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sarasvatiSome of you may know that last September, I lost my job. It was a sudden loss. Sudden enough that I saw my boss that very morning and he said nothing except to find out if I would be home at a certain time that day. I told him I'd be out, and wouldn't you know, that's when he called me to tell me I no longer had a job because the company shut down.
Their clients got an hour's notice until the service was terminated.
The next thing we heard was that the company would not be able to pay us for the time worked between the last pay period and the closing of the company, nor would they be able to pay us any banked vacation pay.
Rumours started spreading about how they were trying to reverse the deposit of the pay from the previous pay period, too.
Some of us went to the Labour Board and found out that indeed this was bullshit, and that they had to pay us for not only the time we worked and our vacation pay, but also 2-4 weeks of pay-in-lieu since they gave us no notice of our jobs being gone. For me, this amounted to around $1300, give or take. There were some exceptions to that rule, of course, like the company having to close because the workplace burned down or something, but it was ruled that this case was not an exception and they would have to pay.
Especially because I have a quote from the company's co-owner that basically amounted to, "Yeah, this wasn't really sudden at all, and we sorta saw it coming since the previous November."
Then came the delays. First they hoped to get us our money by the end of 2009, then hopefully between January and March of 2010, then maybe by June they might have it.
They tried to sell off all of their assets to get us what we were owed, apparently. They tried to sell the part of the company that acted as an answering service to B&Bs across the US. Another company was actually interested, so they were given control of the project on a 3-month trial period. If they didn't feel it was worth keeping up with, then they didn't have to pay a cent and everyone would go their merry way.
Unsurprisingly, since all the B&Bs got an hour notice of service termination, very few of them decided to bother staying on. I think 10 out of the 150 inns actually stuck it out, and the new company rightly decided that there was just no profit in that. No money came from them.
This could have been solved by the owners declaring bankruptcy. Not only would that take care of the employee debt, but also their debt to Revenue Canada, since they were reportedly quite behind on their payroll taxes, too.
But bankruptcy would have prevented the company's owner from starting up a new company in her name. Which is what she did.
Today I got a letter in the mail from her, saying that despite her "best efforts", no, we weren't getting paid a cent after all this. She said her biggest mistake was not closing the company down when she first saw the problems, but that we should all take comfort in knowing that if she'd done the right thing then, we wouldn't have had 3-4 extra months of employment from her when he did.
Not that it mattered to me, since I was on stress leave for 3 out of those 4 months anyway... But I kid you not; that's what she said in her letter. Thatwe should be grateful that she screwed up and that we weren't out of work sooner.
What I want is to find a labour lawyer to look at this case. I know that the company was incorporated, which acts as a sort of insurance for companies. An incorporated company is a separate entity from the owners, and so if it no longer exists, neither do its debts. However, incorporation only protects again so many contingencies, and I want to know if this is a case where they're protected or not. If the company still owed money to Revenue Canada that had to be paid before the employees got their money, then there's a chance that their incorporation isn't going to protect them here.
In which case, I want to sue them for all they're worth. For theft and for fraud and for health and emotional damages.
There are labour lawyers in the city. The big problem is that I don't know if any of them do free consultations, and even if any do, I'll then have the problem of convincing them to work only for a percentage of what I actually get as a result of the lawsuit. But if I can't, then I'm basically SOL and the ex-boss wins, gets away with everything. She won't have to pay a cent of what she owes us because she was an idiot and can't manage a business properly.
I'll email some lawyers tonight, see if any are willing to at least give me a free consultation. If it turns out that I may have a case but none are willing to work with me on fees, maybe just the threat of being sued might make the ex-bosses cough up the money we're owed. Since I don't have a job and can barely afford bread right now, I know I can't afford lawyer fees.
But we'll see. One step at a time.
And right now, my step is into the bathroom. Again. This issue has stressed me into having my second gut attack of the day, and I don't see it letting up soon.
Their clients got an hour's notice until the service was terminated.
The next thing we heard was that the company would not be able to pay us for the time worked between the last pay period and the closing of the company, nor would they be able to pay us any banked vacation pay.
Rumours started spreading about how they were trying to reverse the deposit of the pay from the previous pay period, too.
Some of us went to the Labour Board and found out that indeed this was bullshit, and that they had to pay us for not only the time we worked and our vacation pay, but also 2-4 weeks of pay-in-lieu since they gave us no notice of our jobs being gone. For me, this amounted to around $1300, give or take. There were some exceptions to that rule, of course, like the company having to close because the workplace burned down or something, but it was ruled that this case was not an exception and they would have to pay.
Especially because I have a quote from the company's co-owner that basically amounted to, "Yeah, this wasn't really sudden at all, and we sorta saw it coming since the previous November."
Then came the delays. First they hoped to get us our money by the end of 2009, then hopefully between January and March of 2010, then maybe by June they might have it.
They tried to sell off all of their assets to get us what we were owed, apparently. They tried to sell the part of the company that acted as an answering service to B&Bs across the US. Another company was actually interested, so they were given control of the project on a 3-month trial period. If they didn't feel it was worth keeping up with, then they didn't have to pay a cent and everyone would go their merry way.
Unsurprisingly, since all the B&Bs got an hour notice of service termination, very few of them decided to bother staying on. I think 10 out of the 150 inns actually stuck it out, and the new company rightly decided that there was just no profit in that. No money came from them.
This could have been solved by the owners declaring bankruptcy. Not only would that take care of the employee debt, but also their debt to Revenue Canada, since they were reportedly quite behind on their payroll taxes, too.
But bankruptcy would have prevented the company's owner from starting up a new company in her name. Which is what she did.
Today I got a letter in the mail from her, saying that despite her "best efforts", no, we weren't getting paid a cent after all this. She said her biggest mistake was not closing the company down when she first saw the problems, but that we should all take comfort in knowing that if she'd done the right thing then, we wouldn't have had 3-4 extra months of employment from her when he did.
Not that it mattered to me, since I was on stress leave for 3 out of those 4 months anyway... But I kid you not; that's what she said in her letter. Thatwe should be grateful that she screwed up and that we weren't out of work sooner.
What I want is to find a labour lawyer to look at this case. I know that the company was incorporated, which acts as a sort of insurance for companies. An incorporated company is a separate entity from the owners, and so if it no longer exists, neither do its debts. However, incorporation only protects again so many contingencies, and I want to know if this is a case where they're protected or not. If the company still owed money to Revenue Canada that had to be paid before the employees got their money, then there's a chance that their incorporation isn't going to protect them here.
In which case, I want to sue them for all they're worth. For theft and for fraud and for health and emotional damages.
There are labour lawyers in the city. The big problem is that I don't know if any of them do free consultations, and even if any do, I'll then have the problem of convincing them to work only for a percentage of what I actually get as a result of the lawsuit. But if I can't, then I'm basically SOL and the ex-boss wins, gets away with everything. She won't have to pay a cent of what she owes us because she was an idiot and can't manage a business properly.
I'll email some lawyers tonight, see if any are willing to at least give me a free consultation. If it turns out that I may have a case but none are willing to work with me on fees, maybe just the threat of being sued might make the ex-bosses cough up the money we're owed. Since I don't have a job and can barely afford bread right now, I know I can't afford lawyer fees.
But we'll see. One step at a time.
And right now, my step is into the bathroom. Again. This issue has stressed me into having my second gut attack of the day, and I don't see it letting up soon.