Employment agreement - "Common law principles will not apply"

:24px-Flag_of_Ontario:Ontario

Long story short - the tiny company I have worked for for over 15 years is being acquired by a major American corporation. For the time being, they (say they) are going to let us continue to operate more or less independently but obviously under their big umbrella.

The "Termination" clause of the new employment agreement I am being required to sign states:

"Regardless of the position held by you at time of termination, termination of employment by the Company shall be done in accordance with the Employment Standards Act, 2000, as amended. You shall receive the entirety of your minimum statutory entitlements on termination, beyond which no further payments or benefits continuation shall be required. For clarity, common law principles respecting reasonable notice on termination will not apply. This clause will continue to apply regardless of any changes which are made to your duties, responsibilities or compensation structure."

Should I be concerned about this? If I get fired (which I don't anticipate, but anything can happen), I don't want to sign away my right to fight for reasonable severance and just get the statutory minimum of one week per year. I've given far too much time to this company for that nonsense.

Should I just cross this out on the agreement and send it back unsigned for them to revise? Any advice would be appreciated.

Posted Feb 21, 2025, 6:59 PM UTC

2029

Comments aren't archived yet

This post had 29 comments on Reddit. Comments for this period haven't been loaded into the archive yet.