profit margins at Mozilla, which was already operating at a profit," the complaint claims. "Mr Teixeira viewed this as antithetical to Mozilla’s values as espoused on their website: 'We're backed by a non-profit, which means we prioritize the interests of people first, not corporate profits.'"
They continue to retaliate against him by denying him bonus, and trying to maneuver him into a demotion. They even had the shitty audacity to say like "well this frees up time for your cancer treatments" which at that point he wasn’t getting anymore.
The complaint claims that Teixeira, appointed in August 2022, helped reverse the decade-long decline of Firefox, which generates about 90 percent of Mozilla's revenue and is the company's only profitable product. He's further credited with growing Mozilla's advertising business, and AI capabilities, and with reducing investment in the money-losing Pocket service.
Sounds to me like they’re just being really shitty to this guy who has done a lot for the company in general and was on his way to CEO before the poor behavior of these two (Chambers and Chehak).
Yes, yes I did. That doesn't change anything I said. You've only repeated his claims (which his complaint can say literally anything), we don't have Mozilla's side, and he shouldn't be saying a word about this suit to the press.
We do have the additional context outside the story that under the interim CEO Mozilla has made two other unpopular decisions:
- Bought an AdTech company
- Added AI features to Firefox
Yup, I'm guessing there's some sort of GoFundMe angle here.
That may be warranted, I just want more facts first. People like to play the victim to garner sympathy, and I want to make sure that's not happening here.
Any decent lawyer will tell you to shut the fuck up once you've filed a suit, so as I see it there are three possible scenarios here:
- He's too stupid to listen to his lawyers.
- His lawyers are too stupid to advise him to shut up.
- They're trying a public pressure campaign against Mozilla to get Mozilla to capitulate before their case goes too far. They're hoping that the headlines of "Mozilla hates cancer patients!" will cause enough bad press that Mozilla will want to get the case over with quicker by settling sooner, especially if Teixiera doesn't have a very strong case.
Yup, 3 is basically what I'm thinking, but potentially with Teixiera looking for money in some way (i.e. maybe getting hired elsewhere?).
But I want to hear Mozilla's side before really forming that opinion. I've heard Teixiera's side of the story, and I've looked into potential motivations, now I want to hear the opposing side to decide which is the simplest explanation.
I hate to say it, but when we're talking about a leadership position, that hasn't been filled yet, looking at somebody's ability to be consistent leader is a factor.
If memory serves this executive was out for treatment, when the previous CEO stepped down in the replacement was chosen.
They simply were not available. It's hard to be a part-time CEO
Of course it's possible to be a part time CEO and there are more and more leadership positions that are job shared, etc.
Everything else is sexist and ableist bullshit, because it usually disadvantages women and disabled disproportionately.
A three month period for cancer treatment isnt gonna cause the company to fail. We've had people get hired in positions and then take their first like month off on approved leave.
If it's world war II, and you're thinking about who to make your overall theater commander, You're going to put a lot of factors into that, including is this person available.
It wouldn't make sense to make general Patton your absolute commander, and then have him be unavailable for 3 months.
Double so if they've already refused orders
I mean it sucks for him, but after having been away for three months with more leave time coming the company probably doesn't have any obligation to keep him hired.
At least that's the case here in Switzerland (if you worked for a company long enough) and I'd be surprised if the US had better protections.
Actually Swiss disability provisions are worse than US provisions (worse than most industrial nations, btw)
I think that depends.
If he's accurately representing the reality, he has every right to make behavior he considers unethical from an organization that takes donations known.