negotiation severance package

[jobfairy]

I am an employee at a consulting firm and expect to be laid off soon. I expect that they will ask me to leave immediately and give me only what is required by law in terms of compensation (2 weeks pay and all my accumulated vacation??) and that they will ask me to sign a standard letter. I want to hold off on signing the letter to negotiate a better severance package. What are my options? I feel that I have been treated unfairly in terms of distribution of responsibilities among colleagues. Furthermore, the company has pushed its employees to be both billable and work on proposals (which is unbillable from the company's perspective). The company turns a blind eye to employees who falsely bill clients for time that they are working on proposals. In fact, these persons are promoted. Is any of these reasons to use as an argument to negotiate a better severance package without going to court?

 

[cbg]

The minimum of what is required by law would be pay through the last day you actually work and accrued vacation IF AND ONLY IF there is not a written company policy stating that it will be forfeited. NO severance whatsoever is required by law in your state (or 46 others). The ONLY time the law would require that you be paid for any time beyond the last day you actually worked, would be if WARN applied AND they did not provide you with 60 days notice; in that case, you would be due pay in lieu of such notice.

If you are looking for a legal basis on which to try to force your employer to provide severance, or additional severance over and above what they offer, you don't have one. One does not exist unless you have a legally binding and enforceable contract that guarantees severance in a particular amount. You are free to negotiate if you think it will do you any good, but you don't have any legal leverage to force it.

 

[swong171]

I am also in NYC and don't think vacation or sick time was offered at the time I accepted the job...however there was nothing stated in writing about not getting vacation or sick time. Now that I am no longer with the company (they let me go on monday) can i still go after them for unused vacation and sick days because they never gave me a formal notice in writing stating i would not get these benefits?

 

[Peppermint]

swong171, please start your own thread instead of hijacking someone else's. Thank you.

 

[swong171]

wow sorry. new to this. didn't mean to offend anyone!