Losing your job is a dramatic and often devastating life event. As I stated in my previous blog; because many people spend more time at the workplace then they do with their families, being fired can have both emotional and physiological effects that match; or exceed the feelings felt in losing a loved or a divorce.
The challenge for many fired employees is to navigate their way through the legal issues of wrongful dismissal while
coping with these feelings of loss.
To do this, it often makes sense to get legal advice from a lawyer or someone who is familiar with or who specializes in employment law. Employment contracts can be written or oral. Unless you have been fired for “cause" (more on cause below), you are most likely entitled to receive from your employer sufficient notice of when your employment relationship will end. Failure to provide you with such notice, or payment in lieu of such notice (severance), may be a breach of your employment contract and you may sue your employer for damages.
Please note the idea behind “notice” or severance is to prepare you to cope with the loss of you job and give you time to find a similar job with similar pay. Severance payments by employers are often made as a lump sum, but can be made as "salary continuance", which means that you will receive your salary during the notice period. This will depend on the agreement that you reach with your employer that form of payment
How Much Notice are you entitled to?
This should be well defined in the terms and conditions before you sign the contract read through, if you do not understand seek advise from a labour or a consultant its your life you are committing; one thing to remember you should never be in a hurry to sign the contract take you time. The employer took time before they hired you; you had to go through interview which sometime takes week before you get your result so take your time.
One of the things to remember is how much notice, or money in lieu of notice, an employer must give you upon a dismissal. In some case it could be up to eight week (if you have more than eight years of service) if you are faced with such a situation seek legal advice. You may be entitled to a much higher award of severance if you had a wrongful dismissal. Such issues that can led to wrongful dismissal would include, having regard to the character of the employment, the length of service of the servant, the age
of the servant and the availability of similar employment, having regard to
the experience, training and qualifications of the servant.” contact a lawyer, he or she maybe able to help you and earn you what you deserve.
Does my Employer have Cause to Fire Me?
The answer to this question is Yes Sometimes an employer will say that they had "just cause" to fire you. The employer does not have to give you any notice
of your dismissal or pay you any severance in lieu of such notice. In case of theft that the employee has actually committed but if not and the employer cannot prove you actually committed the crime, contacting an employment lawyer is the first thing you should do when faced with this situation.
Remember Doing Such A Good Job!
One thing that surprises many employees is being fired; do not be surprised; that you have been fired even after being voted the employee of the month. The reality is that employers can dismiss any employee they choose so long as the reason for dismissal
does not violate human rights or employment-related legislation and the employer gives the employee a reasonable amount of notice that the employee will be dismissed or pays the employee severance in lieu of that notice.
Remember, employers pay you a salary for the hard work you do and at the end of the day, when the employment relationship is over, don't expect more than a reasonable amount of severance at the same time don't expect less either! Take what is yours and leave in good terms you may need that employer for you reference in you future job search
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