Telecom Layoffs - Learning What You May Be Owed

When BCE Inc., the parent company of Bell Canada, the country’s leading telecom provider, announces 4,800 employee layoffs, its critical that telecom employees understand the unique challenges associated with their job and the fact that they pose far less of a legal obstacle than what they might initially believe. Naturally, telecom companies have taken full advantage of their distinct employment status to leverage their power and position over their employees, especially when they have been laid off or otherwise end their employment. And yet it is their belief in their superiority and power that actually creates their legal vulnerability should one understand what is in fact transpiring within these major telecom employers, and is capable of interpreting the massive amounts of materials that they have placed in the public domain.

However, this is not made easy by the fact that the telecom companies are not subject to provincial employment standards legislation, with respect to their telecom employees, but instead look to the Canada Labour Code for employment relations and statutory obligations. And the Canada Labour Code lacks the extensive judicial scrutiny that provincial employment standards legislation has been subject to by the courts, together with many employee disputes of Canada Labour Code employees being resolved outside of reported processes, which are strictly controlled, oftentimes with competing interests at play.

This is further exacerbated by the financial power of the telecom companies, who can easily afford to shut down the legal action from an ex-employee, oftentimes before any serious legal action has been taken. Combine this with what the boss claims is a “very generous” severance package, most telecom employees don’t even begin to scrutinize the entirety of what they might be legally owed. Nevertheless, given how much time most salaried telecom employees have put in service of these highly profitable telecom companies, is it not worth a little time and effort to inquire about money that might be earned and owing. Especially, where that particular employment lawyer has already made substantial research and legal analysis into what is transpiring internally at these telecom companies, and how this can be applicable to former telecom employees.

It becomes a matter of completing the puzzle and determining whether or not the final pieces exist to confirm its financial impact upon the former telecom employee, whether the end of their telecom job was the result of a layoff, termination, firing, quitting, resignation or retirement. And it doesn’t mean that you have to personally take on your former employer, a major Canadian telecom company; however, should you really be burying your past and not properly understanding what transpired in your former employment.

Applying our substantial legal analysis to your individual employment and termination documentation will in all probability reveal some very shocking financial information, which will be most significant with long-term salaried employees. Within ten to twenty minutes of our legal review, we will be in a position to provide a very thorough perspective as to what can be sought from your former employer and the legal foundation upon which it will stand up in court, in our professional estimation.

However, given how significant those numbers could be, we believe that it is essential to layout the amounts that are properly due to yourself and how we intend to pursue its attainment, which might otherwise appear outrageous and unsubstantiated. Yet, with the telecom company’s own documents that were personally provided to yourself, we can support each of our calculations and establish its specific legal foundations.

And even where you have already taken the telecom company’s layoff package, there appears to be the clear legal basis to augment your original payout. I realize that this too might raise a fair degree of skepticism, especially where you were required to sign a written release and other legal documents to attain your exit payout; however, here to, the telecom company’s own documents should support our legal position.

For those interested, we provide both former and laid off telecom employees with the opportunity for a free assessment, undertaken in strict confidence. If we don’t believe that there is a legal case worth pursuing, we’ll be upfront about that. Also, if the legal case would be highly problematic, we’ll advise you as to the issues that we do perceive. Yet, based on our own extensive research and legal work, we believe that in most circumstances there will be significant amounts of money at issue for former and laid off telecom employees, which will also enable us to undertake an approach that does not require you to pay out-of-pocket to finance the legal case, but instead is capable of alternate arrangements that enable us to aggressively challenge the major telecom companies and their high-priced legal teams.

Our approach, however, is not for everyone. When we take on layoffs and dismissals by corporate employers, we pursue it very aggressively, attacking their fundamental employment practices. As such, for those individuals who simply want to accept the layoff package and move on, even if it means leaving behind a considerable amount of money, we are probably not the right legal team. For everyone else, we have a unique legal approach that you should seriously consider. If this is of interest to yourself, feel free to contact our law firm in strict confidence, by telephone at 403-400-4092 or 905-616-8864, or via email at Chris@NeufeldLegal.com.