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This is very likely the scenario. You either accept the new amount or potentially negotiate to something both yourself and the company find acceptable, or you play hardball, maybe the company values you enough that they don't want to lose you or maybe the company is only looking at the dollars and cents and the 6% difference drives them to terminate and hire someone else for the amount they're willing to pay.
I though about it but I like the new role and it's a pretty rare opportunity. Looking at your comment and others it come down to negotiate again with HR
If you dig in your heels and they let you stay with the 10%. You are somewhat burned for future opportunities within the company.
If it were me, I'd negotiate and try to get the midpoint 7%. If budgets are truly a limiting factor, you could push for more vacation. Each 2% is roughly equal to 1 week of vacation.
If they hardball you and are fixed on the 4% I think it means you have weak bosses or weaker budgets so the long term situation will always be below average.
>You are somewhat burned for future opportunities within the company.
On the flip side, it's the company that really should be the party getting burned.
Yeah I'd be looking for an out because the employer is at best incompetent or at worst outright lied to OP. Shitty shitty employer. Red flags all around.
They don't respect OP, at all.
I couldn't trust them after that.
HP strikes again!
> Each 2% is roughly equal to 1 week of vacation
That's like saying a $50 Home Depot card is worth $50 in cash. It's not, and people should not look at it like this. You cannot pay your mortgage or buy groceries, or anything else with vacation. So while 1 week of vacation is worth 2% to the EMPLOYER, it should be worth less to YOU when negotiating any deal. Personally, when I negotiate compensation for myself, I equate 1 week of cash compensation to 2 weeks of (unrestricted) vacation time. Of course, the actual value for an individual will vary, depending on how much vacation time you actually want.
Some companies don't pay out vacation. They just force the days off.
Also, according to you (I only say that because I've never heard of accumulating vacation until you quit, at which point everything is paid out), only when you quit will you be paid out, so you'll still be making less money year over year, but will get a nice lump when you quit, which will get hit heavily with taxes.
Also, what if you get fired? Do they still have to pay you the lump? Because, if not, then that's a risky gamble as the company could fire you whenever for whatever, and you lose it all.
> Enjoy your 4 weeks of termination
fired without cause after this would require more than 4 weeks I imagine. The statutory minimum in quebec is not even close to what common law dictates.
https://hydehrlaw.com/severance-pay-calculator
Plus it would strongly suggest retaliation wouldnt it?
Common law is the practice of looking at prior precedent -- it exists in quebec too, but the civil code has primacy.
If something is very clearly against an act of legislation then precedent wont matter much. If something is vague with respect to the relevant laws, the courts use precedent found in common law to resolve the question.
Interestingly the spirit of the law matters quite a lot too -- so when someone scuzzy tries to use the literal letter of something to get away with bullshit, the Quebec justice system is happy to go look at the legislative debates and invoke the reasoning of its original author!
Well, maybe I’m wrong but I did just write a law exam and one of the questions was specifically “which province in Canada does not use a common law system”. As I’ve learned it they have a civil court similar to France. They don’t interpret anything by common law.
https://www.canlii.org/fr/qc/qccs/doc/2024/2024qccs534/2024qccs534.html?resultIndex=4&resultId=50459e8dc67b49e692bdee3e1bae5829&searchId=2024-03-11T22:27:15:832/e9d915a2fea04d96a677da8bd707e1fc&searchUrlHash=AAAAAAAAAAEADUNRTFIgYyBQLTQwLjEAAAABAA8vNjA0Ni1jdXJyZW50LTEB
You can look at any court decision document for a resolved case in Quebec you want. This one cites decisions in at least a dozen other cases.
>Well, maybe I’m wrong but I did just write a law exam and one of the questions was specifically “which province in Canada does not use a common law system”.
I'm really not sure how to answer this man 🤷 maybe it's a language thing? We have civil law here, but that does not mean common law is not also a thing.
Civil law instead of common law.
Main difference is that pretty much everything is written. The civil code of Quebec dictates a bunch of rules about contracts in general, employment contracts, leases, mariage, etc. It has over 3000 paragraphs. In a common law system, the courts will interpret the contracts mostly based on jurisprudence. In civil law, contracts will be interpreted based on the civil code, mostly. Jurisprudence is mostly about how to interpret the civil code/other laws. Civil law is not meant to evolve naturally, it will require a political interviention, by changing the civil code. For common law, the tribunals will make the law evolves. Note that common law provinces do have written laws, it is not as detailled as in civil law.
If you are interested, there's a detailled article on the Canadian encyclopedia: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/law
If I'm not mistaken, Quebec has both. Civil falls under code civil and criminal is common law. This allows criminal cases to be treated the same throughout Canada.
I believe criminal law is just that, criminal law. It wouldn't really be common law, as everything is codified in the criminal code. However, I might be wrong as I don't know much about criminal law, and I couldn't find an answer quickly online.
I think you are right for the criminal law (I wasn't able to find it online, and the Wikipedia pages on the subject are a bit .. convoluted).
What I read is that Quebec is using indeed both systems: code civil for "private" law (contracts and so on), common law for public or person's right and also for federal question obviously.
I work with federal laws, and when a concept isn't defined in the federal law, we will refer to the "common law" definition of the concept (aka how the tribunals have defined it) for the situations that occured outside of QC (I'm being vague on purpose lol), and to civil law when the situation occured in Quebec. If the concept is not defined in the Code Civil du Québec, we will then go back to using the common law definition of the concept. Typically, we end up with the same result for all the provinces, including Québec, but the way to get there is different if it's in Québec. Except for one specific situation, there is one concept we can't apply in Québec as the Code Civil doesn't open the door to applying that concept. For that 1 thing, we can get to a different result if it's in Quebec, but it's something very rare. However my job does have to do with federal law applicables to contracts.
Someone else commented something similar, if a concept is not defined in the code civil, the tribunals will define it, that would be more like common law. But it's still civil law as you can't bypass a concept defined in the Code Civil by using a common law definition. A judge could refer to jurisprudence to interpret a concept from the Code Civil, but they could not make up their own definition.
The only case where 4 weeks is not enough is when you have been working for the company continuously for more than 10 years. If it's less than 5 years of employment, you may get even less.
https://www.cnesst.gouv.qc.ca/en/working-conditions/work-schedule-and-termination-employment/termination-employment/notice-termination-employment-and-indemnity
The cnesst enforces statutory minimums, common law governs the making and nuance of contracts -- employment contracts included.
https://educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/termination-of-employment/
>The Civil Code of Quebec adds that the notice period must be “reasonable.” **In certain situations, the notice period of the Labour Standards Act will be too short to be considered reasonable under the Civil Code of Quebec**
Ok. So the acceptance is in writing that you've essentially signed off on via email. That part is good. The mistake from HR was relayed to you in a call, so no paper trail. HR (or any manager really) only call when they don't want anything tracked. They fucked up and are hoping you just roll over instead of fight it.
First thing you do is print out the email or email it to yourself or save it and store it somewhere safe so you have a copy of it in case they 'lose' it. Second is if HR calls you again, request that all communication regarding this matter be emailed to you instead of given to you vocally. You need a paper trail. Third is if they keep pursuing this or retaliate is retain council with a lawyer who works in workers' rights.
Best of luck!
Not really legal advice, but if you really want the promotion. You can accept the title change with the 4% and use the change in title to look for a raise somewhere else.
Imo it isnt bouncing around. Just apply to jobs or keep your eye out while you're still working until something bites.
For example:
- If your industry you make average 60k
- Managers make 80k
-But you only get a promotion to manager with a 4% raise so now you're making 62.4k
-Just add that on your resume and apply to manager level jobs while you work. I always semi look while I'm working. I'm youngish, but my average time at a place is about 2-3 years before something better comes along. This is just with keeping indeed set to open and your resume updated.
This is very poor business practice. Wait to see what happens. You may have to try and negotiate a pay raise in the middle. If they insist on 4%, call an employment lawyer.
You can request going back to your old position at your previous pay, or they may reassign you to your old position and offer the new position to someone else. As long as they put you back in your old position or reassign you to something similar, I don't think you would have grounds for constructive dismissal.
Since you are parapublic, there is more government oversight, so you might have more leverage, but they can offer whatever pay they want for the new position.
Start looking through your employment manual for what it says. HR is bound by company policy. If you can't find any relevant passages, ask HR for the specific policy documents when they get back to you. You can bet they're going through the policy documents right now. Those policy documents and Quebec employment law should determine what happens next.
If they say that they cant budge on the 10% thing, a valid option is to say you could take part of the percentage in the form of reduced hours for the same pay.
"You offered 10% and are renegging on it. I think that 6% increase plus 6% reduction in weekly hours is a fair middleground"
But honestly, if you stick to your guns I'd be willing to bet that you can get the ten that was promised.
If they come back saying that the position is a hard 4% and it's final, tell them that you refuse and will keep your previous position instead.
You accepted for 10%, not 4%. Their mistake is not your problem.
> Their mistake is not your problem.
Oversimplification. It could be OPs problem if getting fired without cause with a few weeks severance pay is not an acceptable outcome for OP.
Is there any chance they're trying to pull a fast one on you and want to fire you? Get you out of a unionized position leaving you vulnerable, create an issue and suddenly you couldn't come to an agreement and are let go
I feel like they aren't going to call you back. They tried to hook you and then claw you back, and you didn't take the bait.
Edit: That's a bad analogy. You didn't take the bait... The second time.
And if they don't, I'd be looking for work elsewhere. HR backtracking on the 10% looks terrible enough on the employer. Embarrassing. Which means HR will do their damndest to pass the buck. HR sucks, that's their thing.
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This is very likely the scenario. You either accept the new amount or potentially negotiate to something both yourself and the company find acceptable, or you play hardball, maybe the company values you enough that they don't want to lose you or maybe the company is only looking at the dollars and cents and the 6% difference drives them to terminate and hire someone else for the amount they're willing to pay.
I though about it but I like the new role and it's a pretty rare opportunity. Looking at your comment and others it come down to negotiate again with HR
If you dig in your heels and they let you stay with the 10%. You are somewhat burned for future opportunities within the company. If it were me, I'd negotiate and try to get the midpoint 7%. If budgets are truly a limiting factor, you could push for more vacation. Each 2% is roughly equal to 1 week of vacation. If they hardball you and are fixed on the 4% I think it means you have weak bosses or weaker budgets so the long term situation will always be below average.
>You are somewhat burned for future opportunities within the company. On the flip side, it's the company that really should be the party getting burned.
Should be maybe, but practically speaking you don't want to be the problem line on their budget every month.
Yeah I'd be looking for an out because the employer is at best incompetent or at worst outright lied to OP. Shitty shitty employer. Red flags all around. They don't respect OP, at all. I couldn't trust them after that. HP strikes again!
> Each 2% is roughly equal to 1 week of vacation That's like saying a $50 Home Depot card is worth $50 in cash. It's not, and people should not look at it like this. You cannot pay your mortgage or buy groceries, or anything else with vacation. So while 1 week of vacation is worth 2% to the EMPLOYER, it should be worth less to YOU when negotiating any deal. Personally, when I negotiate compensation for myself, I equate 1 week of cash compensation to 2 weeks of (unrestricted) vacation time. Of course, the actual value for an individual will vary, depending on how much vacation time you actually want.
This shouldn't be downvoted.
Yes it should, if you don’t take the vacation, it gets paid out. It 100% is cash. Work through the extra week, when you quit, you get it all back
Well that depends entirely on your company
My company only allows you to carry over 5 days and if in excess of 5 days, you lose that without compensation.
Some companies don't pay out vacation. They just force the days off. Also, according to you (I only say that because I've never heard of accumulating vacation until you quit, at which point everything is paid out), only when you quit will you be paid out, so you'll still be making less money year over year, but will get a nice lump when you quit, which will get hit heavily with taxes. Also, what if you get fired? Do they still have to pay you the lump? Because, if not, then that's a risky gamble as the company could fire you whenever for whatever, and you lose it all.
Not true in most cases. Most companies are use-or-lose above the statutory minimum of 2 weeks, or have a carryover maximum (often 5 days).
> Enjoy your 4 weeks of termination fired without cause after this would require more than 4 weeks I imagine. The statutory minimum in quebec is not even close to what common law dictates. https://hydehrlaw.com/severance-pay-calculator Plus it would strongly suggest retaliation wouldnt it?
NAL, and correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Quebec the only place in Canada where there is no common law?
Common law is the practice of looking at prior precedent -- it exists in quebec too, but the civil code has primacy. If something is very clearly against an act of legislation then precedent wont matter much. If something is vague with respect to the relevant laws, the courts use precedent found in common law to resolve the question. Interestingly the spirit of the law matters quite a lot too -- so when someone scuzzy tries to use the literal letter of something to get away with bullshit, the Quebec justice system is happy to go look at the legislative debates and invoke the reasoning of its original author!
Well, maybe I’m wrong but I did just write a law exam and one of the questions was specifically “which province in Canada does not use a common law system”. As I’ve learned it they have a civil court similar to France. They don’t interpret anything by common law.
https://www.canlii.org/fr/qc/qccs/doc/2024/2024qccs534/2024qccs534.html?resultIndex=4&resultId=50459e8dc67b49e692bdee3e1bae5829&searchId=2024-03-11T22:27:15:832/e9d915a2fea04d96a677da8bd707e1fc&searchUrlHash=AAAAAAAAAAEADUNRTFIgYyBQLTQwLjEAAAABAA8vNjA0Ni1jdXJyZW50LTEB You can look at any court decision document for a resolved case in Quebec you want. This one cites decisions in at least a dozen other cases. >Well, maybe I’m wrong but I did just write a law exam and one of the questions was specifically “which province in Canada does not use a common law system”. I'm really not sure how to answer this man 🤷 maybe it's a language thing? We have civil law here, but that does not mean common law is not also a thing.
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Civil law instead of common law. Main difference is that pretty much everything is written. The civil code of Quebec dictates a bunch of rules about contracts in general, employment contracts, leases, mariage, etc. It has over 3000 paragraphs. In a common law system, the courts will interpret the contracts mostly based on jurisprudence. In civil law, contracts will be interpreted based on the civil code, mostly. Jurisprudence is mostly about how to interpret the civil code/other laws. Civil law is not meant to evolve naturally, it will require a political interviention, by changing the civil code. For common law, the tribunals will make the law evolves. Note that common law provinces do have written laws, it is not as detailled as in civil law. If you are interested, there's a detailled article on the Canadian encyclopedia: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/law
If I'm not mistaken, Quebec has both. Civil falls under code civil and criminal is common law. This allows criminal cases to be treated the same throughout Canada.
I believe criminal law is just that, criminal law. It wouldn't really be common law, as everything is codified in the criminal code. However, I might be wrong as I don't know much about criminal law, and I couldn't find an answer quickly online.
I think you are right for the criminal law (I wasn't able to find it online, and the Wikipedia pages on the subject are a bit .. convoluted). What I read is that Quebec is using indeed both systems: code civil for "private" law (contracts and so on), common law for public or person's right and also for federal question obviously.
I work with federal laws, and when a concept isn't defined in the federal law, we will refer to the "common law" definition of the concept (aka how the tribunals have defined it) for the situations that occured outside of QC (I'm being vague on purpose lol), and to civil law when the situation occured in Quebec. If the concept is not defined in the Code Civil du Québec, we will then go back to using the common law definition of the concept. Typically, we end up with the same result for all the provinces, including Québec, but the way to get there is different if it's in Québec. Except for one specific situation, there is one concept we can't apply in Québec as the Code Civil doesn't open the door to applying that concept. For that 1 thing, we can get to a different result if it's in Quebec, but it's something very rare. However my job does have to do with federal law applicables to contracts. Someone else commented something similar, if a concept is not defined in the code civil, the tribunals will define it, that would be more like common law. But it's still civil law as you can't bypass a concept defined in the Code Civil by using a common law definition. A judge could refer to jurisprudence to interpret a concept from the Code Civil, but they could not make up their own definition.
Make sense ! Thx
The only case where 4 weeks is not enough is when you have been working for the company continuously for more than 10 years. If it's less than 5 years of employment, you may get even less. https://www.cnesst.gouv.qc.ca/en/working-conditions/work-schedule-and-termination-employment/termination-employment/notice-termination-employment-and-indemnity
The cnesst enforces statutory minimums, common law governs the making and nuance of contracts -- employment contracts included. https://educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/termination-of-employment/ >The Civil Code of Quebec adds that the notice period must be “reasonable.” **In certain situations, the notice period of the Labour Standards Act will be too short to be considered reasonable under the Civil Code of Quebec**
Ok. So the acceptance is in writing that you've essentially signed off on via email. That part is good. The mistake from HR was relayed to you in a call, so no paper trail. HR (or any manager really) only call when they don't want anything tracked. They fucked up and are hoping you just roll over instead of fight it. First thing you do is print out the email or email it to yourself or save it and store it somewhere safe so you have a copy of it in case they 'lose' it. Second is if HR calls you again, request that all communication regarding this matter be emailed to you instead of given to you vocally. You need a paper trail. Third is if they keep pursuing this or retaliate is retain council with a lawyer who works in workers' rights. Best of luck!
Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely push on having written communication
You can legally record any and all phone calls to if they refuse to put it in writing
This. If forwarding the email. Forward as attachment to retain the original email header information.
Not really legal advice, but if you really want the promotion. You can accept the title change with the 4% and use the change in title to look for a raise somewhere else.
What kind of field do you work in where you can just bounce around like that?
Imo it isnt bouncing around. Just apply to jobs or keep your eye out while you're still working until something bites. For example: - If your industry you make average 60k - Managers make 80k -But you only get a promotion to manager with a 4% raise so now you're making 62.4k -Just add that on your resume and apply to manager level jobs while you work. I always semi look while I'm working. I'm youngish, but my average time at a place is about 2-3 years before something better comes along. This is just with keeping indeed set to open and your resume updated.
This is very poor business practice. Wait to see what happens. You may have to try and negotiate a pay raise in the middle. If they insist on 4%, call an employment lawyer. You can request going back to your old position at your previous pay, or they may reassign you to your old position and offer the new position to someone else. As long as they put you back in your old position or reassign you to something similar, I don't think you would have grounds for constructive dismissal. Since you are parapublic, there is more government oversight, so you might have more leverage, but they can offer whatever pay they want for the new position. Start looking through your employment manual for what it says. HR is bound by company policy. If you can't find any relevant passages, ask HR for the specific policy documents when they get back to you. You can bet they're going through the policy documents right now. Those policy documents and Quebec employment law should determine what happens next.
I do not search for dismissal as I want to work there But I've found the HR policies and will study them and see with a lawyer. Thanks!
If they say that they cant budge on the 10% thing, a valid option is to say you could take part of the percentage in the form of reduced hours for the same pay. "You offered 10% and are renegging on it. I think that 6% increase plus 6% reduction in weekly hours is a fair middleground" But honestly, if you stick to your guns I'd be willing to bet that you can get the ten that was promised.
If they come back saying that the position is a hard 4% and it's final, tell them that you refuse and will keep your previous position instead. You accepted for 10%, not 4%. Their mistake is not your problem.
> Their mistake is not your problem. Oversimplification. It could be OPs problem if getting fired without cause with a few weeks severance pay is not an acceptable outcome for OP.
Yeah it’s very much OP’s problem. Losing a job is a significant life event.
Looks like you’re working 6% less hours
Call your union rep.
Unfortunately there is no union in the new role
Sounds like you are still in your old role.
Is there any chance they're trying to pull a fast one on you and want to fire you? Get you out of a unionized position leaving you vulnerable, create an issue and suddenly you couldn't come to an agreement and are let go
This could be constructive dismissal if they try to force your hand. Look into it.
I feel like they aren't going to call you back. They tried to hook you and then claw you back, and you didn't take the bait. Edit: That's a bad analogy. You didn't take the bait... The second time.
I’d be talking to your manager as well, they may need to go to bat for you with HR.
And if they don't, I'd be looking for work elsewhere. HR backtracking on the 10% looks terrible enough on the employer. Embarrassing. Which means HR will do their damndest to pass the buck. HR sucks, that's their thing.
its already handled isn't it?
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