Can an employment contract exclude &quot;reasonable notice at common law&quot;? In an employment contract, is this enforceable? The Company may terminate your employment at any time, without just cause, by providing you with the minimum notice or pay in lieu, that you are entitled to under the Employment Standards Act. You agree that your right to notice of termination of employment will be limited to the notice provided for in this Agreement. You further understand and agree that by complying with this paragraph 5(c), the Company satisfies its entire obligation to you, and you will not be entitled to receive any further severance pay, notice, pay in lieu of notice, compensation or damages of any other kind, including reasonable notice at common law. 5(c) states &quot;if a term is found to be unenforceable, the remainder will remain in affect&quot;. Also can the same contract require the employee to give at least 2 weeks notice or is that too one sided?
canada ontario Speaking from the perspective of law in Ontario, Canada, the clause may indeed be defective, contrary to the currently accepted answer. Consider what is mentioned at Termination Clauses and Continuation of Benefits: A Warning and Reminder for Employers in Ontario (August 2015): Employers often seek to limit their termination liability with termination clauses. If a termination clause does not meet the minimum requirements of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (“ESA”), then the termination clause will not be valid and an employee will be entitled to reasonable notice at common law, thus increasing an employer’s liability [...] [...] The ESA requires employers to continue benefits during the ESA notice period when terminating employment without cause, whether or not working notice is provided. Where an employer fails to expressly state in a contract that an employee’s benefits will continue throughout the ESA notice period, the termination clause may be unenforceable. [...] In Stevens v Sifton Properties Limited (2012, ONSC) (“Stevens”), the termination clause stated that payment in lieu of notice in accordance with the ESA would be provided where the employer terminates the relationship without cause. The termination clause stipulated that such payment satisfied all future claims against the employer. The Court determined that the clause, in addressing benefits implicitly, did so in a way that “purports to take those [rights of benefits] away upon mere payment of the required pay in lieu of notice.” The Court held that this was contrary to the ESA, as the language denied benefit continuation during the ESA notice period and the termination clause was therefore void. Also, on the saving clause attempt, see Ontario Court of Appeal rules “saving clause” in employment agreement unenforceable (December 2019). Consider what's mentioned in Why employment contracts are now being rewritten all over the country (December, 2020): The Court of Appeal for Ontario has determined that all ambiguous language must be read in the employee’s favour and the presence of ambiguity will nullify a termination provision. Any ambiguity will be fatal. For example, simply stating that the employee will get the greater of their employment standards entitlements or some greater amount, if not worded precisely and correctly, will not hold up because the courts will find the language to be ambiguous. Also, see Ontario Court of Appeal Limits Severability of Termination Clauses in Employment Contracts (August 2020), which says: In addition, the Court of Appeal refused to give effect to the employment contract’s severability clause. The Court stated that a severability clause cannot affect clauses that have been made void by statute. Having concluded that the termination provisions must be considered together, the severability clause in this case could not be applied to sever the offending “for cause” portion of the termination provisions. All emphasis above is mine. I am not a lawyer.
Not very nice of the employer, actually quite cowardly. Being not nice and cowardly is not against the law. Being in the EU, and having been employed for ten years, the company will have duties to find a different position in the company at the same pay, and only when that fails, the employee can be laid off and will have a reasonable amount of notice, plus a reasonable amount of redundancy pay due to him. Unfortunately, he can expect only the legal minimum if the company behaved like this already. Good companies would provide a generous redundancy pay, plus pay for you to have any agreements checked by an employment lawyer of your choice - which means the employee can be sure they are not ripped off, and the employer is sure they cannot be sued for any reason. Obviously if they want him to quit, then the one single thing your relative mustn't do is to quit. Let them pay him. Plenty of time to look for a new job.
In the UK, you would need a new contract, because the old company will not be able to pay you and will possibly cease to exist, but that contract must not put you at any disadvantage. Basically, all terms would have to be the same, and the time at the previous company would have to count as continuous employment.
Restraint clauses, restrictive covenants, or non-compete clauses are fairly standard in professional contracts. You would usually find, in a well-drafted restraint clause, cascading duration and geographic limitations. For example, it might read: ... as a potentional customer or client of EMPLOYER. This shall apply: For 12 months; or, if that is found to be unenforceable, For 6 months; or, if that is found to be unenforceable, For 3 months; or, if that is found to be unenforceable, For 1 month and within a radius of: 20km; or, if that is found to be unenforceable 10km; or, if that is found to be unenforceable 5km; or, if that is found to be unenforceable 1km from the work location. These cascading clauses are designed to protect the employer in situations where a court finds the original restraint to be unreasonable and unenforceable. The usual remedy for an unreasonable restraint clause is that a court will simply nullify it, or reduce it to a more reasonable time and geographical scope. However, if it materially changes the nature of the contract, then the contract as a whole may be voided.
Your boss is totally wrong. Legally, there is no such thing as a "probation period" in the UK. You have the right to your holiday payment, according to the days that you worked. What can happen: The legal minimum is I think 28 days per year including bank holidays, but most companies give 23 or 24 days PLUS eight days bank holiday. Your contract may say that the first three months are called probation period, and during that time you only get the legal minimum, and after that the much more common higher amount. That would be legal. But even so, you would be entitled to seven days, minus any bank holidays where you didn't work.
I would recommend talking to an adult person in HR. I'm quite sure they will notice that what your manager wants to do is more than dodgy, and doing something dodgy may be in the interest of your manager, but not in the interest of the company. The best thing is to go to HR, acting as if a mistake has been made, and point out to them what your start date was, and that the new contract has the incorrect starting date, and they need to fix this mistake or you can't sign the contract. If they insist you sign it, then you DON'T sign it. If they say you will be fired if you don't sign it, then you tell them that in that case you would get legal advice. BTW. You definitely don't sign this as it is. PS. This answer was posted on workplace.stackexchange, not law.stackexchange, so please don't complain if there is no legal content.
Yes, they can do that, as long as they tell you about it in advance. Your employer can require you to take all or any of your holiday at a particular time, as long as they give you the right notice at the right time and take into account certain agreements between you. Source Employers can: tell their staff to take leave, eg bank holidays or Christmas restrict when leave can be taken, eg at certain busy periods The notice period for this is at least twice as long as the leave they want their staff to take. Source (official government site)
At what point passed the original ETA is the contract still valid? There is no hard limit or deadline other than the one (if any) the contract itself provides. The contract remains valid regardless of a party's breach or non-performance. The remedies that would be available to you are in the form of rescinding the contract --without having to pay the cancellation fee--, or forcing the store to deliver the furniture soon. The longer the delay, the clearer your entitlement to either remedy. The manager's allegation about other customers is unavailing: Your description does not reflect that the contract or estimates are in terms of the delay that non-parties tolerated. Their contracts are totally unrelated to yours. The contracts might not even be comparable. The purpose of estimates is to give the counterparty some rough information that is known to likely influence his decision-making. Accordingly, a huge departure from the estimate supports the finding that the store deprived you of information that was material to your decision. The store's failure to timely inform you strikes the contract law tenet that you entered the contract knowingly. Furthermore, the store's deliberate act of specifying even the day of the month [mis-]led you to rule out that the delivery might actually take years. Typically furniture is purchased with the expectation of being able to start using it relatively soon, not years later. In addition to breach of contract, the store might also be in violation of statutes against unfair and misleading practices.