Severance Package Review

If you have been recently terminated and you need a termination package reviewed please do not hesitate to contact us.   We strongly suggest that you do not try and understand the law of employment by yourself.  We would be pleased to speak to you with respect to statutory provisions relating to notice and severance and the common law as applied to the circumstances to your case.

In addition to separate provisional items, there are several things that we look at with respect to terminations.  One of the things we look for is that the minimums payable under the employment standards act are covered.  For employees working in the vast majority of industry in Ontario, the Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000 governs the statutory entitlements to notice of termination.

Section 57 of the Act provides for notice or pay in lieu of notice to be provided to an employee as follows:

(a)    at least one week before the termination, if the employee’s period of employment is less than one year;
(b)    at least two weeks before the termination, if the employee’s period of employment is one year or more and fewer than three years;
(c)    at least three weeks before the termination, if the employee’s period of employment is three years or more and fewer than four years;
(d)    at least four weeks before the termination, if the employee’s period of employment is four years or more and fewer than five years;
(e)    at least five weeks before the termination, if the employee’s period of employment is five years or more and fewer than six years;
(f)    at least six weeks before the termination, if the employee’s period of employment is six years or more and fewer than seven years;
(g)    at least seven weeks before the termination, if the employee’s period of employment is seven years or more and fewer than eight years; or
(h)    at least eight weeks before the termination, if the employee’s period of employment is eight years or more.

In addition you may entitled to severance pay. Severance is payable by an employer who terminates an employee with five years or more of service provided that the employer either has an annual payroll of $2.5 million or more or is discontinuing all or part of its business and terminating at least 50 employees.

Also, there is common law protection afforded to employees upon the termination of their employment for breach of contract. Damage awards for wrongful dismissal actions under the common law are normally based on the character of employment, the length of service, the age of the employee and the availability of similar employment having regard to the experience, training and qualification of the employee. These characteristics have since been adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada in Machtinger v. HOJ industries Ltd  and accordingly in every jurisdiction.

There are just some of the issues that we take into account when discussing a suitable termination packages for recently terminated employees from both the statutory and common law entitlements, unless there is an issue with cause or the termination is addressed in a valid existing employment agreement which would include a clause specifying a notice period upon termination.

Please do not to contact Matt Lalande at 905-639-8894 or fill in the contact form for more information for further information.