Thread regarding Imperial Oil Limited layoffs

I was part of the suncor layoffs. A lawyer review is worth the $400 ish for your own peace of mind.
Expect the offer will be within legal guidelines. Iol, like suncor, is a major company and they don’t want lawsuits. They have a huge legal team reviewing these offers.
Plan to accept what is offered. This is an unpleasant situation, but a rational outlook is very helpful.

I am a retired engineer who had corporate responsibility for HR matters at a large EPCM firm. I'm not a lawyer, but in my experience there are a few things to consider when considering legal action.

1. You're not getting your job back, so forget about that right away. The lawsuits that I saw during downsizing were to get compensation for some kind of transgression by someone at the Company, usually a historical transgression not related to the downsizing. "Being let go" doesn't count as a transgression, but "being let go" was the catalyst for some individuals to lodge a grievance, which is their right.

2. A lawsuit begins with a Statement of Claim, which details the alleged transgression(s). In my experience, most of the claims were fictitious or vindictive. HOWEVER, Statements of Claim that spoke about discrimination definitely got management's attention. The kind of discrimination is exactly what you'd think: race, s-x, age, maternity status, etc.

3. We looked at claims that spoke about behaviors by certain individuals at the company and thought, "Yep, it's not out of the question that those things might have happened." It might not be readily provable and the individual named might be completely innocent and want to fight it, but it was easier and cheaper for us to settle. It was a bitter pill to swallow in some cases, when the claims were obviously bogus. But it was just part of running a business. In the end, the settlement offer was usually for a nominal amount of money, something like $2,500 to $10,000. I don't recall an offer not being accepted after just one round of negotiation.

4. If you do get a lawyer and file a Statement of Claim for discrimination, remember that word gets around. As "confidential" as these things are supposed to be, people talk. They always do. It could follow you around forever.

5. It's not that expensive to file a Statement of Claim. A sole practitioner or someone junior at a new practice should be able to do it for a couple of thousand dollars. But the return on that amount of money is not going to be big unless you have some kind of bombshell allegation against someone very senior and with solid proof.

Right now this is all imaginary, but when people start getting severed this will become real.

If you aren’t happy with your severance, negotiate internally and don’t sign the release. Get a lawyer for at least a letter and apply for EI to bridge you until you get your severance as they might not pay you since you didn’t sign the release. Lawyers can be paid based on performance or hourly fee.

Opportunities
1) Severance is typically 3-5 weeks. Suspect the estimate will go to 4 weeks when you receive your actual severance. Assess if the extra week is good enough to offset your savings and health benefits.

2) Pension has the most opportunity. Compare your commuted value / number of years you expect to live after 55,62,65 and compare to what your pension would have been. It’s much different for the worse and lawyers can get this adjusted using better assumptions so it’s not so discounted

3) if you are capped at 18 months, get a lawyer

4) if you are on expat and return back to Canada and don’t want to move to Edmonton so the company is saying you aren’t eligible for severance, get a lawyer

5) if you aren’t getting your RSUs, get a lawyer

GB & GL

Some with unique circumstances will sue and win. Most will have to swallow their pride and accept what they are given.

If you think you have unique circumstances talk to a lawyer

@dc Settlements are protected by a very robust “release” aka an NDA/CA agreement. This means that settlements don’t impact each other.

The game in corporate law is to drag things out, make it expensive and hope the case gets dropped.

Right before a potential legal decision throw up just enough money that the plaintiffs won’t want to risk going to court (and potentially getting the same or less, making them potentially responsible for the defendant’s legal costs).

Settle out of court, get a non disclosure signed and move on.

This way the settlements can’t be used for future cases, but they know people talk and word will get out how hard it is to win.

@ay Of course, as a company, they will fight in the court rather than settle. People forget that if IOL settles for one case, then they have to settle for everyone else. Therefore, if you think about it, they don't mind spending money to fight, because they are fighting not for one case, but settlement (aka more money) for every impacted staff.

Based on my own experience in 2013 (moving from Toronto to Calgary for EMIT), and 2020/21 (Covid), most of the impacted employees talked tough, and some indeed talked to labor lawyers (both in Toronto and Calgary), but basically, unless you have very individual/specific reasons (e.g. company just moved your family, and now you have to relocate again, etc.), the best is you get a month or two severance pay. Is it worth paying a couple hundred for a lawyer letter, yes and why not, just like buying 649 and Lotto Max, worse is losing a couple hundred dollars. But to fight.....well.....good luck....As one of the responses said, IOL MAY be ordered to cover some or all of your lawyer fees...What if IOL is not fully responsible for your lawyer fees.....

Not worth the time and energy. Better to use the time and energy to look for a better future unless you feel hopeless to land one.

@ax Its worth a try and paying the $500 for a lawyer to write up a letter.

If they tell you no, your only option is to sue. Which you will want to do eyes fully open.

They don’t care about lawyer costs and they are willing to spend more money on lawyers than it would be to settle, just on the chance you might not see it through to the end.

I have known someone that did get more from IOL when let go, all it took was a letter from the lawyer outlining the reasons why they should get more.

If your ask is reasonable they will avoid going to court and probably settle.

If you do go to court, it will take ages and ages, however it is likely that if you win the court might order IOL to cover some or all of your lawyer fees.