BlackBerry is facing a class-action lawsuit from more than 300 former employees across Canada, according to a news release from law firm Nelligan O’Brien Payne LLP.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based tech company is accused of denying employees their termination entitlements by transferring them to a partner company and, once they had accepted employment there, handed them resignation letters. The former employees were then allegedly given their final date of work.
“BlackBerry’s actions amount to a termination of the employees’ employment,” the law firm said. “This entitles these employees to statutory, common law, and/or contractual entitlements on termination.”
BlackBerry hasn’t commented on the case yet, though the suit said that it has refused to pay those entitlements and the transferred employees have lost their accumulated years of service.
In 2016, BlackBerry also laid off around 200 employees from Waterloo and Florida, which followed an announcement in 2012 to cut over 5,000 jobs over the a multi-year period.
“BlackBerry’s actions amount to a termination of the employees’ employment”
This lawsuit isn’t the only bad news for the beleaguered company this week following Wednesday’s report that global market share for its BB10 smartphone dropped below one per cent.
Still, it’s set to move forward with its mobile endeavors. In an interview with MobileSyrup, BlackBerry confirmed that despite rumours to the contrary, it still plans to support the BB10.
Coming up on February 25th during Mobile World Congress will be further details to the TCL-made BlackBerry Mercury.
MobileSyrup has reached out to Nelligan O’Brien Payne LLP to determine which positions the former employees held, the time period in which they were terminated and the specific payment they are seeking. This story will be updated when a response is received.
Update: BlackBerry has released the following statement regarding the lawsuit: “We have reviewed the allegations in the lawsuit, and are confident we complied with all our obligations to our employees. Therefore, we believe the case lacks merit, and we will defend against it vigorously.”
Source: Nelligan O’Brien Payne LLP
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