Legal advice: Be right and be right?
Teacher Randy's employer wants to demote him to an instructor. Upset and intimidated, Randy agrees.
Picture: Type tank
'To be right and to be proved right', is the first sentence uttered by Professor Leyten during the General Introduction to Law lecture that I attended as a first-year law student. A little wisdom that a client of mine has to deal with XNUMX years later.
Randy - a friendly teacher - has been working at his school for over thirty years when he is invited for an interview with his principal and a human resources officer. What seems? A study is presented under the title 'Smart, smarter, smartest'; it is time for a new educational approach. But Randy falls short of the skills ("competencies") that the report says are necessary. The director proposes to convert his teaching position to that of an instructor, with the associated lower salary. If Randy refuses to cooperate, he may leave, be transferred, or otherwise be treated unkindly.
The director proposes to convert his teaching position to that of an instructor, with the associated lower salary
Excited
Perplexed, Randy leaves the conversation and contacts the legal department AOb. What is Wisdom? On the one hand, Randy wants to take it a bit easier at the end of his career. The 'demotion' is regulated in the collective labor agreement. According to those agreements, Randy can accept the position of instructor while retaining his teacher salary.
Randy talks to his director again. The atmosphere is hostile, Randy feels intimidated and therefore accepts the lower position, including the lower salary. That is contrary to the collective labor agreement.
Complaint
When Randy has calmed down somewhat, he files a complaint with the school's counselor about the conduct of the principal and the human resources man. The counselor is of the opinion that the director has acted intimidating and threatening. The employee has also failed. He should have corrected the director.
Is this the end of the story now? Our law does not accept this state of affairs. Not even if Randy has agreed to the demotion himself. If he wants, he can with the help of the AOb come back to this issue. Whether he dares to do that is a different story. If Randy leaves it alone, the tile wisdom is reaffirmed.
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