You want to directly fine low level employees for the actions of execs? My god, no. That's such an evil idea.

They're fined indirectly with stock prices already, but man is your idea really bad.

All employees would include execs obviously. I admit it's unorthodox and might feel a little unfair, but I imagine for these big tech companies that are so often guilty of just ignoring the law and paying fines to make their problems "go away," having the employees be furious at the bosses would be a far, far more effective punishment.

In terms of dollars, I don't think it would take much to make the point. Suppose you set the fine to 0.5% of salary from all employees. Someone in an entry level job earning $40k would only owe $200. But they'd be really flipping mad and might quit over it. That scales up pretty well - a middle-manager at Facebook who makes $600k would owe $3k. Not enough to really affect their life, but enough to make them really pissed off and potentially bail on the company.

In the end, if we as society want corporations to follow the law, we have to start recognizing that corporations are made up of regular humans following incentives, and if the corporate shield means the people who work in the company and carry out its actions feel no personal consequences of illegal actions, then it's not surprising they'll ignore the law.

But what does fining the low level employees accomplish? They can't really change the direction of the company in many cases.

Thats not really true. The middle and lower layers of the company is where the actual work happens, and if the people carrying out the work suddenly perceive there’s a personal risk to doing illegal things - even if it’s just a small fine - they’re much more likely to push back or quit. Meanwhile upper management may not care about a billion dollar fine that their spreadsheet says is “worth it,” but their life will be miserable if all the employees underneath them are pissed off, 10% quit, and nobody wants to work there. It’s a much, much bigger risk to upper management to infuriate their workforce than it is to write a check.

That’s the thing I think most people don’t understand about large companies. Money is just a number, they’re playing a game with it. If the company pays a huge fine, all those folks are still rich and nothing bad happens to them, they just have a few different numbers on their spreadsheet. That’s why they don’t care. It’s not like a normal person getting fined, who then loses the opportunity to use their money for things that matter to them.

If we want to hold corporations accountable, we have to issue punishments to corporations that actually hurt their leaders.

That’s a fantastic way to make any employee shut up immediately the moment any form of inspector enters the building.

A fair point, but doesn't this happen already? My experience working in a large corporation is that there's a pervasive "us vs. them" mentality when it comes to outside auditors, inspectors, etc., as well as a mindset that "they're just here to make our life harder," via imposed red tape, controls, etc. If this was really an issue perhaps there could be a whistleblower provision stating that anyone who assists with an audit or investigation is exempt from any personal fines that may result.

I think my problem is that while I may be happy to throw my bosses boss under the bus (he has it coming), Jim from accounting has a family with 5 kids, and he really needs the money. So I’ll just keep quiet about everything.

I do agree there’s an us/them mentality, but that breaks down when people feel like they can air out their grievances against senior management without sinking the company itself.

That’s fair but this is why I’m suggesting token penalties. Like parking ticket sized. People are extremely loss averse, so that’s enough to really bother them (thus deter behavior) while it shouldn’t be enough to genuinely hurt Jim in accounting.

Penalize the owners of the company. Make 10% of all stock disappear into a legal black pit. The executives (many of whom are usually shareholders) will receive corrective action in good order. Word to the owners: make sure your capital is working ethically, or be prepared to pay the price.

The gdpr fine system has seemingly been very effective and convincing corporations to comply with laws. Maximum of 20% in revenue fines, enough to cause many businesses to recapitalize - wiping out shareholders and executives.