TORONTO - You’ve just made it into the office, when your boss brings you into a meeting room, where you find someone from human resources about to deliver you bad news: your company is carrying out layoffs and you’re on the list.
Your mind is swarming with thoughts — How will you pay the bills? When will you find your next job? What happens to all those vacation days you haven’t used up? — when you’re handed a letter outlining how much severance pay and other benefits your company is prepared to give you.
Should you sign the paperwork immediately? Not necessarily, say lawyers who have been approached in recent months by a wave of laid off employees eager to explore their rights and ensure they’re getting the most they can from their former employers.
“The reason why you never want to sign right away is because that is your final kick at the can,” said Sunira Chaudhri, a partner at Workly Law in Toronto.
“Even if you have a legitimate claim to anything else from your employer, including vacation time or a bonus or the return of expenses, if you sign a release prior to sorting out all of those details, you cannot go back to your lawyer to seek any additional payments.”
Chaudhri urged people who lose their jobs to review their employer’s obligations and compare them with what the company is offering before signing any paperwork.
“The moment you sign a release, your rights are gone,” she warned.
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