Can someone describe their experience using an attorney to negotiate additional severance?
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It’s very hard, but not impossible. You can go at it yourself first, but keep in mind that to show them you mean business you will have to allow the signature date to lapse on the initial offer they have given you. After that, you can request additional money to sign the agreement. The post about it creating a disparate impact if they give you more than someone else is false. The real point of leverage you must utilize is a good faith objective position that you were discriminated against under the ADEA or civil rights act of 64. A good faith objective position does not mean your emotions tell you so - it means you’ve researched the case law, understand the nuances, and can explain your evidentiary position to the employer in a non-threatening way that convinces them that they are wiser to give you more severance than to risk an EEOC agency issuing you a right to sue letter. Once litigation begins then documents are discoverable and Honeywell is forced to engage outside counsel. If your retainer is 5k, Honeywell’s outside counsel charges 3 or 4 times that amount. At that point they settle, but a year down the road, at least. Essentially, unless you are a licensed attorney your ability to convey your position in a way that motivates Honeywell is nearly impossible. Your best bet is if you have a friend with a license that can assist you. With that being said, look closely at the documents you were provided if you are over 40 years old. If you are under 40, request them from a colleague who was also laid off. Ask yourself questions such as the percentage in your department of male/female workers older than 40/ younger than 40. Many of you are engineers, so do the math and look for irrational stats such as a department with 75% men, but 65 percent of the layoffs in the department were women. Same goes for age. Discrimination is shown through circumstantial evidence, and almost never direct evidence. Start by reading McDonnell douglass v. Green. Best of luck.
BTW there are books and websites on this very topic. They're very helpful.
There are definitely people I know who have gotten much better severance than was offered. Neither used an attorney.
Of course to try this you have to be willing to risk getting nothing since you won't be signing the agreement.
Likely first action by a retained attorney would be to subpoena HR files and emails from your co-workers and managers and then start charging $XXX per hour to go thru them. Most people lose their enthusiasm for litigating when they get an estimate of the billable hours unless they believe they have a solid case.
Good luck. You would need evidence that you were subject to some form of harassment that made you evaluated differently than others. But being laid off, you likely don't have access to any records. So unless you kept a journal, copies of email, or have people still at Honeywell willing to back up your claim, you really don't have much you can do.
@1mpy: Yup, the attorney I talked to was free for the initial one hour consultation which lasted about 20 minutes. After that if I wanted to proceed was an upfront payment of $5,350 out of my pocket for an initial retainer fee. ($350/hr x 15 hours) Everything beyond that was an additional retainer fee in 10 hour increments @$350/hr. I lost interest and accepted the severance agreement as is.
I can describe it in one word "expensive".
You'll end up with nothing but a legal bill.
Remember, talk is cheap until you are talking to an attorney.
@1ihb: A good option is to contact an employment attorney in the state where you live.
Any attorneys out there that would care to post a comment?
You can stick it to the man by getting unemployment after severance runs out. Severance runs a max 26 weeks while unemployment currently last for at least 39 weeks now (i.e. get unemployment for at least 13 weeks after severance runs out).
Severance above/beyond company policy would create disparate treatment issues for others in the same reduction in force action (i.e. not going to happen). I believe the only way to get more would be to decline severance and litigate based on age/s-x/etc discrimination. Since I had almost no chance of winning a discrimination lawsuit I took the standard severance package.
I refused to accept the severance package because it limited my ability to find another job. I was only 10 weeks of pay and I would have waived all rights yo protect the company. Instead I enjoyed walking out knowing they will lose millions and bleed money because critical things will not get done and I will exploit every weakness they have with a competitor. Seems fair to me.
Two years ago in Phoenix I was RIF'd and contacted an employment attorney and was told the same thing @1skf stated. She discussed Arizona being an "at will" employment state with the employer/employee relationship allowed to be terminated at anytime for any reason. She read my severance contract and told me it's a published company policy and I wasn't entitled to any more than that. She recommended I sign it and move on, which I did.
correction: *some years ago
If we were not in "unprecedented times" and you had tons of evidence that you were singled out unfairly, it might be worth a try. Since that probably is not the case, if you try the legal route you will spend months, possibly years, in fight or flight mode over your lawsuit. I was faced with that choice some years after getting cut in a massive layoff in a different hard-hit industry. After some deliberation I chose to just go with the package and am very glad I did. The stress of putting it on the line to maybe get a little more would have been too much.
No luck. Attorney said since my state in USA is at will employment you don’t stand a chance
If you have some evidence of discrimination then you first need to file with EEOC. And risk losing all severance
I got the maximum for non Band 5 (non-VP) 26 weeks and was glad to be gone. Health and mental state returning to normal. Now if Covid would just go away life would be perfect
This funny post
I would hope an attorney could convince Honeywell that it would cheaper to pay additional severance than risk costly litigation.
How about age discrimination? It's obvious that Honeywell has trying to eliminate older highly compensated US workers.
What are your grounds for negotiating additional severance?