Legal Question in Employment Law in Virginia

Severance Pay
My mother has been employed with a company for over 20 years and they want to contract the department that she is in out. They recently laid some people off in the same department and gave them severance pay. My mother along with her fellow co-workers will have to reapply to this new company and begin from the bottom if they are hired. There is no guarrantee that this contractor will hire them. They do not want to offer any of them severance pay. My mother was imformed of this last week and this is supposed to go into effect September 12. Because of the way that it will be done, my mother may not be elgible for unemployment. She is in her late 50's, very close to retirement and it will be hard for her to start all over again.

Asked on 8/27/04, 1:39 pm

Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

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Re: Severance Pay

Virginia is a so-called employment-at-will jurisdiction where employers are, basically, free to hire and fire as they please, as long as they

don't violate federal anti-discrimination laws(race, age, gender, etc.).

Unless an employee such as your mother is working under an employment contract or collective bargaining agreement which specifically protects

the employee against the kind of adverse action

which you've described, the employee is, in the final analysis, without a remedy.

Answered on 8/31/04, 9:20 am

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