If you want your severance, you train them...No Train, No Severance.
I hope all the replacements were trained correctly. I know my limits and I am NOT an instructor.
Given the circumstances it makes you wonder just how good that training was, doesn't it? Or if the soon-to-be-ex-employees snuck a few surprises in the code that will be hatching some time in the future?
Exactly.
This same thing happened to me several years ago. The company I worked for outsourced all of the infrastructure team (system, storage, network and database admins) to Tata Consultancy. I was told in late 2007 that my job would be done in Q3 of 2008. I could either train my replacement or give up my severance. I decided I had a third option: Find a different job. I set my goal to be the first one out and, with the exception of a newly hired DBA who returned to his previous job, I succeeded.
What was really fun for me was getting to bill my former employer about double what they had been paying me to help out the 3 H1B people that were trying (and failing) to do the job I used to do alone. That didn't last long once they got the bill for my work. Lol
In the end, I now work for a much better company, making more than double what I did when I got outsourced.