Laid off after 17 years; what am I owed?

QUESTION: I was fired for the first time ever this week. The small manufacturing company I worked for restructured and eliminated the night shift – where I just happened to be the shift supervisor on for the past 17 years. I’m now unemployed at 57 years of age and worried I won’t find new work. My employment agreement limits me to the Employment Standards Act and the termination letter tells me I’m only entitled to eight weeks pay. What is the point of spending more money on a lawyer to consult at time when I’m worried I can’t afford it when the contract seems clear as to what I get when I’m terminated?

In my experience, most employment agreements that try to limit an employee to the statutory minimums are unenforceable. If the termination provision is unenforceable an employee can often have a significantly greater entitlement. In your case, as a 57-year-old supervisor who worked for 17 years, it could be the difference between 8 weeks and 17 months.

In many cases an employer will be told by legal counsel that the termination provision is likely unenforceable if it were challenged in a court but the employer will still purport to rely upon the provision in the termination letter because they know that only a handful of employees will actually seek legal advice. In other words, they will often get away with having a termination provision that is unenforceable and if you don’t seek legal advice, you may lose a substantial entitlement and never know it.

If you’ve been terminated from your job and need legal advice, please reach out to a member of our Human Rights and Employment Law team at Ross & McBride for assistance.

This article was originally published in The Hamilton Spectator