Employees laid off by Just for Laughs are putting pressure on to obtain their end-of-employment benefits now.
At the beginning of March, the Just for Laughs Group (JPR) took shelter from its creditors and laid off 70% of its workforce, or some 75 employees.
Layoff temporarily suspends the employment contract between the employer and the worker for economic or organizational reasons. The person can be called back to work and the employment relationship is therefore maintained during the layoff. Severance pay does not have to be paid during this period.
However, employees want to obtain them now, as well as possible compensation under the Employee Protection Program (PPS) for workers whose employer has filed for bankruptcy or placed sheltered from its creditors, can – we read in a letter from their lawyers, obtained by The duty.
They do not believe that the companies that plan to acquire the Just for Laughs group (JPR) — “large and sophisticated entities,” we read in the letter — will hire the laid-off employees: they already have large teams in place. The prospect of all or even the majority of workers being hired is “very low,” they write.
The end of their employment therefore seems inevitable. But as it has not yet materialized, their compensation is delayed, and some workers are in a precarious situation, we can read in the missive sent Thursday.
Even if it is advantageous for JPR to keep employees in a “layoff” situation, it is not advantageous for them, it is argued.
The lawyers therefore indicate that they have the mandate to ask the court for the appointment of a lawyer to represent the interests of the employees laid off in the proceedings surrounding the sale of the JPR Group, and in order to quickly obtain payment of the sums which are owed to them.