National Semi hands out pink slips, snatches "gift" iPods

He who giveth can also taketh away -- our parents used to use that line when threatening our young lives, but in the case of manufacturing giant National Semiconductor, it also holds true for iPods. You'll recall that in a transparent bid for publicity genuine show of appreciation for its employees last month, the company "gave" all 8,500 of them a 30GB iPod to celebrate record profits from the previous year -- although spokespeople were careful to only say that National Semi was "equipping" staff with the players, and apparently refused to speculate on whether or not terminated employees would be able to keep their "gifts." Well as it turns out, 35 workers recently laid off from the company's Arlington plant were in fact asked to hand in their 'Pods as they walked out the door, and those folks who had given theirs away were charged a "fair market value" to be paid from their soon-to-be-non-existent wages. Now we're no experts in public relations, but it seems that if you're going to make a big deal about how much your company values its employees, you'd want to do your best to avoid the sort of seemingly hypocritical behavior that publications such as ours just love to cover.

[Via digg]

[GhostDoggy @ Jul 5th 2006 5:45PM]

Damn, they act like a phone company. :)

[demon @ Jul 5th 2006 5:55PM]

haha, classic.

All that PR that they built just went straight down the drain.

[JaXs @ Jul 5th 2006 5:57PM]

thats BS
I would sue

[Nick @ Jul 5th 2006 6:11PM]

They probably "issued" them so that the workers would not have to pay the same 40% tax on them as they would pay on a cash bonus. Whatever the reasons, my guess is that they are legal and not petty, but the corporate world has always managed to surprise me.

[Justin @ Jul 5th 2006 6:13PM]

was there some sort of waiver they signed spelling out what kind of stipulations regarding the ipods? if not i think these people have one hearty case on their hands. especially if they put music and movies they purchased legally onto their ipod. they should also count every minute they go without their ipod and add that for punitive damages.

[lazy @ Jul 5th 2006 6:37PM]

buy a smashed up ipod from ebay for $5 and give it back to them.

[Josh* @ Jul 5th 2006 6:41PM]

That was $2.5 million worth of iPod... damn right they made sure to cover their backs.

Docking the booted workers' final paychecks... ouch!

[RisingSunofNihon @ Jul 5th 2006 6:42PM]

It seems obvious that the employees were under the impression that the iPods were outright gifts and not an "issued" piece of company equipment. After all, how often do you give away things that you know belong to your employer, such as a laptop, pager, cell phone, etc.?

[DCFC Fan @ Jul 5th 2006 6:56PM]

A real class act there, National Semiconductors. I hope Apple reads this and buys all of their memory from Best Buy from now on. Wait, they produce how much of the world's what now?

Nevermind, I have to go sync my nano.

[Matt @ Jul 5th 2006 7:10PM]

Great idea, I should get that kind of system going on my site! xD (Imagine the popularity...)

[Norm @ Jul 5th 2006 7:14PM]

I used to be a contractor for National Semi in their Santa Clara facility. It was actually a pretty sweet place to work, and the regular employees tended to be cool. It's a shame to hear this news...

[Josh @ Jul 5th 2006 7:25PM]

If you want to send an email to the "worldwide" PR director telling him how lame this is... [e-mail]

Don't forget to check ebay for a screamin' deal...well fair market value...on a 30G ipod (only used one month!).

[MrHorse @ Jul 5th 2006 7:27PM]

Clearly the RIAA will now sue National Semi and the employees for committing piracy, right? $2,000 per song right?

If the employee is forced to surrender the iPod on the way out the door, without properly clearing the device of all copied music, that's piracy if he/she still has the songs on their home computer.

Of course, the RIAA will look the other way because National Semi isn't an old lady, or dead person.

[David Lazarus @ Jul 5th 2006 7:29PM]

I have got to agree with the previous posts this is a new low for business ethics. I guess that National Semiconductor will be sponsoring the "Gordon Gecko Business Ethics" course at some community college.

I wonder what they do at retirement? Take away your retirement gift?

[shmengie @ Jul 5th 2006 7:31PM]

...and don't let the door hit you on the way out...

[Dolomite @ Jul 5th 2006 7:34PM]

p0wned!

[yumyum @ Jul 5th 2006 7:43PM]

Holy crap! That could only mean that those pods were equipped with some secret employee tracking system. The company knows where you are, what kind of data you are handing off to strangers(or competitors), whether you're listening to music during work hours...possibilities are endless.
A cure around it would be leaving the pod on the desk, say behind the monitor, and you'd probably get a call soon.."Mr.Smith! what are you doing behind that monitor all day?"

[akina @ Jul 5th 2006 9:15PM]

Based on the paragraph above it seems as if the Ipods were given out as a "thank you for record profits" ie. past performance.

It is shameful that a company which is forced to layoff or terminate employees requests that employees return gifts that were earned as a result of prior achievements.

What a PR fiasco.

[akina @ Jul 5th 2006 9:19PM]

Based on the paragraph above it seems as if the Ipods were given out as a "thank you for record profits" ie. past performance.

It is shameful that a company which is forced to layoff or terminate employees requests that employees return gifts that were earned as a result of prior achievements.

What a PR fiasco.

[JB @ Jul 5th 2006 9:27PM]

So much for gifts to celebrate record profits.

And they are probably depreciating them over 3 years and taking a sweet little tax break - which will translate to more record profits and ipods for everyone, until they sack them, depreciate the ipods and take .....well you get the idea.

[bliss @ Jul 5th 2006 9:43PM]

what a sad way to go! first you get laid off and THEN you have to give up your ipod that probably has a worn down wheel and scratched surface? Not that it's likely that the company would have stored company data in these ipod, it's possible I suppose and that would be only reasonable purpose in retrieving the ipods back....

[Raider @ Jul 5th 2006 10:26PM]

"was there some sort of waiver they signed spelling out what kind of stipulations regarding the ipods? if not i think these people have one hearty case on their hands. especially if they put music and movies they purchased legally onto their ipod. they should also count every minute they go without their ipod and add that for punitive damages."

You can't make a point about loading music or movies onto the iPod. As it should be purchased and actually registered to YOUR COMPUTER not your iPod. So you will still have the data from iTunes, therefor you are not losing anything because it can still be played, at least on your computer.

[nick @ Jul 5th 2006 10:46PM]

I think it depends whether or not it was a 'gift' or an item 'issued' to employees. The latter would be used for example when providing laptops to employees. It's not a gift, but is meant for use during employment.

That's my take at least.

[Jeffrey M Foster @ Jul 5th 2006 11:58PM]

hahaha that's pretty bad.

i mean really though, that's what... less that 0.5 of 1 percent of the employees given iPods? maybe these 35 people were just assholes and the company was getting a little payback. :P

at least it wasn't a huge number of people this happened to.

either way it sucks for those guys!

[Alex @ Jul 6th 2006 8:17AM]

They probably weren't all assholes who just happened to work at the same plant.

[JOHNNY @ Jul 6th 2006 2:29PM]

I CANT BELIEVE THAT THIS COMES TO A SURPRIZE TO ANYONE WHO HAS EVERY WORKED FOR A LARGE CORPORATION.

[Doug @ Jul 6th 2006 5:01PM]

When I read this, I simply laughed - as did all the other former NatSemi employees I forwarded this to. I worked for NatSemi for 12 years and this is really fairly typical behavior. These people OBVIOUSLY didn't think that Charlie Sporck's legacy (being cheap) could/would carry on into future.

Shmengie had it right. National's layoff motto was exactly that - "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."

[Mike @ Jul 7th 2006 12:17AM]

Stupid Corporate America!