Is it true that you are laid off because of COVID? Or is it because of the economic downturn? Is this a reason for laying off without paying compensation? Let’s find the answer in this article on labor law.
Since the end of the first quarter of 2020, there has been a lot of news about layoffs and even salary cuts. Part of the reason for this large number of layoffs is the economic impact caused by the COVID situation, where many business owners are unable to continue their businesses. Many have had to close down their businesses, but many have taken the opportunity to use COVID as a reason to lay off employees.
Can a company lay off or terminate employees? Is it illegal?
The company can always lay off employees, and can lay off without limit. But laying off employees or terminating employees must be done in a proper way, following the law, which is considered fair and understandable because the company is in a difficult situation. And as for the employees who are going to be laid off, they should be given what they deserve.
But it turns out that there are many cases where companies have taken advantage of the COVID situation to take advantage of employees by unfairly dismissing them!!!!
“Executives take advantage of employees who are ignorant of the law, using the COVID situation to force employees to accept the situation.”
Case 1: The first company said that due to COVID, they had to lay off or terminate some employees, with compensation of 1 month’s salary in advance plus 2 months’ bonus, totaling 3 months, in exchange for the employees signing their own resignations.
But that’s not enough. The employees who are forced to leave must sign a consent form stating that they are “satisfied with the compensation they have received, without any objections to any rights or benefits or to any lawsuits against the company.”
The management pressured the group of employees who were going to be fired, saying that if they did not sign, they would be fired without getting paid. All the employees had to accept it and sign because they would not be working anyway. At least they would get paid a little bit.
This is like being oppressed and having to give in (because you are afraid that if you are stubborn, you may not get the money).
Case 2: The second company, a new executive came in and after working for only a few months, he claimed to have laid off or terminated a number of employees in his own department, claiming that his performance was not up to par and that he needed to restructure, so he had to let them go.
But because they may not want to pay a large amount of severance pay, they find reasons to accuse the group of employees to be fired of fraudulent behavior, not working to their full potential, using the issues of absence, being late, and discipline as issues to force them to leave.
Eventually, most of the employees could not stand being criticized and could not stand the pressure anymore, so they had to resign.
But that’s not all. This new executive also forced the employees to sign a resignation with the condition that “they are not allowed to provide bad information about the company and are not allowed to sue the company, otherwise the company will disclose the employees’ behavior to other companies.”
No, it doesn’t end there. After the executive claimed to be restructuring the organization, not long after the old employees left, this executive brought his own team from the old place to replace them.
Is this right? The question is, is this kind of layoff right?
Both companies use legal issues or regulations in matters that employees may not have knowledge of or are not accurate about labor laws. Of course they know, so they use these matters as a way to take advantage of employees.
Both cases have similar issues, namely the company “has given a signed agreement that it will not pursue any rights and benefits or file any lawsuits against the company again.”
If the employee has already signed, what can be done?
Even if the employee has already signed, due to ignorance, or due to threats, money, or whatever, the terminated employee can still sue the other company for unfairly terminating them.
Referring to a case study from the Labor Law page , which mentioned this issue as follows:
“The employer also claimed that how could he sue when the employee had already signed the letter?”
Therefore, there is a problem whether signing and writing this message means that the employee agrees and does not have any objections or not?
In this case, the court ruled that the employee or former employee only “acknowledged the order and signed it.” Therefore, it cannot be considered that “the employee agreed not to make a claim and it is not considered a compromise agreement.”
This means that the employee can sue and claim for damages from unfair dismissal cases again (in this case, the employee also won the unfair dismissal case).
In cases where reasons are found to force employees to resign
This is another issue because the claim of restructuring the organization and causing the layoff of employees, but it turned out that it was not actually done. After laying off employees, new employees were hired to work in the same positions. This is considered an unfair dismissal. Or even threatening employees is also considered a crime.
In these cases, employees who have been unfairly dismissed can contact the local labor court for consultation and file a lawsuit to seek justice from the company.
Don’t be afraid to go to court if we do what’s right.
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Don’t let bad people have a place and find a reason to take advantage of working people like us or others.”
We should use the law to deal with these people, to let them know that justice is real and we should get what we deserve.
Source:
Labor Law Page
Read more about the case of “The employer claims that how can he sue when the employee has already signed the letter?” at: https://www.facebook.com/LaborProtectionLaw/posts/803333273536112
