Employer Forgets To Terminate Employee Contract?

I think this is largely hypothetical as I don’t think my current employer is quite this incompetent, and different countries will have different laws but…..

I have been told that the store that I work at will be closing. It may open again in another location. Head Office have been told that I am great (wooo me….), are giving me options to work in other stores, which isn’t realistic given travel times. So the important point is that I have not been given notice that my employment is going to be terminated. I’ve been invited to email questions about the process and my future, which I have done. Two weeks later and still no answer.

The thing is…..the company is so disorganized, and I am not a priority, that there’s a chance that they just might forget to make a decision on my future, and being on salary would just continue to pay me.

Given that I’m the one being shafted and potentially out of work for three months, I’m not going to feel too bad if I get some extra money due to a companies’ lack of decision making. If this scenario actually happened, I’d probably give it a month and then check in with them to see if they have made a decision about my future, which would prompt them to terminate me, if that is their decision. It would be quite amusing though to keep taking the money for a year, stick it in a savings account and then in say a years time if a new store opens, turn up on opening day and say “Hi I’m here for my new shift!”

Soooo given that I get all my legal advice from STW rather than a lawyer (ha ha), would my employer be legally entitled to ask for the salary payments to be paid back, given that they have not given me notice on my future and terminated my contract? 😀

I’ve tried the google machine but can only find comments re. employees being terminated but still continuing to be paid and trying to keep the money. But this is a different situation.

would my employer be legally entitled to ask for the salary payments to be paid back, given that they have not given me notice on my future and terminated my contract? 😀

OOhhh – interesting one.  I do not know.  I know if you are sacked and they continue to pay you by mistake you can be forced to pay it back.  Recently read a criminal case on that. ( I was surprised by that)

You would have to continue your side of the contract I guess by turning up to work

If it does happen do not spend the money – put it aside in a different account and keep it untouched

This is a redundancy situation where suitable alternative work cannot be found so you would have rights under that to a redundancy payment .  I take it you are not in the UK?

Unless they actually terminate your employment and hand you your P45, you should still expect to be paid in full as per your contract. It does sound like they are moving through the redundancy consultation process – offering other roles etc – and I’d be surprised if you didn’t get formal notice with an end date fairly soon.

If they kept bunging money at you after the store has closed and you ostensibly have no job to turn up for, regardless of notice, they could come for the overpayment, as you would have to show you believed in good faith that you were still employed and earning the money by carrying out your duties, which is tough to do in those circumstances. I suppose if you are owed a month’s notice, then turning up to find the store shut one morning should count as the start of that period if they haven’t bothered to give notice beforehand.

Don’t you live/work in Squamish*? Or am I getting mixed up with someone else??

*If so, Canadian rules around this sort of stuff are likely to differ significantly to UK.

Are you intending to get another job (for a different company) once the store closes?

See if you can make it to 14 years….

Yes I’m not in the UK. It’s more of an entertaining scenario than anything else. If I did milk their indecision it’d just be for a month and be prepared to pay the money back if they can give me legal grounding to do so. I’d probably still have store keys, alarm code and a floor that needs to be kept very clean 😀 

In the scenario keep taking the money then rock up at new store ready to work.  Obviously under the impression that the payments were a retainer for such a good worker.

Not giving formal notice etc is one thing, but if it’s been communicated to you what’s happening, the store closes and you can’t work, its pretty obvious what’s happened. You might be able to argue for PILON from then, but there also might be a duty on you to communicate with them at that point. 

Canada?

would my employer be legally entitled to ask for the salary payments to be paid back

Yes.

I’d leave the country.