Labor relations
“What to do if you have received a notice of dismissal?”
Tomas is a Canadian citizen who came to Latvia in 2019 at the invitation of a Latvian company, arrived and got a job. Tomas is an engineer who has worked in a very narrow field for a long time, he is one of the few experts in the field of heat distribution in precision machinery housings. There are only a few specialists of this level in the world.
At first, everything went well: Tomas performed his duties perfectly, and the employer paid him the salary stipulated by the employment contract. After a year of work, Tomas was promised a solid bonus, and Tomas asked his employer about it. This is where his troubles began. He was surprised when his question was ignored. Tomas asked again, and he was not paid half of his salary for one month, then the second.
A lawyer Bogdanov’s comment: “This moment in labor relations is quite dangerous. The employee may say to himself, ha, they don’t pay me here, then I won’t try and I won’t come to work. This is a mistake. In doing so, the employee gives the employer the right and opportunity to terminate the employment contract, because the employee does not show up for work. And look how the reason for terminating the employment relationship immediately changes: it is not the employee who terminates it because of non-payment of the salary specified in the contract, but the employer, in fact, fires the negligent employee who refused to go to work! And it turns out that he fires him justifiably!”
In our case, Thomas continued to go to work and work well. They started paying the salary, although the debt was not returned. They also forgot about the bonus. Then Thomas asked about the debt again. And he received a notice of termination of the employment relationship.
A lawyer Bogdanov’s comment: “But this is an event to which you definitely need to react quickly. From the date of receipt of the notice of termination of employment, the employee has exactly one month to apply to the court with a claim to recognize the notice of termination of employment as invalid. Usually, such a notice should be preceded by a request from the employer to provide an explanation of the violation – and in this case, too, you need to respond promptly. How to respond? Let’s derive from the above the RULE OF QUICK RESPONSE: WHEN RECEIVING ANY REQUEST OR NOTICE FROM THE EMPLOYER, YOU NEED TO QUICKLY CONSULT WITH A LAWYER. That’s all. It usually doesn’t even cost money, for example, my first consultation, if the client asks, will be free. ”
Having received the notice of termination of the contract, Thomas contacted lawyer Bogdanov and subsequently did not regret it. The lawyer promptly drafted and filed a statement of claim, a civil case was opened.
As of today, the court has ruled to reinstate Thomas in his position, collect from the employer the average salary for the entire period of downtime – in Thomas’s case, 15 salaries, and all expenses for the assistance of a lawyer.
Lawyer Bogdanov: “In Latvia, workers do not always realize that an employer cannot just fire a person from work without reason. The times when a boss would shout in anger, “You don’t work here anymore!” are long gone. You can only fire someone “for cause”, the dismissal process must be correct – strictly comply with the law. In most cases, the employer makes mistakes in this process, thereby giving the employee the opportunity to go to court and win the lawsuit. So in Thomas’s case, the employer made mistakes in the process of terminating the relationship, for which he paid”
Note: the client’s costs for the assistance of a lawyer are reimbursed to the client to a certain extent in the event of victory in the dispute.