Now I feel like a local - our first lawsuit ;)

[John.St]

Hard to believe he sued you for nothing since he also has to pay for a lawer and will lose the same money as you do on legal actions

The employee has nothing to loose in a lawsuit - no cure, no pay same as in the US on phony charges (medical malpractice, ..., you name it, they've got it).

 

[Amargo]

Not pretending to judge citygirl, as I don't know her, but I know a lot of cases of people who were cheated, not payed, blackmailed, etc by employers, and yes, including an expat who transfered all his assets to a ghost company in Uruguay to avoid paying salaries.

I don't agree the laws in Argentina favour the employee. the judicial system is just flawed an twisted, it depends very much on who is the judge, etc. Look at the issue with the occupations of buildings, etc. Some judges condemn it, some other would like to let the occupiers take the Casa Rosada. There are no rules...this is the 'modelo'.

 

[Guillo]

Learn - tell him that if he doesn't withdraw the lawsuit, you'll tell AFIP about the 2,200 pesos in negro you have paid him every month for 2½ years. Also demand he returns the laptop he took with him.

If she paid in Negro... Then shes screwed and the worker has the right to sue. Actually, not only that, she will have problems with afip because of that and it won't be cheap.
Paying in Negro is a nono if you want to stay on the legit side.

 

[citygirl]

To be clear, I completely agree and uphold the rights of an employee to sue and yes, in the case of unethical employers (and there are those for sure), an employee should go after an employer. That is not the case here. And yes, we followed all legal steps including telegrams, paying him for the time that is mandated by law that he didn't show up before we could officially terminate him for job abandonment, paid him all monies due in full immediately, etc. As an ethical company, and especially as a foreign company, we follow EVERY law here. Our employees receive all their salaries, benefits, vacations, holidays, bonuses, etc. My accountant laughs at me for how conservative we are (we pay VAT for example on everything even though most of our services are delivered outside of Arg so technically could be exempt). But we would rather be extra careful and err on the side of caution.

I'm not saying we are perfect but this truly is a case of an employee who walked off the job after a little over a year and then decided to sue and made up reasons. And is asking for several times his annual salary in damages. Again, once its over, I'll post the details but they are ludicrous.

We would never threaten a (former) employee or make false claims (tempting as it sounds ) And in fact when employees leave us, we do everything we can to try to help. I have an employee who will be leaving us in June as he is finishing up his studies and we are trying to assist him with finding a job with either our client or another company closer to where he lives and have given him time to interview, given him great references, etc. I have no problem with people leaving and as long as they do it in the correct manner, we'll do everything possible to help them move on to the next step in their career.

I'll just keep the faith that doing everything the right way will wind up giving us some level of protection.

 

[Gringoboy]

Good luck CityGirl, you have my support.
Nobody has mentioned the unions yet, who wield enormous power in this country.
My Argentine wife is a public accountant and so much of her time is taken up by cases like this, where the employee's union has goaded them to take action.
I run a business and run it on my own. Call me selfish, but that's the way it's going to stay.
Rather fall on my own sword than someone else's.
FIGHT IT CITYGIRL, YOU DON'T OWE THEM A PENNY!

 

[John.St]

Learn - tell him that if he doesn't withdraw the lawsuit, you'll tell AFIP about the 2,200 pesos in negro you have paid him every month for 2½ years. Also demand he returns the laptop he took with him.

If she paid in Negro... Then shes screwed and the worker has the right to sue. Actually, not only that, she will have problems with afip because of that and it won't be cheap.
Paying in Negro is a nono if you want to stay on the legit side.

Read the first post:

Luckily everything we did is en blanco and he really has no case but now we'll need to pay thousands to defend ourselves against this frivolous lawsuit.

The (phony) threat is to the employee - AFIP will tear him to shreds because he hasn't paid his taxes (of money he never received) and he didn't take a laptop with him either, but two can play the game.

 

[StevePalermo]

"Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation’s troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. ......in America, it is the businessmen."

Come on Steve, you make a lot of good points on the forum, its always interesting to read your perspective on Argentina and experiences here, but saying things like this and equating Michael Moore with Lenin and Stalin just discredits your other posts.

 

[esllou]

If he's making false accusations, counter sue for defamation of character. Seriously...sue him big and he might have second thoughts. In Europe/US, if someone brings a frivolous lawsuit like this, you sue to make him realise the law is NOT a plaything.

 

[Guillo]

Read the first post:
The (phony) threat is to the employee - AFIP will tear him to shreds because he hasn't paid his taxes (of money he never received) and he didn't take a laptop with him either, but two can play the game.

I did read the first part. I was pointing out that it was kind of dumb to accuse the worker of having part of his salary in negro. She would be indirectly accepting fault for tax evasion (paying him in negro).

 

[Hoags]

If he's making false accusations, counter sue for defamation of character. Seriously...sue him big and he might have second thoughts. In Europe/US, if someone brings a frivolous lawsuit like this, you sue to make him realise the law is NOT a plaything.

I agree