This time last year (around Canadian Thanksgiving of 2021), I started a job in my home city, here in Canada. Let's call this company: Company C (for Canada). This job, I was told flat out, will only be temporary because the whole department was(actually, two departments were) moving elsewhere . Where at most it'll only last into January. Maybe six months. I said, sure no problem. Anything to get me through the winter.
I took it on because I had been having a hell of a time during the pandemic.
Rewind to 2019, a world before COVID, which saw me moving overseas for what was pretty close to my dream job. Let's call this job **Foreign Job**. It involved travel and adventure. But then the pandemic hit in 2020 and all travel ground to a halt. So did my job. I was in a place where I genuinely thought that if I didn't seize the opportunity to return to Canada, I'd be stuck in a foreign land, without work, with dwindling financial resources, without employment, and with a plague ravaging the world. Though I'm glad it didn't play out that way, I don't blame myself for thinking that way at the time. It looked really dire and bad where I was. Predicting I'd be the first to get laid off, I resigned and told my foreign boss goodbye. I felt bad, but it felt like the right choice. Besides, I was the foreigner to them. They knew this was coming, right? Nevertheless, score some points for the ego: The foreign boss in fact reasoned, perhaps even pleaded with me to stay and weather out the pandemic over there. I said no, sorry, Canada is home and I don't know what the world will look like six months to a year from now.
Fast forward to spring and summer of 2021 and I had only managed to find seasonal warehouse work, menial jobs here and there, and CERB. So this job with Company C seemed to me like a Godsend. It was even in the same field as the job I was doing overseas, except that instead of adventuring and travel and meeting people, I was …. stuck inside a control room. But no matter! We were still in a pandemic. I was ok not to be out and about at that time.
Christmas of 2021 came and I still had a job. Spring of 2022 came, and I still had a job. With everything opening up again during the summer, I got the feeling that the company started to sense that a bunch of us “casuals” hired to keep the department afloat before it shuts down were in danger of being poached. So, they all offered us a 'retention bonus' of sorts. If we stay until the end – which was finally given a definite date this Fall of 2022 – we get a month's pay. One month of pay for a year's work? Pretty sweet I thought. Papers were signed, and they guaranteed to keep their end, if I keep up mine. Although to be honest, I kept looking for a more permanent job anyway. I was willing to forfeit this bonus for something with more stability.
But that didn't happen, so whatever, here's to the bonus, right?
The fucked up part was that Company C dragged its feet on it and seemed like they would have withheld it given the chance.
Because once employment ended for those of us in the department that got moved, I, we, all lost access to our personal employee… HR page, for lack of a better term. In it, we could view Pay stubs, taxation forms, and future Record of employment (ROE). No matter, I knew what to expect. I just needed to keep an eye out on the monies coming in to my bank account. I knew that my final pay was coming + that sweet sweet bonus. Oh, and the ROE. They were going to send that to Service Canada themselves so I could start my Employment Insurance (EI) application.
But when the final pay period came, the amount seemed wrong for two reasons: It was more than what I anticipated my final pay cheque to be, but way Waaaaaay less than if it had included my retention bonus/severance pay. WTF?
So I had to bug HR for my last pay stub (Remember: Company C had shut down all access to personal employee records). I was right. They had paid me my final paycheque + some leftover vacation pay, but minus the bonus pay…. which I was told would come along with the final pay. It was even written on the papers we signed.
Oh, and I checked service Canada, and they had already sent my ROE, sans the bonus pay.
So then i asked them again. They said that the bonus pay was meant to come on the pay period AFTER the final pay period. Bullshit. It was on the papers we signed that I would only have one final pay period and it would have everything, like I said. Oh, and why send the ROE prematurely?
Anyway, two weeks after the final pay period, my 'real' final pay period came, this time the only thing left was the bonus/retention/severance pay. I then checked with Service Canada again, and they sent a new, revised ROE for my employment with them.
Now, I have to admit, this story ultimately had a good ending where i still got what i was promised. I should be happy. Nevertheless I am sketched out because I had to ask for it. Multiple times! This totally feels like attempted wage theft. Or more accurately, 'bonus theft' or theft of promised bonus pay. They had already submitted their end – the ROE – to Service Canada and seemed to be hoping that I will overlook the fact that I had yet to receive my bonus. If I hadn't bugged them about it, they would have gotten away with it…
So yeah, keep a close eye on what you are owed and promised!