Under New York employment law, whether an employee is entitled to severance pay will depend on his/her employer’s written policies, for example, contained in an Employee handbook or elsewhere like on the Company website. It could also depend on the employer’s past practices and whether it has given severance pay to other similarly situated workers. An employer also cannot refuse severance pay to certain workers while giving it to other workers, if the refusal is because of those employees’ race, color, age, sex, religion, national origin, disability, pregnancy, or sexual orientation. Moreover, if in laying off the employee, the employee was chosen for lay off because of his/her race, color, age, pregnancy, disability, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or religion, the worker may be entitled to severance or additional severance.
Many employees think that if they are laid off along with many other employees, sometimes thousands of others, that they have no rights to seek severance pay or if they are offered a certain amount of severance pay, that they are powerless to seek additional severance pay. This is not necessarily the case. In many cases, we are able to negotiate additional severance pay for laid off and fired workers. In addition, sometimes companies ask workers to sign Settlement Agreements and Releases in order to receive their severance pay. These legal documents often stipulate that the worker waive all their rights to sue, to ever work at that company as well as related companies in the future and require various things of the worker. Laid-off workers should have these documents reviewed by an employment lawyer before signing them.
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Call today to discuss your case with an experienced New York severance pay attorney by calling 1-800-LOST-JOB (1-800-567-8562) or 1-877-4WAGESLAW (1-877-492-4375).
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| New York Office The Woolworth Building 233 Broadway, Suite 2220 New York, NY 10279 (212) 406-3630 |
Long Island Office North Shore Location 1613 Northern Blvd. Roslyn, NY 11576 (516) 625-0105 |
