Law Firm Helping Clients in Calgary - Getz, Collins & Associates

Workers are the most essential resource for a business. After all, how does a business function if there aren’t any employees? For example, you’re on your way to work, and you stop in the drive-thru for a coffee. Without employees there to take your order, prepare your order, and hand it to you out the window, then you aren’t getting a coffee that morning. This may seem straightforward, yet apparently, many businesses have yet to realize it since there are constantly reports of wrongful termination, workplace discrimination, sexual harassment, and wage and hour law violations. This isn’t right. Our businesses rely on our employees, and yet we seem to discriminate against them and try to exploit them? Thankfully, there are quite a few laws that protect employees; the only issue with that is you need to know how to use them to protect yourself. That’s where Gets Collins and Associates come in. We’ve spent years learning the ins and outs of the law to be able to offer you the support and assistance you need to fight back against underhanded employers.

What is the most basic agreement between employer and employee? The absolute cornerstone of an employment relationship? It is the basic agreement shared between every employee and employer, and that is: the employee will exchange their labor and time for the employer’s interest in exchange for compensation. In nearly every relationship, that compensation means money; there may be agreements between parties to work on a job under-the-table in exchange for credit or merchandise, but this is the exception to the rule. In general, we work in order to earn enough to pay our bills and support ourselves and our families. But one of the ways that employers try to reduce how much their employees are costing them is to underpay them. This may mean having fewer hours on your paycheck than you worked, or it could mean having the right amount of hours, but they are calculated at overtime value despite being overtime hours. There are many ways an employer can try to undercut their employees, and pretty much every single one of them is totally illegal. Getz Collins and Associates are ready to fight back against such unsavory practices to ensure you get compensated for the hours you worked.

Another common issue is wrongful termination. This is the act of wrongfully dismissing or terminating an employee in a way that is a violation of company policy. This can be a lot of different things in practice, however. For example, it could mean that you were fired without enough notice. It could also mean you were fired but never given a reason (or that the reason you were given was unjust). But a wrongful termination doesn’t necessarily mean that the termination itself was at fault. For example, you may be fired for a reason that is perfectly legal, but the way they go about firing you may be wrongful. In that case, one example might be that you were fired, but they failed to provide you with your severance pay. In this situation, you are fighting not against the termination itself but the wrongful way in which that termination was handled. There are a number of other ways that wrongful termination may be committed, and some of these may actually break multiple laws. For example, if your employer fired you because you were trying to get worker’s compensation, then this is an act of revenge, and the termination would be wrongful and illegal because of how worker’s compensation laws work.

Two of the worst things that can go on in a workplace are sexual harassment and workplace discrimination. While sexual harassment is itself covered by several laws, it is also a form of workplace discrimination in practice. But workplace discrimination is a much wider topic. Workplace discrimination laws prohibited discrimination against somebody for their age, ancestry, citizenship, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and the like. Unfortunately, this has not stopped both fellow employees and employers from discriminating against individuals in the workplace before. Getz Collins and Associates are prepared to help you fight back against discrimination.

Keep in mind that while these are each their own issue, they often work in tandem. For example, an employee may report workplace discrimination and then find themselves facing a wrongful termination because the employer doesn’t want the ship to be rocked. This case would be twofold then, as there is the workplace discimination issues and the wrongful termination issue. So while we can easily describe what each of these issues are, they are often much messier in reality. Don’t worry, though, Getz Collins and Associates are well-versed in all things employment law so you can rely on us to look out for your best interests.