EMPLOYMENT LAW AND WRONGFUL DISMISSAL

Your Legal Rights – Plain and Simple
Know this:  A non-unionized employer may fire its employees if it wishes.  It is not the act of terminating the employment which makes the dismissal ‘wrongful’ but rather the absence of fair compensation.

If you lose your job, you are entitled to termination pay.  There are exceptions (where one is fired for ‘just cause’ such as dishonesty), but they are rare.  Under the Employment Standards Act, you are entitled to a floor of one week for every year worked, up to 8 weeks.  If you worked for a very large corporation, this is expanded to another week’s pay for every year served with no upper limit.

But this is only a floor.  In fact you will be entitled to more, depending on your position, your years of service, your age, your health and whether you were lured away from a good job.  The rule of thumb is 3 to 4 weeks pay for every year you worked.  If you were let go in a particularly nasty way, you will be entitled to additional compensation on top of that (named “Wallace” compensation, for a Mr. Wallace in Saskatchewan who took his employer all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada to win this one).

You are also entitled to a continuation of benefits for the notice period, compensation for missed bonuses and other damages best discussed on a case by case basis.

Stories from the Trenches
I never ceased to be amazed at what many employers try to get away with: 

The Lowball Severance Offer
Our firm helped Mary, a 54 year old registered nurse who worked in a clinic for over 20 years.  The clinic brought in a consultant, declared her redundant and offered her 8 weeks of pay in lieu of notice.  That’s right – 8 weeks for 20 plus years of service.  We sued and within 4 weeks obtained for her fair and just compensation which was many times that offered.  With the settlement, Mary was able to regroup and did not have to rush into another job in order to meet the mortgage.

The Bogus Termination for Just Cause
Just recently, a number of workers from the same employer called us.  They had all been fired within weeks of each other.  The employer offered them no severance pay and said they were all fired for “just cause” (just cause means that no severance is owed and the employer gets off from any payment; fortunately for employees, it is very difficult to prove). 

Coincidentally, every single one of these 5 employees had the highest seniority.  One did not need to be a rocket scientist to understand that they were offloading the highest paid workers in order to hire cheaper workers.  We are claiming additional termination pay in view of the false allegations of just cause.

Workplace Harassment
Neanderthals still exist in the work place.  And whether their conduct is sexist or racist, they poison the office or plant floor and can make work impossible.  We acted for one young woman who was sexually assaulted and harassed for months before she quit.  The employer shrugged all of it off.  We sued for constructive dismissal and for sexual harassment under the Ontario Human Rights Code.  The employer did not want this claim to go to trial and we resolved the claim for a very healthy sum.

Please - Call or Email Sooner than Later
If you sense your job may be at risk, give us a call for some straight forward tips on what to do and what to avoid.  Your emotions are likely on edge and you don’t want to blow things.

If you have been let go and offered a severance package, feel free to run it by us.   We will tell you if we think we can improve on it, whether it is within the ballpark of fairness or whether it is not quite fair but not worth fighting either.