Hello, I was laid off from a 6 year part time CDI as an English teacher (due to Economic reasons)
I recently discovered that I had been replaced by an outside supplier to do exactly the same job as me (for less money).
My question is, do they have the right to do this? They started a contract with the new supplier while I was still employed with them.
Thank you in advance for your time, any advice would be much appreciated.
Kind regards
It will very much depend on whether your previous contract was covered by a collective bargaining agreement and if so, which one. In most general circumstances, one can not simply replace a CDI employee that has been made redundant for “motifs économiques” by a new hire in the same post. However, you mention that the new supplier was already on the books, so the business had already subcontracted out to the new external supplier (presumably some kind of 3rd party language training organisation, or SCOP, or auto-entrepreneur) while you were still in employment. You would be best to seek advice from an employment lawyer as to whether or not this was legal, as only they would really be able to provide you with an advice after having taken complete stock of the situation.
I know of other organisations that are behaving in this way, who are definitely sailing very close to the edge of legality. Were I an employment lawyer, I would be up for taking them to court, but you also need to bear in mind that the government has relaxed the law around making people redundant in a bid to free up the employment market and make it more flexible, so I imagine that there are a few more loopholes for employers to wriggle into than there were previously.
Thank you so much for your fast reply, just to clarify I was fired on July 28th and they sent an email on Sept. 1st to work with this new English Training company. Prior to me being fired, they had never worked with them before.
In addition, they refuse to pay me for over 140 hours of overtime done in the last few years (hours done at weekends, evenings, bank holidays and outside of the two days I worked there.
I have gotten in touch with a lawyer but haven’t heard back yet. Thanks again for your help. I appreciate it.
Were you summoned to a pre-redundancy interview ? If so, were you accompanied by a union or other representative during that interview ? As far as I know, such an interview is still a requirement (Covid19 notwithstanding), or was everything done via email or remotely (registered letter without summons) ?
You might also want to contact the Inspection du Travail of your local area, as although they are understaffed, they do take an interest in such things, especially unlawful absence of payment for work executed.
yes, I did have this pre redundancy interview, it was done on visio (after they threatened me with serious consequences if I did not come to the office for this interview) I was assisted by a representative, he tried to help as much as possible, but he had just been elected and didn’t know many things. I have an email where my representative said the following “if you cannot come to Paris, your boss will no longer be able to help you and could even take more drastic measures (we spoke on the phone and I’d rather spare you the details…)”
I had been authorized via email to do home office and I took this opportunity to go to see my family. After many many emails / calls etc, they went from saying you will be fired for faute grave, the finally agreed to have the redundacy meeting remotely.
Sounds to me like you need to give all of the details and timeline of events to that employment lawyer.
Thank you very much.