Take the city’s buyout package now or you might be laid off later, Mayor Rob Ford warned 17,000 city workers who have so far spurned the effort to get them off the payroll.
Ford, appearing Friday morning on Sun News Network, was asked about layoffs in light of a Star story revealing that his administration now feels they are inevitable because of very low take-up of the city’s buyout offer.
“Now if they don’t take the package, what else do we have to do?” Ford said. “We might have to lay them off.”
If more of the eligible workers don’t agree to leave their jobs in exchange for up to six months’ salary, the city has no choice but to issue layoff notices to cut labour costs and tame the 2012 deficit, he said.
“The last thing we want to do is put somebody out on the street so we’re working and saying here, here’s a package, I’d advise you to take it. What else are we going to do?
“If someone else can come up with a solution, let me know.”
The internet's general interpretation of this statement is that people who volunteer will get packages, but if not enough people volunteer and the city has to forcibly lay off some people, those who are forcibly laid off won't get packages. I haven't been able to google up anything that explicitly confirms or disproves this interpretation. (If you have something more definitive, please do let me know in the comments.)
Is it normal to offer packages to those who volunteer to be laid off but not to those who are forced to be laid off? If so, why? The employer can afford to give packages to X people anyway, so why be so assholic about it? What does the employer gain by having people "volunteer" under duress rather than choosing who goes?
In the specific case of the City of Toronto, if they do in fact intend to offer packages only to people who volunteer, why are they encouraging more people to volunteer? If fewer people take packages, they'll have to spend less money. And if the general interpretation is incorrect and people who don't volunteer but are laid off anyway will in fact get packages, we're back to the question of why are they encouraging people to volunteer when they don't really want to?
8 comments:
well lay-off is different from severence, which is maybe the issue. people are being offered severence packages, which they can take or not. lay-off is where your employer gives oyu notice that they won't be using your services for an indefinite period of time but your employment contract isn't terminated. your work could resume after a period on the same terms. does that make any more sense?
lay-off can also mean permanent termination but i get the impression that's not how it's being used here.
I assume Ford is trying to bully people into leaving. Employers don't have to pay severance packages unless the contract specifies it. (I have no idea if it does in this case.) So he's asking people to gamble on whether or not they'll be fired anyway, or if there's a chance their job will be spared. It's a disgusting management practice.
To my knowledge, "lay off" is now a euphemism for fired. No one who is laid off is re-hired. If hiring levels increase in the future, a younger (cheaper) replacement will be found.
If lay-off means temporary, why would Ford's statement be constructed that way? If you don't agree to leave permanently, we'll have to make you leave temporarily?
And if he is trying to bully people into leaving, why, in his position as the employer, do it by trying to get them to take the package when (if he does intend not to give the package to forcibly laid off people) he would be saving money if people don't take the package?
Is there some advantage to the employer of people leaving "voluntarily" that I don't know about?
If people leave voluntarily, they cannot collect EI. If they are laid off/fired, they can.
Also, I think it makes Ford look better if the layoffs are voluntary buy-outs.
I see your point, though. There's definitely a disconnect there.
Should have said: the employer has to pay into EI.
The employer only pays into EI when they lay off their employees? I thought they paid in all the time like we do. That would explain one or two things I've heard elsewhere! (I've heard of employers appealing the fact that their former employees were granted EI benefits, and I was all "Why do they even care?"
If you quit your job voluntarily, you are ineligible for EI, so it costs the employer nothing. If you are fired, the employer must contribute to your EI payments.
I find myself wondering if the employer's contribution is really that significant. EI benefits are 55% of your income to a maximum of $468 a week for between <a href="http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/ei/types/regular.shtml#long1>14 and 45 weeks</a>. So your absolute maximum EI benefits total about 24 weeks' pay, which I think was also the absolute maximum buyout package.
So even if the employer had to pay laid-off employees' entire EI benefits, it doesn't seem like it would be significantly more than the packages are offering (unless they expect newbies and not senior people to take the packages). And employees do pay into EI too since we get it deducted from every paycheque, so the employer doesn't pay all of it.
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