Hey everyone my workplace is currently undergoing some “restructuring” and is looking to change everyone’s work contracts. To clarify, I’m a permanent employee and my company is undergoing a merger and I guess there’s a very vague law that might allow these changes. So I understand my situation might be uncommon.
I was wondering if anyone here has fought back (gotten a lawyer, gone to the labour board, union, ect) and are willing to share their experiences dealing with their workplace trying to strong arm them.
I’d appreciate it, thank you.
4 comments
If you’re a contract worker they generally require your consent to change your contract. There’s no strong arm if you don’t agree with the changes you don’t sign the new contract and you find a new job knowing your contract won’t be renewed again.
If you’re a.permanent employee your options are much more limited because that’s the trade off you accept for job security.
Need to consult a lawyer for that as mergers are subject to very specific laws about what the companies can and cannot do.
Redundancies are inevitable during merges so chances are that there are laws that allow companies to fire or change the contract of redundant staff under certain conditions.
You really need to go over the specific changes with legal counsel.
I had a previous company try to make two changes:
1) Change payday from the 25th to the last day of the month. Objectionable because it was essentially them giving themselves a five day loan at the expense of the employees, and many of the largest monthly bills come due on the 27th for most people.
2) Change salary structure from regular salary to a quarterly bonus structure. Objectionable because it converted a third of our salary into bonus, which is not protected.
The first guy to try to fight it was dismissed a few days later over a client complaint that normally would just have resulted in them being reassigned to a different client for that time slot. A second guy was dismissed in similar fashion, but hired a lawyer to fight the dismissal, and was put back on salary, and eventually reinstated – and then promptly resigned and went to work for a competitor. After the second guy got a lawyer they backed off on the dismissals for people that were reticent to sign off, but they went forward with the changes anyhow.
I never “got around” to signing, but as mentioned, they made the changes without my consent – I found another job ASAP, and then had to threaten to sue them for the outstanding “bonus” that they refused to pay. Fortunately they realised that because I hadn’t signed they would lose immediately, and just handed over the cash with only a demand letter from my lawyer.
At the company level: my company instituted the infamous *minashi zangyō* “your salary now includes up to 30 hours of overtime and we won’t start paying you until the 31st hour” system that so many companies now have.
At the individual level: when switching departments in my 19th year on the job, my soon-to-be manager wanted to switch me from permanent *seishain* to a contracted *shokutaku* position on the grounds that I would be doing some specified work. I wouldn’t be getting much of a bonus anymore and would have a renewable contract each year. Thinking that there wasn’t much in that for me, I insisted on remaining a *seishain* and she allowed me to stay that way after getting approval from the CEO. Be careful when standing on your rights, though: my monthly base went down in four of the next five evaluation periods, including a whole grade, and she ended up saving almost as much money as she would have if I had given up *seishain* status.