Are Unions done?

[turbodish]

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I think alot of the employees remaining at the London facility had high seniority. It's common to get 1 month of pay for every year of employment for severance.....if an employee there had 20 years of seniority it's a better business decision to take the 20 months of pay and benefits to take a pay cut of 50%.

Statutory severance is a lot less than that, and what an employer will offer in the way of a severance package will usually be closer to the statutory requirement than the one month per year of service that some think is automatically due to long term employees. Then it falls onto the employee to decide if it's worth refusing the offered settlement and sue for more under common law precedents.

The employeer's offer is a sure thing, but suing is not. You'll need to fund your living expenses over the two or three years that it will take to get to trial (or pretrial settlement), plus there is the matter of prepaying your legal expenses before a lawyer will even start the paperwork on filing a claim for you.

Even if you can deal with the wait and interim costs of living, there still remains uncertainty. That one month per year of service severance is not written in stone. You might get it, but odds are that you will get less.

To maximimize any judgement, you'll also need to demonstrate that you took reasonable steps to mitigate your loss. Did you search for work to replace that which you lost? How hard did you look? Can you provide any proof of having done so? Were you offered work, and if so and you did refuse the work and if so, why? Did you attempt to upgrade your skills or retrain to another field in order to obtain replacement employment? If you were successful in doing so, are you now making more or less than what you were making before?

All of these will be brought up in any suit for wrongful dismissal (meaning inadequate severance pay), and will impact how "deserving" a court will deem you as being when it comes to assigning a dollar value to your loss. If you come across as having done little or nothing to mitigate your loss, that 20-year employee's hope for 20 months severance can easily be whittled down to 8 months pay or less, and maybe even less if the court awards the company legal fees to be paid by you.

 

[murf]

Quote from article above..... "the going assembly line rate is $5 an hour and in parts plants it's $2 an hour." "A qualified engineer can be hired in Mexico for a fraction of Canadian rates."


Nissan rushes to grapple with poor quality survey scores

It takes three Mexican engineers to be as productive as one engineer here!

 

[murf]

Statutory severance is a lot less than that, and what an employer will offer in the way of a severance package will usually be closer to the statutory requirement than the one month per year of service that some think is automatically due to long term employees. Then it fall onto the employee to decide if it's worth refusing the offered settlement and sue for more under common law precedents.

The employeer's offer is a sure thing, but suing is not. You'll need to fund your living expenses over the two or three years that it will take to get to trial (or pretrial settlement), plus there is the matter of prepaying your legal expenses before a lawyere even starts the paperwork on filing a claim for you.

Even if you can deal with the wait and interim costs of living, there still remains uncertainty. That one month per year of service severance is not written in stone. You might get it, but odds are that you will get less.

To maximimize any judgement, you'll also need to demonstrate that you took reasonable steps to mitigate your loss. Did you search for work to replace that which you lost? How hard did you look? Can you provide any proof of having done so? Were you offered work, and if so and you did refuse the work and if so, why? Did you attempt to upgrade your skills or retrain to another field in order to obtain replacement employment? If you were successful in doing so, are you now making more or less than what you were making before?

All of these will be brought up in any suit for wrongful dismissal (meaning inadequate severance pay), and will impact how "deserving" a court will deem you as being when it comes to assigning a dollar value to your loss. If you come across as having done little or nothing to mitigate your loss, that 20-year employee's hope for 20 months severance can easily be whittled down to 8 months pay minus, and maybe even less if the court awards the company legal fees to be paid by you.



Also, the month per year of service is not without restrictions. The severed employee is expected to mitigate their loss and attempt to seek employment.

Not only did the GM employees get 1 month per year when the truck plant closed, they also got a $25000 car voucher. They also pulled out their pensions of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I'm assuming since the London employees are getting a similar package since their salaries are the same and they belong to the caw. Older employees have actually got up to 2 months of pay for one year of service in the past......since it's going to be very difficult for them to find a job for $34 an hour!

It's pretty easy to look for work and not get called for an interview.

 

[turbodish]

Not only did the GM employees get 1 month per year when the truck plant closed, they also got a $25000 car voucher. They also pulled out their pensions of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I'm assuming since the London employees are getting a similar package since their salaries are the same and they belong to the caw. Older employees have actually got up to 2 months of pay for one year of service in the past......since it's going to be very difficult for them to find a job for $34 an hour!

This is not the norm. It's quite far from it.

It's pretty easy to look for work and not get called for an interview.

True, but in the meantime you still need to pay the bills and pay the lawyer. How many here could comfortably go without a paycheck for two or three years while waiting for their day in court?

 

[murf]

The longer you’ve worked for your employer, the more negotiation leverage you have.* Although many employers will initially offer 1-2 weeks pay for each year worked, courts generally award one-month per year of service adjusted upwards in circumstances of improper employer behaviour, higher level job responsibilities, inducement from other employment, and advanced age of the employee being dismissed.

http://www.wrongfullydismissed.com/Negotiating_Strategy.html

it is the norm. With a plant closing they actually have to add several weeks or months more severance pay!

 

[murf]

Does anyone actually know what their severance pay was?

 

[murf]

We shall see what kind of severance they get soon enough:

http://m.torontosun.com/2012/02/05/caw-threatening-to-occupy-electro-motive-plant

 

[turbodish]

The longer you’ve worked for your employer, the more negotiation leverage you have.* Although many employers will initially offer 1-2 weeks pay for each year worked, courts generally award one-month per year of service adjusted upwards in circumstances of improper employer behaviour, higher level job responsibilities, inducement from other employment, and advanced age of the employee being dismissed.

http://www.wrongfullydismissed.com/Negotiating_Strategy.html

it is the norm. With a plant closing they actually have to add several weeks or months more severance pay!

Severance on plant closing in a unionized workplace is a different matter entirely. In that circumstance, severance pay is determined by the collective agreement currently in place, and not on the basis of guidance from the Employment Standards Act or employment-related common law.

With respect to that lawyer's advertising page, it reminds me of male enhancement ads. Despite the claims, your actual mileage may vary.

 

[Brian P]

It takes three Mexican engineers to be as productive as one engineer here!

I've got a customer going through that right now. Fortunately, I'm not on the hook ... I'm just the little subcontract guy that's getting strung along while they do whatever they're doing down there.

My previous experience with getting a project done in Mexico is that while the workers might only be getting paid a tenth as much (this was a long time ago - a third as much is probably closer now) they only DO one-tenth as much (might be up to a third now ...) with the result that at the end of the day, the project costs the same but takes 10 (ok, maybe 3) times longer to get done.

There's a certain prominent vehicle that was introduced at the Detroit Auto Show that I'm keeping an eye on as a result. Won't be buying the first model year, that's for sure. NOT naming names.

 

[nobbie48]

Statutory severance is a lot less than that, and what an employer will offer in the way of a severance package will usually be closer to the statutory requirement than the one month per year of service that some think is automatically due to long term employees. Then it falls onto the employee to decide if it's worth refusing the offered settlement and sue for more under common law precedents.

The employeer's offer is a sure thing, but suing is not. You'll need to fund your living expenses over the two or three years that it will take to get to trial (or pretrial settlement), plus there is the matter of prepaying your legal expenses before a lawyer will even start the paperwork on filing a claim for you.

Even if you can deal with the wait and interim costs of living, there still remains uncertainty. That one month per year of service severance is not written in stone. You might get it, but odds are that you will get less.

To maximimize any judgement, you'll also need to demonstrate that you took reasonable steps to mitigate your loss. Did you search for work to replace that which you lost? How hard did you look? Can you provide any proof of having done so? Were you offered work, and if so and you did refuse the work and if so, why? Did you attempt to upgrade your skills or retrain to another field in order to obtain replacement employment? If you were successful in doing so, are you now making more or less than what you were making before?

All of these will be brought up in any suit for wrongful dismissal (meaning inadequate severance pay), and will impact how "deserving" a court will deem you as being when it comes to assigning a dollar value to your loss. If you come across as having done little or nothing to mitigate your loss, that 20-year employee's hope for 20 months severance can easily be whittled down to 8 months pay minus, and maybe even less if the court awards the company legal fees to be paid by you.



Also, the month per year of service is not without restrictions. The severed employee is expected to mitigate their loss and attempt to seek employment.

You have accurately described what a friend went through in a non-union wrongful dismissal suit. After a two year war of nerves she was ready to settle for just her legal bills being paid.

 

[murf]

You have accurately described what a friend went through in a non-union wrongful dismissal suit. After a two year war of nerves she was ready to settle for just her legal bills being paid.

non union, and not a plant closing I'm assuming.

So your friend went 2 years and settled for the minimum???? Seems she should of followed it to it's conclusion since the courts look favorably on employees who have been mistreated by employers especially if the employer didn't pay anything to the employee during those 2 years. Unless ofcourse they fired her with cause?

 

[turbodish]

You have accurately described what a friend went through in a non-union wrongful dismissal suit. After a two year war of nerves she was ready to settle for just her legal bills being paid.

That's where big companies have the average person at a disadvantage. For them, until actual date of hearing in front of judge, it's a paper exercise in who has the greater will to win, and you being without a paycheck puts you at a disadvantage.

Things change to your favour if you can hang on until that trial date though. If you as a terminated employee can hold out that long, and can show that you tried to mitigate your loss through a reasonable job search and retraining if necessary, the the advantage switches to you.

In absence of a collective agreement, an employee severed through no fault of their own is entitled to one week's notice of termination for every year of service regardless of size of company. If the company is a large one with payroll in excess of 2.5 million per year, then that employee is also entitled to severance pay of one week per year of service. That's the minimums laid out in the Employment Standards Act of Ontario.

That means that your laid-off employee with 20 years service could be looking at a total of 28 weeks on separation. More requires the goodwill of the company, a collective bargainbing agreement, a union holding plant and equipment hostage while theyr extort a higher payment, or you taking your former employer to court on your own inn hopes of collection damages under common law.

 

[murf]

That's where big companies have the average person at a disadvantage. For them, until actual date of hearing in front of judge, it's a paper exercise in who has the greater will to win, and you being without a paycheck puts you at a disadvantage.

Things change to your favour if you can hang on until that trial date though. If you as a terminated employee can hold out that long, and can show that you tried to mitigate your loss through a reasonable job search and retraining if necessary, the the advantage switches to you.

In absence of a collective agreement, an employee severed through no fault of their own is entitled to one week's notice of termination for every year of service regardless of size of company. If the company is a large one with payroll in excess of 2.5 million per year, then that employee is also entitled to severance pay of one week per year of service. That's the minimums laid out in the Employment Standards Act of Ontario.

That means that your laid-off employee with 20 years service could be looking at a total of 28 weeks on separation. More requires the goodwill of the company, a collective bargainbing agreement, a union holding plant and equipment hostage while theyr extort a higher payment, or you taking your former employer to court on your own inn hopes of collection damages under common law.

The minimum is even higher than what u stated during a plant closing.

 

[turbodish]

The minimum is even higher than what u stated during a plant closing.

Not significantly if at all. The only thing that changes in absence of a collective agreement is the amount of notice given.

Ordinary notice of termination is one week for every year of service to a maximim of 8 weeks, or equivalent pay in lieu of giving notice. Large scale terminations can call for longer notice periods depending on the number of workers being terminated, but even then the maximum required notice (or pay in lieu of notice) is an additional 8 weeks for a maximum of 16 weeks total.

Notice, 50 or more employees
3. (1) The following periods are prescribed for the purposes of subsection 58 (1) of the Act:

1. Notice shall be given at least eight weeks before termination if the number of employees whose employment is terminated is 50 or more but fewer than 200.​

2. Notice shall be given at least 12 weeks before termination if the number of employees whose employment is terminated is 200 or more but fewer than 500.
3. Notice shall be given at least 16 weeks before termination, if the number of employees whose employment is terminated is 500 or more.
​

O. Reg. 288/01, s. 3 (1).
​

That's the statutory minimum in absence of a collective agreement. Your 20-year employee would then be statutorially entitled to 36 weeks pay on mass layoff of 500 or more workers in absence of a collective agreement. If the plant was laying off fewer than 200, that 20-year employee wouldn't be statutorially entitled to a cent more than the aforementioned 28 weeks.

A collective agreement is a matter of contract law, not employment standards law. Unions tend to negotiate high plant closure payouts as a way of discouraging companies from easily closing plants, but those payouts are not a matter of legal entitlement except as part of a collective agreement.

 

[murf]

36 weeks isn't significantly higher than 20?

 

[turbodish]

36 weeks isn't significantly higher than 20?

It's 36 weeks total (severance and termination) vs 28 weeks total. I wouldn't call two months pay (IF the company is laying off 500+ employees) that significant a game changer. Also, how many companies around here have closed the door laying off 500 or more employees lately? Or even 200?

 

[murf]

It's 36 weeks total (severance and termination) vs 28 weeks total. I wouldn't call two months pay (IF the company is laying off 500+ employees) that significant a game changer. Also, how many companies around here have closed the door laying off 500 or more employees lately? Or even 200?

Toronto hydro is firing right now.
GM is firing 1700 ish
Electro Motive is firing 700

8 weeks is a high percentage of 28 in my book.

 

[OpenGambit]

Without knowing the specifics of each employee it is extremely difficult to know what they are entitled to.

The statutory minimum is pretty much useless in these circumstances ....

 

[turbodish]

Toronto hydro is firing right now.
GM is firing 1700 ish

8 weeks is a high percentage of 28 in my book.

And yet for that 20-year employee, that statutory high end of 36 weeks (9 months) is still nowhere near that one month pay per year of service that you were initially promoting.

That 20-year employee should be able to get more in a court action, but it's a crap shoot for which the now unemployed worker has to ante up for first. It's not "automatic" or an otherwise sure thing.

 

[murf]

And yet for that 20-year employee, that statutory high end of 36 weeks (9 months) is still nowhere near that one month pay per year of service that you were initially promoting.

That 20-year employee should be able to get more in a court action, but it's a crap shoot for which the now unemployed worker has to ante up for first. It's not "automatic" or an otherwise sure thing.

I'm sure the workers in London will get more than 1 week per year.......I will be surprised if it's not 1 month per year. If that's the case then it could be a good business decision for the workers with high seniority. We shall see.

It's not "automatic", but a pretty good guideline......especially in London with the way the employer acted......it won't be a favourable result for CAT.

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