Employee Notices Her Boss Listed Her Job Position On The Company Website After She Was 'Laid Off'
Whether or not she has legal recourse is unclear.
RgStudio / Canva Pro It’s bad enough to lose your job. Losing your job and finding out that you were lied to about why is even worse.
One woman went through this exact experience and still had the sense of humor to make a joke out of it on TikTok.
A woman found out the real reason she lost her job after checking her former company’s website.
A woman named Vic, known as @vicsvlog on TikTok, shared with her followers that she had unfortunately been laid off.
“Out of curiosity, I went on my old job’s website, right? Looked at what jobs, just out of curiosity,” she said. “And I saw my job. Same exact job description, new title.”
The catch was that the new employee would earn just about half of the salary Vic did.
“They’re paying $55,000 for it. I was getting paid $100,000. So, it makes sense,” she stated. “They just want someone to do all the work and not get paid for it.”
Vic implied that the only way this is possible is if she was lied to. “When I was getting laid off, they said, ‘This is not performance-based. We’re just eliminating your role,’” she shared.
Although Vic said in the caption that she was “going through it,” she did maintain her sense of humor. “Good for you,” she said, addressing the company she used to work for. “You’re saving $45,000 a year.”
Laying someone off only to hire someone else to do the same job is technically legal.
While laying someone off only to give their job to someone else who will do it for less pay sounds like a pretty shady business practice, it is not illegal.
When the law firm, Hayber, McKenna, and Dinsmore, was asked, “Can my boss fire me because he wants to hire someone whom he can pay less?” the firm responded, “On its face, yes, an employer can do this. If your employer wishes to hire an employee who makes less money than you do, that is a legitimate reason for termination. Employers have the right to control how much they spend on payroll.”
The National Conference of State Legislatures backed this up. They stated, “At-will means that an employer can terminate an employee at any time for any reason, except an illegal one, or for no reason without incurring legal liability.
Lawyer Marc Siegal explained to job search site Monster that “the default in virtually all employment situations is ‘at will.’”
Fellow TikTok users weren’t so sure this was legally acceptable.
Several commenters on Vic’s video felt that she had the right to take legal action. “They can’t repost for a lower salary for a year after your [termination] date. EEOC!” one person said, referencing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“Someone else posted that if this happens, contact the EEOC or NLRB or one of those agencies,” another person pointed out. The NLRB is the National Labor Relations Board.
A third person simply said, “Call them out, bestie!”
It’s unclear if Vic has legal recourse, but she certainly has support.
While reputable sources suggested that there is nothing Vic can do to take legal action against the company that laid her off, others seemed to believe from personal experience that the questionable act of re-listing the job for a lower salary can at least be reported. Whether this will actually help Vic in any way is not clear.
What is certain from a look at her video’s comments is that Vic is far from the only person that this or something similar has happened to. Perhaps she can find comfort in that solidarity.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.