Laid off from work? What to know before signing paperwork

TORONTO –

You’ve simply made it into the workplace, when your boss brings you into a gathering room, the place you discover somebody from human sources about to ship you unhealthy news: your organization is finishing up layoffs and also you’re on the record.

Your thoughts is swarming with ideas — How will you pay the payments? When will you discover your subsequent job? What occurs to all these trip days you have not used up? — if you’re handed a letter outlining how a lot severance pay and different advantages your organization is ready to present you.

Should you signal the paperwork instantly? Not essentially, say attorneys who’ve been approached in current months by a wave of laid off staff wanting to discover their rights and guarantee they’re getting essentially the most they’ll from their former employers.

“The reason why you never want to sign right away is because that is your final kick at the can,” stated Sunira Chaudhri, a associate at Workly Law in Toronto.

“Even if you have a legitimate claim to anything else from your employer, including vacation time or a bonus or the return of expenses, if you sign a release prior to sorting out all of those details, you cannot go back to your lawyer to seek any additional payments.”

Chaudhri urged individuals who lose their jobs to overview their employer’s obligations and examine them with what the corporate is providing earlier than signing any paperwork.

“The moment you sign a release, your rights are gone,” she warned.

What staff are entitled to is commonly spelled out in a mixture of federal and provincial legal guidelines, employment and collective agreements employees signal when employed or throughout union bargaining and people termination letters.

Unionized staff should flip to their collective settlement, which ought to define what they’re entitled to, stated Lior Samfiru, a associate at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP in Toronto.

“There’s really not much to negotiate,” he stated. “The collective agreement says you get X, employers pays X and that’s it.”

Figuring out what you are entitled to may be extra complicated for non-unionized staff, however Samfiru stated it is value trying into.

In greater than 90 per cent of the circumstances his agency has dealt with the place somebody was let go, they have been owed greater than what the corporate provided.

The first place non-unionized staff ought to search for details about their entitlements is their province’s Employment Standards Act, which outlines the minimal rights employers have to supply throughout a layoff.

But nearly each worker has better entitlements than these minimums below widespread regulation, Samfiru stated.

“The longer you work, the older you are and the more senior position you have, the more entitlements you have under common law,” he stated.

And it isn’t simply further weeks or months of wage that corporations could also be on the hook for.

Benefits, bonuses, inventory choices and commissions may must be handed over to staff for a time period past their final day, Samfiru stated.

“Ask yourself, would I have received this if I continued working for the 12-month period? And if the answer is yes, I would have, then it has to be included as part of your severance.”

Another difficulty that usually comes up throughout layoffs is non-compete clauses, which forestall staff from going to work for rivals throughout a set time period following their termination.

Samfiru and Chaudhri agreed such clauses are unenforceable for all staff other than these within the C-Suite, the best echelons of an organization.

But Samfiru warned some corporations will attempt to implement the clause anyway.

“If they’re going to try to enforce it, they’re going to sue you,” he stated. “You might eventually win that lawsuit, but it’s still going to be a very miserable experience, and it’s going to cost you a lot of money, so it’s not good advice to tell someone to just ignore the non-compete.”

When attempting to determine what clauses to abide by or what you’ll be able to battle your organization for, Samfiru and Chaudhri advocate laid off staff search recommendation from a lawyer.

However, Chaudhri added it is essential to think about the worth and prices earlier than taking motion.

Some individuals will discover authorized bills will outweigh any additional money or perks they get from an employer. Others will be taught their odds of creating a profitable argument aren’t excessive.

Laid off staff ought to ask attorneys about each situations earlier than taking motion and put together themselves for an end result they is perhaps disillusioned in.

“I can’t say that it’s ever a slam dunk,” Chaudhri stated. “There’s always a risk.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first printed March 2, 2023.