Is she competing for her contract job back or for a direct position with the same job description? A lot of contracts expire at the beginning of a companies fiscal year (most FY’s start April 1st) that would mean her department could no longer pay from that budget so she had to be let go. Then the HR department says corporate policy is that if we needed someone in that job description for a year then we might as well hire someone as a direct employee, but we are obligated to interview other candidates for any direct job; tell her she can apply. The funding for her job may have passed from a department budget to a corporate budget and she got screwed in the shuffle. Either that or the department had to re-justify her in the budget. Companies are getting more tight-assed these days about this kind of stuff.
Probably because she’s a contract worker. She likely is not actually employed by the company, but it contracted out to them. Therefore she’s not an investment like an actual employee. In order to keep new ideas coming in from contract workers, it makes sense to let them compete for the contract. The company has more flexibility to dictate pay if they have people competing for a contract.
It’s something that comes with certain lines of work. I don’t know her profession, but it seems to me that she likely knows the risks associated with her job, or should.
An aside. I worked for a company and any suggestion I had feel on deaf ears. Came back as independant contractor and my opinions were now golden. Too funny.
It’s sometimes a way to more simply fire someone and avoid a discrimination lawsuit. If they’re given a chance to compete for their old job and someone better qualified comes along, you can say you simply hired the better qualified person. This way, you’re not burdened with showing a paper trail showing issues with the fired employee which they can argue about interminably, in or out of court.
It’s easier to show that one resumé is better than another, and you can do that relatively publicly without reprisal than have to prove someone was firable and not be able to make that case publicly for fear of lawsuit for libel or defamation.
I went thru a similar process about ten years ago - only we were all regular employees, not contractors. We had to test and interview for our jobs, and then ranked, and if you were in the lower ranks, all of a sudden they did not have enough work for you, and you were invited to leave. So in this case, they allowed us to compete for our jobs, then fired a few people.
If she’s a year-to-year employee, then does that mean that she renegotiates her contract year to year? If so, then the employer should also have the right to renegotiate or terminate it as well.
I don’t think it’s common at all - but there are similar looking practices that are more common (for example, a building hires a management company or a janitorial services company or a company to run a parking lot, and puts that contract up for bids each year or two) , so I wonder if your understanding is completely correct.
As for “Either someone is good at the job or you need to get someone else”- not really. You could also get someone else who’s willing and able to do the same job for less money, or more work/a better job for the same money or even a slightly less good job/less work for a lot less money. If she is actually an employee who will have to compete with others to for the same job when her contract is up, it’s really no different than a building management company having to compete with other companies when the contract is up. ( or for that matter, a professional athlete who is also essentially competing with others when his contract is up- A may perform well, but he might not get a new contract if B will perform almost as well and will take less money)
The only case of this that I know (from personal experience) is a company that decided to change the structure of a few jobs. Basically, they were taking two different job descriptions currently filled by two different people, and turning it into one hybrid job.
Because the existing people would have only demonstrated competency with half of the new job description and because someone had to get laid off anyway, the company laid off both of the existing workers and then encouraged them to apply for the new position. This application process also meant they were competing with outside applicants so that the company could could hire people who best fit the new job description, even if that was not the old people.
As I understand it, some people did get re-hired, but most of them lacked the broad skill base that would have qualified them for the other half of the new position.
What does this do for her seniority and associated benefits? My guess would be that the company wants to keep getting her work, but doesn’t want to pay the benefits due to an employee of X years.
What kind of co-op is this? I’ve heard of this being done for municipal managers (basically contract mayors). The contracts are fixed term and the existing manager may have to compete with other applicants to prevent someone from getting entrenched in the position.
We did that at our library when we were cutting 300 low level part time positions to 150. We fired everyone and made the top half (after interviews) come back at a lower salary. I believe this has done with teachers too, fire everyone. In those cases, it’s definitely getting rid of low performers who might have become entrenched.
But one person? wtf. Yes, deeply insulting. A poor way to do business.
A person with a year’s contract who gets that contract renewed in a way that seems automatic may seem to be like a regular employee, but they’re not. They’re either a contractor or ‘management.’ In either case they are ‘at will’ for when the contract expires (and the contract usually has some sort of mechanism for early termination anyway). When the contract’s up, both the employee and employer can say ‘see ya’ and part ways.
Making that person re-apply is not as usual, but it may be part of the co-op’s bylaws that all contracted services need competitive bidding, even renewable ones. It’s a way to make sure the contractor doesn’t become complacent or to give a competitor who overbid list time a chance to bid lower to get the contract.
In 1961, my father’s job moved to a (lower labor cost) state (the moving them around the world to get $.15/hr came much later).
He was actually fired, but told, if he wanted to move his family at his cost, he could apply for the same job - at the new plant.
My folks did not discuss money around the kids, so don’t know, but suspect there was a pay cut. Dad looked for weeks ti find something else, but his sklllset was incredible specific to this employer (memorizing part numbers for gaskets, shafts, trivia) as to be useless outside that shop)
In this case, it was to at least avoid paying moving costs - and likely a pay cut.
There can also be management chanes, and the new boss wants to have the final word on everyone in the dept.
Or some legal/regulatory game being played.
I had a friend who had this happen to him. The company was struggling, and brought in a management consultant. They decided to lay off my friend’s entire department and then allow them to compete for their jobs along with outside applicants.
It backfired; out of 5-6 people, I think one guy accepted the offer. The others said “no way, we’ll find other jobs.” Management hadn’t anticipated that, and had to scramble lest the entire department leave all at once. If I’m remembering right, they ended up having to pay retainer bonuses to those workers to keep them around for several months while they hired and trained their replacements.
Not in Canadian employment law, no. The fact that you have a written contract of employement for a set term does not automatically make you a contractor or management. The test for employment turns on a variety of factors, particularly the degree of control that the employer exerts over your day-to-day work activities.
have done a bit of digging; that’s not the case; the board in this case aren’t even sure if they have an up-to-date copy of their bylaws and have had to contact the corporate registry to get a copy of the bylaws. :rolleyes: