For most jobs, at least those that pay you over the table, you must sign on the dotted line before you can say “Show me the money!” But of course, wading through a contract’s tangled technical language might seem like translating Klingon. It’s also, well, boring to read. So we skim through the sheets, glossing over paragraphs, and sign our life away with no regards as to what we just did. Eventually, the-you-know-what hits the proverbial fan.
 
“I see up to 500 clients a year,” says Daniel A. Lublin, an employment lawyer at Whitten & Lublin LLP. “Approximately half of those clients have a dispute concerning a contract in one form or another.” Here are just a few (kinda scary) examples that Lublin has shared with us where employer and employee have butted heads...
 
A 21-year-old landed a job with a large financial services company as a financial advisor. The heads of the company were thoughtful enough to conveniently bury some fine print under pages of documents in her contract. Unbeknownst to her, it stipulated that if she quit she would have to fork up the money it cost to train her, a small fee of $75,000 (which I’m sure most would agree is completely reasonable). As luck would have it, she had to leave after a year and a half when the employer turned out to be less than diligent in meeting the job conditions they had previously agreed upon. True to its not-so-obvious word, the company sued the young lady for the 75 grand, claiming she had “agreed” to it. “We are still fighting this one in the courts,” says Lublin, who suspects the employer will find it difficult to win. Companies have an obligation to bring clauses or unclear details to the employee’s attention for clarification, according to Lublin. “Courts do not appreciate when an employer hides the language it later wishes to rely upon, especially from an entry level employee.”
 
Another example tells of an employee who was talked into leaving one job for another after the hiring manager made him certain promises. After being told to sign a “standard” employment contract, he tried to negotiate the conditions with the employer, but was slapped with one of those “everyone has to sign the contract, otherwise they couldn’t work for the company” arguments. “He did what he felt was the only option and signed the contract,” says Lublin. Due to the recent recession, he ended up losing the job shortly thereafter, but was denied any compensation for leaving his previous, secure job thanks to the contract he was made to sign, which had relegated him to a probationary employee. “Had he known what he was agreeing to, he would have never left his old job and would probably still be employed today.”
 
According to Lublin, the most common stipulations that are a source of grief for employees are the contractual clauses about termination. Also, if you’re planning on leaving that dead-end job at the Beans & Chili Shack to open your very own Beans & Chili R’ Us, you might want to think twice. “Clauses preventing past employees from working for a competitor or soliciting old clients or contacts cause a lot of conflict between employers and employees,” explains Lublin.
 
Lublin also dishes on what occupations and positions have the highest frequency of contract grievances. “Unfortunately, the average Joe and average Jane have the most lopsided contracts, in favour of their employers,” says Lublin. “This is because they have less leverage in the negotiations surrounding that contract, and are often given little to no choice but to sign what the employer asks. Executives tend to negotiate contracts more and are often treated more generously upon termination, leading to a lower likelihood of dispute.”
 
So are employees and employers actually trying to screw each other over, or are contracts just convoluted by nature with both parties genuinely trying to discern them fairly? “I would say that twenty-five percent of the time, the employer or employee is trying to take advantage of the other,” says Lublin. “Twenty-five percent of the time, there is a general misunderstanding. The remaining fifty percent is generally ignorance of the law.” Obviously, I’m not saying you should grab a law text book, study it day and night until you’re a legal consultant for Law & Order (though I won’t stop you). Nonetheless, it’s important to be cautious of what you’re signing, and of course, understand what it entails. As I much as I hate to use clichés, prevention is better than cure. jp