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BlackBerry Sued By Over 300 Former Employees (mobilesyrup.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: BlackBerry is facing a class-action lawsuit from more than 300 former employees across Canada, according to a news release from law firm Nelligan O'Brien Payne LLP. The Waterloo, Ontario-based tech company is accused of denying employees their termination entitlements by transferring them to a partner company and, once they had accepted employment there, handed them resignation letters. The former employees were then allegedly given their final date of work. "BlackBerry's actions amount to a termination of the employees' employment," the law firm said. "This entitles these employees to statutory, common law, and/or contractual entitlements on termination."
As described the events were undertaken to reduce the class of employees' time at their employer to 0 in a fairly blatant attempt to do an end run around Canadian Labor laws with respect to severance based on time at Blackberry. See constructive dismissal.
h1b is a US thing. we are talking about canada, you hoser.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
"once they had accepted employment there, handed them resignation letters"
Isn't resignation something the employee hands to the employer, not the other way around? Am I missing something here, or is this just shoddy journalism?
It's sort of a "you're fired, here's your resignation letter."
It seems to be implied that there were termination benefits (Severance package) at both companies, Blackberry and also the 2nd company. By signing the resignation letters at the 2nd company they may have been bribed by some kind of severance package that is much less than what they would have got from BB.
If they refused to sign the letter they got nothing. Thus the agreement to sign a resignation letter they didn't write.
By transferring them to the second company it relieves BB from the obligations of the (assumed) much larger BB severance package.
Dirty underhanded shenanigans either way. Thus the lawsuit that I presume BB will lose.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Wrong: Work laws ensure guarantees and benefits for employees given their time on the company, such as how much you get in a severance package, how many days of vacations and so on. Since the "transfer" is made by making them sign a RESIGNATION it makes them thus resign to their law-granted benefits from their years in Blackberry. This means, for example, that if they were then fired from the partner company a few months later their severance package would be near naught, compared to the package they would get from being fired in Blackberry after their years of work.
This is in Ontario Canada. This is most definitely not an "at-will" jurisdiction when it comes to employment.
The Ontario Labour Relations Act applies, along with common law. (The entitlements written down are not what applies -- it is what is "usual and customary" that applies in Ontario for severance compensation -- and that is *much* more generous than what is written in the legislation.)
Anyone subject to severance (of any kind) in Ontario should consult with a lawyer experienced with the practice of employment law in Ontario before signing anything.
Ian Ameline
Job security? These people still have jobs at a different company. Bb helped them get those jobs. The workers also willingly signed a document saying ok to switch jobs.
Yeah in Canada they're called TFW's(temporary foreign workers), and unlike H1B's a TFW can replace any job at any level if the company can work out a way to claim there isn't someone to fill it. The Royal Bank of Canada was caught doing this a few years ago. But it's happened across skilled trades, white collar workers, blue collar, take your pick.
Om, nomnomnom...