Digital Signature Legality for Termination Letter in Canada

How to eSign a document: digital signature legality for Termination Letter in Canada

[Music] and welcome back to the Employment Law show John Scoles and Lee or Sam fear ooh and fast facts from being fired without cause we'll get to that you want to reach out by the way one eight five five eight to 150 900 an employment lawyer you'll find past shows and the proper way and a way to find our radio show which we've been doing for years and years and years more phone calls from that show coming up here in just a bit but I will throw these out to you right away Lee or and I know you'll want to answer them quickly that's why they are fast facts number one is what is termination without cost information without costs not some people hear that term they think that there's something wrong let me go without cause I've been wrong not necessarily in fact most cases no you have not a termination without cause simply means you're not being let go because of significant misconduct anything that's not a termination for cause in other words anything that's not a termination because of significant misconduct is a termination without cause so that could be a restructuring it can be cost-cutting it could be realignment it could be a situation where you would let go because the company is not happy with your work performed Abbas doesn't like it sometimes it's just not caused so a so it's perfectly legal to be let go without cause it's a question of severance so if you're let go without cause you have to get paid severance the most common form of termination John is a termination without cause next one is this I've just been fired without cause and the company wants me to sign a termination papers or a severance offer before I leave do I have to absolutely not so when you're let go without cause again in the most common form of termination you're gonna be usually called into a meeting handed some papers and there's a severance offer usually in that paper and there's a deadline by which you sign it no matter what is the deadline even if they want you to sign it now more next week do not worry about it your legal rights don't expire on that deadline you have two years to pursue your rights it's your job to determine that you got what you wrote and most people are not so that deadlines that pressure is meaningless you take the papers home say I'll consider it you go to pocket employment lawyer dot CA you call me you call another employment lawyer if you want to instead of me that's fine but that's what you do do not fall for the pressure because if you do and you sign off on that severance letter and you realize later holy cow I was over another thirty thousand dollars you won't be able to do anything about that so don't let that happen to you just take it home take a breather relax and give us some time right take the time that you need if it's a week if it's a month take whatever time you need it's a stressful time it's a lot of things going on you may not be in the best state of mind to deal with your severance the offer right away that's okay take the time that you need you're not losing anything we're talking about fast facts about being fired without cause the next one as well they're going to love an easy one over the plate for you how much severance of my own following a termination for gums that that is an easy one well it could be a bit tricky simply because there's no direct formula some people think all how might I know how much separates a weeks later or maybe two weeks per year or whatever else per year none of that is true your severance entitlements depend on a number of factors your age your position the length of your employment and potentially a couple of other factors as well so the longer you work the older you are in the more senior position you have the more your own so for some people that may mean twelve months pay some people may mean 24 months some will get a month per year two months per year so it's based on those factors so the main thing I want you to take away from this is that there's no formula of a week per year service but I'm not gonna just say there's no formula now leave me alone I wanted to make it as easy as possible we've said to find out how much I wrote that's why pocket employment lawyer dot C is there you can always call me an email me and I'll tell you how much you're owed in your specific situation but I can almost guarantee you whatever it is in that severance offer then you've been offered even if you think hey it's pretty good it's not in most cases it's pennies on the dollar and the company counts on you not knowing better and accepting it without having all the information it really is tailor-made for the individual right it is it is there's no one-size-fits-all so you're your buddy crossed the hog you may be owed two months pay you could be owe 24 months but it doesn't matter what someone else got it's an individual assessment that's why it's so important to get that advice and I said you already have an employment lawyer with you pocket employment lawyer dot CA next one of the fast facts is this can the Ministry of Labor help if I'm let go without cause gosh I actually did an interview earlier today before we came to do the show and the answer is absolutely not the Ministry of Labor cannot help anyone when it comes to your termination entitlements Ministry of Labor can only enforce a person's minimum entitlements so but perhaps a week's pay per year of service but remember what I said that's not what you wrote you're much more than that your full entitlements what we call your common-law entitlements are significantly greater so no the Ministry of Labor if you lost your job you call the Ministry of Labour I'll give you an example say you work for a company for four years you call the Ministry of Labour and and you say hey I've been offered five weeks pay Ministry of Labour what do you think of that they'll say hey that's pretty good your bonus because you're out four weeks they offered you five that's amazing see if they know ok I'll sign off on the five weeks they just told me it's fine no it's not in fact in that situation you could yield six months pay eight months pay even more perhaps so not weeks months so if you call the Ministry of Labour you get the wrong advice not because it's wrong because they're only telling you about a small portion of what you're actually owed so the worst thing you can do when you lose your job is go to the Ministry of Labour you'd be better off throwing darts at a dartboard and come up with a number that way that's better still then going in the Ministry of Labour you go to pocket employment lawyer dot cau you call me you can go to the Ministry of Labour for other things overtime overtime issues vacation pay issues maybe you didn't get your check properly paid last week that is fine but not when you lose your job for that you have to get legal advice we've given you a number of ways to do that what you cannot do is go to the Ministry of Labour ok one more here the fast facts about being fired without cause is this how does an employment contract factor in to severance pay so employers now are starting to understand wait a second we actually have to pay a lot of severance and it's gonna cost us a lot of money we may have an employee that has worked for us for six months and we could owe them five months severance how do we eliminate that how do we reduce that and the way an employer can reduce severance is through an employment contract or an employment agreement so what some companies do is they stipulate in the employment agreement what they would have to pay you if at some point down the road they let you go so if you sign an employment agreement that limits your entitlements that could be a real factor and that agreement could cost you potentially tens of thousands of dollars so two things I'll say number one is be careful what's your sign when you start a job if there's a term there that limits your entitlements you want to negotiate that out and often you can if you're not sure how to do that or usually not sure if it does limit your entitlements reach out to me I'll tell you the second thing I'll say about this just because you signed an employment agreement that tries to limit your entitlements doesn't actually mean that it does that in many situations we can get around the terms of the agreement and still get you your full impediment so if you just lost your job and your employer says ha you sign an employment agreement as per that employment agreement we only have to pay you three weeks pay that may not be the case probably in 80% of the cases we can get around it still so so important to give me a call in that situation because you may still be owed your full entitlement