附3：A message from the Eachnet staff to Meg
Dear Meg,
This email comes from the marketplace employee members of the Eachnet family who many have served whole-heartedly, diligently, and loyally since the eBay acquisition in 2002. Firstly, we would like to send you well wishes during this holiday period. Here, we are writing to inform you that we are grateful you have taken steps to ensure continued success of the eBay business in China by partnering with a local entity such as TOM. Additionally, we thank you for making efforts to compensate us with a severance package through this difficult transition period. However, we have concerns about the current offer and believe that the potential risks that we will be facing in the new JV are not fairly factored into it.
Many of us have worked very hard in these past years through the numerous changes of often inadequate leaderships in China. Four years have come and gone and we feel, at time, we have been blindly guided. However, we stuck through the difficult and challenging time because we believe and are passionate about the business and our ability to make it work in China. We do not believe our voices have been heard and our concerns have been addressed in the past years. Now, we are making a final plead for you to hear our plight.
Technically speaking, by eBay choosing to form a JV with TOM, it is essentially closing down its eBay Eachnet marketplace business. According to Chinese law, it should compensate its employees appropriately and fairly. This means:
At a minimum, all employees should receive a severance package of one month pay and additional months based on each employee's year of service here. eBay has offered this and we appreciate it. But, as a large U.S. multinational company which has always preached that it takes care of its employees, we feel eBay should have greater social responsibility by offering more than just the minimum.
Also, all employees currently have an effective employment contract with eBay that lasts until August 2007. Since we are forced to terminate the contract with eBay (not based on our poor performance but due to the company's own decision to close down ), we should be appropriately compensated for the remaining contract terms.
Regarding the rescission of our eBay options, we would like to highlight the following points:
Many of the old Eachnet staff's base salary are on average ranked far below those at other multinational companies in China. The eBay options were viewed as a way to make up for that deficiency. If this is taken away from us, we feel we are being robbed of our income.
Furthermore, many Eachnet employees who have received grants with very attractive strike price will lose the remainder of their options into September 2007. Even though options are viewed as a privilege and not an obligation to employees, we feel that this privilege should not be taken from us just because the company decides to form a new structure. Our job responsibilities will remain the same and therefore the compensation scheme offered to us should remain attractive and not be downgraded. We feel that the new JV compensation scheme, or what we have heard of it so far, is sparse. By rescinding our unvested options for unfounded reasons, eBay should properly compensate us for this.
We realized the new JV has put forth a retention package for all marketplace employees. However, we believe the proposal contains many uncertainties and risks. TOM has a very different work culture ( extremely hierarchical) and management style (very bureaucratic) which we believe will impact our work morale. There are no guarantees that the new management team will not terminate us at will. Our job security and career development are highly vulnerable in the new JV. Hence, we believe the added risks we will face should be adequately compensated in advance.
In summary, many of us are sad, angry, and very disappointed by the current proposal. We feel we are being abandoned despite our commitment and loyalty to the eBay organization in these past years. You had faith in us when you first decided to enter China. But, it would be extremely difficult for a lot of the employees to get motivated by the new JV and thus this would put another eBay China venture in jeopardy. We want to help make it work but we hope you will understand our plight as well. We ask that you find it in your heart to seriously consider our requests given our many years of committed service to the eBay Eachnet business in China.
Sincerely,
The Eachnet family
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