This employee saw her boss stop paying her remuneration. After breaking her employment contract, she managed to obtain legal compensation
Seeing your boss distance himself can sometimes be a relief, but not when you’re no longer paid. And yet this is what happens to some employees. Benjamin Pierrot, labor law lawyer at the Strasbourg Bar, tells Journal du Net to handle several cases of this type. The legal professional tells us in particular the story of a waitress, aged around twenty.
This employee had worked in a bar for approximately a year and a half. Everything was going well, until his employer told him that he was having financial difficulties. Dismissal for economic reasons is not envisaged but the situation is deteriorating. “He started paying the salary late, then paying it every other month, so it started to become complicated for my client after a few months,” explains the lawyer.
The employer constantly apologizes to the waitress but does nothing to make things right. The employee finally decides to stop going to her workplace and to no longer work until the situation is resolved. Shortly after, the bar which employs him announces its upcoming closure. He organizes a big final party. The employee does not go there to work and sees the bar close its doors.
“Even if the bar is no longer open, she is still officially an employee because there is no termination of the employment contract. However, the employer no longer responded to her, nothing was happening at all,” says Benjamin Pierrot. For the lawyer, the priority is then to release the employee from her employment contract, so that she can find another job to meet her needs. Because after several months without pay, paying the rent and bills becomes impossible.
“We took note with a letter of resignation sent to the employer, specifying that the salary is not paid. This procedure then allows us to request a reclassification at the fault of the employer,” adds Benjamin Pierrot. The employer collects the mail but does nothing. No salary is paid because the employer has no more money.
The employee wins her case before the Industrial Tribunal but the money must now be obtained. However, the company must be placed in compulsory liquidation for the funds to be released. “We have to carry out a second procedure which takes another 4 to 6 months. Fortunately for my client, the company was subsequently placed in compulsory liquidation and we were able to join the liquidator to obtain the sums,” explains the lawyer.
Almost two years after the start of the procedure, the time of payment arrives for the employee. “She obtained ten and a half months of salary between the unpaid debts, the damage, the end of contract documents, the formal notice, the severance pay and the notice. This represents around 25,000 euros,” concludes Benjamin Pierrot.
The lawyer confides that he has had around ten similar cases over the past 2 years in different sectors, mainly in industry. This scenario is often tedious for employees who have to carry out 2 separate procedures. First before the industrial tribunal then with the liquidator to obtain payment of salaries.
