CLE is pursuing in court the case of the dismissal from work of 12 employees, from a call center company, without respecting the time and procedures defined in the law.
On 03.12.2021, a call center company headquartered in Tirana, put its former employees in front of an extremely difficult situation. In a time, where economic problems burdened every citizen, 188 employees were left without income as a result of non-compliance with the deadlines set in the collective layoff law, and non-compliance with the relevant procedures, where counseling sessions were held in absentia of the National Union of Telephone Operators (SKOT) and were declared closed without answering the issues and concerns raised by the employees.
Acquainted with this issue, Center for Legal Empowerment, with the request of 12 of the already dismissed employees, took over the legal pursuit of the case by setting up a lawsuit against the call-center company until the end of the case.
The plaintiffs, represented by CLE, request from the Tirana Judicial District Court:
- Obligation of the defendant to compensate the damage resulting from the immediate termination of the employment contract as a result of non-compliance with the notice period for the collective layoff with 12 (twelve) months’ salary
- Obliging the defendant to pay compensation to each of the plaintiffs the amount of 3 (three) months of monthly salary that would have benefited from them in the case that the notification deadline would have been respected
- Obligation of the defendant to compensate the salary of 6 (six) months as a result of the violation of the collective dismissal procedure
The plaintiffs claim that they are owed a total of ALL 20,186,040 in compensation for the damages caused by the collective dismissal.
Their requests are based on a series of irregularities by the call center company, which start from the moment when the employees are notified of the collective layoff. Non-compliance with the deadlines established by law put the plaintiffs in front of the uncertainty of having a new source of income for the period after the termination of the employment relationship, while the closing of the sessions without the return of the answers and the discussion of the raised issues, causes uncertainty and disagreements. Moreover, the SKOT trade union, which protects the interests of employees and would be of assistance to them to get the necessary explanations and answers, was absent from these sessions.
The lawsuit has already been sent to the court, where the continuation of the process and the verdict are expected.