Can your previous employer force you to help them with something? I got an aggressive call from my former manager, and he wants me to tell them how to fix something. The problem is that I don't remember and I no longer work for them, so can he sue me for not helping them? Do I even have any obligation towards my former employer even if I could help? It sounds ridiculous and I've experienced seen something like this before. Assume that this takes place in the U.S. or Canada.
It is not uncommon for an employer to ask a former employee to assist with something as a courtesy, and sometimes the former employee will choose to do so. If it requires more than a small amount of time, this may be done under a short-term consulting contract for pay. But unless there was a contract of employment requiring such post-employment advice, there is no legal obligation for the former employee to provide such assistance. The most the former employer could do is give a poor reference if asked by potential future employers, and most large corporate employers now only give job title, salary range, and dates of employment to avoid claims of incorrect or defamatory statements in such references.
What should I do? Don't get intimidated, don't sign/accept/submit to his "agreement" now that you are securing employment elsewhere, and make sure that henceforth all your communications with the CEO &amp; his startup be --or continue to be-- in writing. The CEO's attempt to be reimbursed is pure non-sense because hitherto there is no mutually agreed clause between you two to that effect. Generally speaking, compensation is for the professional's work, not for his employment spanning "n" pay periods. Having there been no employment/founders agreement of any type, he will be unable to prove that this was agreed any differently in your case. Furthermore, the CEO's threat to seek reimbursement of your earned compensation unless you submit to his "mutual" agreement not only amounts to extortion, but it also reflects his cluelessness about contract law. For instance, that contracts which are signed under hardship or duress are voidable. By contrast, submitting to his conditions will needlessly impose on you the burden of proving duress once you decide the situation is unsustainable. This is in addition to the legal weight with which your acceptance and subsequent conduct would support the CEO's allegation(s) that you two have "at all times" been in a cognizable contractual relation. Being realistic, it is highly doubtful that a startup which pays you weeks late is able --or even willing-- to spend money on a lawyer for nonsense like this.
The &quot;Severance Agreement&quot; is a contract between the company and you. It spells out what the company will do and probably what they expect you to do going forward. Simple enough. The statement you referenced merely says that you are not being forced to sign the agreement. That's all. You don't, presumably, have the option of remaining employed at this company but you DO NOT have to sign this agreement. But if you don't, it's likely that any benefits being promised in the agreement will not be delivered to you. So specifically in answer to your questions: It protects them against a claim that they somehow forced you to sign the agreement. Likely anything that the agreement says the company will do such as pay you a certain amount of money and the like. Bottom line is that if you don't like the agreement, don't sign it. If you want the benefits they are promising in the agreement, then sign it and move on.
are employers legally allowed to punish (e.g. fire, reprimand, etc.) an employee who shares wage/salary information with their colleagues? No. Section 8 of the BC Labour Relations Code preserves for the employee &quot;the freedom to communicate to an employee a statement of fact [...] with respect to the employer's business&quot;. More conclusively, section 64 entitles a person to disclose --except for purposes of picketing-- &quot;information [...] relating to terms or conditions of employment or work done or to be done by that person&quot;. Wage/salary information clearly is a condition of employment. the only answer to that question relies on a law from a different province (Ontario) and so is not relevant in BC. That answer is relevant to Canada (also the question was about Canada). That answer cites a statute from Ontario because that is the jurisdiction that the asker specified. It would be tiresome as well as futile to provide the statutory equivalent of every province on a matter that the provinces are very unlikely to legislate materially differently.
In Canada can employer force employees not to discuss wage? Not in Ontario. That would violate Section 74(1) of the Employment Standards Act, 2000: No employer or person acting on behalf of an employer shall intimidate, dismiss or otherwise penalize an employee or threaten to do so, (a) because the employee, (v.2) discloses the employee’s rate of pay to another employee for the purpose of determining or assisting another person in determining whether an employer is complying with Part XII (Equal Pay for Equal Work) See also Section 74.12(1)(a)(v.2). What if the employee signed a confidentiality agreement where they agreed not to discuss wages? The agreement would be void in that regard. See Section 5 of the same Standards: [...] [N]o employer or agent of an employer and no employee or agent of an employee shall contract out of or waive an employment standard and any such contracting out or waiver is void. The allowed exceptions are any clauses that provide a greater benefit to an employee than the employment standard (see 5(2)).
Legal action might be taken by the garage, because you had a contract to repair the gearbox which you cancelled (causing them some damages in time spent). You could hope that the store-owner will pay the invoice that you sent, but that seems to not be likely. The store owner can't sue you for sending him the invoice: the mechanic can sue you for not paying what the work billed for. But you do have a recourse, which is that you were acting on behalf of the store owner. I assume that you were in possession of the old gearbox, so it simplified matters if you took transported it to the mechanic, since the store owner was going to pay. In other words, you were acting as the store owner's agent: you were authorized to create a contractual arrangement between the garage and the owner. The one problem is that apparently the garage thought they were doing the work for you, and not for the owner. So they may sue you, and you may sue the owner. And suing anybody costs money. The owner is, perhaps, trying a strategy of not paying what he does actually owe, in the theory that the alternative of suing is too much time and bother (besides, it's the garage owner who would have to get the ball rolling – unless the shop owner first wants to sue to recover the gearbox). Given the information you have provided, I don't see a basis for the shop owner suing you. In order to sue someone, that person has to have caused you some damage. He could claim that he didn't authorize you to take the gearbox to the garage, or that you were negligent in making the arrangements with the shop (for instance if he said &quot;but only if they will do the diagnosis for free&quot;), in which case the court will have to decide whose story is more believable.
As seen here, the laws of the employee's state and city are controlling, and not that of the employer. A person working for a North Dakota company in Seattle is owed at least Seattle minimum wage. This to &quot;were the employee usually is working&quot; so it does not suddenly switch when the employee takes a working vacation.
As a general rule, if a business, like a bank, is legally required to keep information confidential, and an employee breeches confidentiality, then your recourse is to sue the business for damages. See for example ch. 35 of Title 12. The bank cannot claim "It's not our fault, an employee did it" (the Latin for this is "respondeat superior", whereby a part is also responsible for the acts of their agents). As far as I know, there is no law against asking for information that can't be given. This does assume, however, that your mother does not have a legal right to the information (which could arise from some form of co-signing). Also, would assume that they have a normal privacy policy, and not one where they say "We will tell your mother if she asks" (they would have informed you of that, so read the privacy policy). This is a question best answered by your own attorney, to whom you would reveal all of the details.