Since the employee is unilaterally terminated from the labour contract, if the employee believes that such termination is unlawful, the employee needs to promptly gather relevant evidence regarding the incident. In the following article, TNTP will provide employees with essential evidence that needs to be collected to prove the employer’s unlawful unilateral termination of the labour contract.
1. Evidence showing the employment relationship
The first evidence that the employee needs to gather is the labour contract, as the labour contract demonstrates the employment relationship between the employee and the employer. However, in some cases, the employee and the employer may not sign a labour contract, or the contract might not be in written form. In such cases, the employee can collect other valid evidence, such as probationary contracts, job offer letters, job acceptance emails, work-related email exchanges within the enterprise, attendance records, documents indicating the enterprise’s salary payments to the employee, such as individual payroll records, salary transfer documents to the employee’s account, etc.
2. Evidence demonstrating the grounds for unilateral termination of the labour contract
When unilaterally terminating the labour contract with the employee, the employer will present the grounds or reasons for such termination, such as the employee’s consistent failure to complete assigned tasks, the employee’s voluntary resignation without valid reasons, etc. In this case, the employer may create documents that demonstrate the employee’s violations, such as meeting minutes, work records, incident reports, etc.
3. Evidence demonstrating the termination of the labour contract
When unilaterally terminating the labour contract, the employer may issue termination notices, termination decisions, etc. If the employer does not issue a termination decision, or the employer issues a decision but doesn’t provide it to the employee, or the employer issues a notice but unilaterally terminates the contract in practice, the employee needs to gather evidence showing the enterprise’s prevention of employee’s work rights, evidence demonstrating the enterprise’s obstruction of the employee’s work rights, etc.
4. Evidence demonstrating the labour-related benefits fulfilled and unfulfilled by the employer
When unilaterally terminating the labour contract with the employee, whether legally or unlawfully, the employer still has obligations towards the employee, such as paying all relevant sums related to the employee’s entitlements including salary, termination allowance, salary for unused annual leave days, etc. Evidence for these benefits includes payment documents, accounts receivable reconciliation records, social insurance records, etc.
5. Internal enterprise documents
As explained earlier, when unilaterally terminating the labour contract with the employee, the employer needs to justify the termination based on legally appropriate grounds. One of the bases that the employer often uses is the employee’s consistent failure to complete assigned tasks. The employer must establish the criteria for assessment of employees’ fulfilment of duties to terminate based on this ground. The employee should review the content of the criteria, and assess whether the procedure for implementing it complies with legal requirements.
The law does not specify the exact procedure that the employer must follow for unilaterally terminating labour contracts. Therefore, employees should research whether the procedure is outlined in the enterprise’s internal documents, to verify whether the enterprise has adhered to the provisions of these internal documents. Additionally, employees should gather information on the salary and bonus policies, as these documents will be applied to address the employee’s rights in cases where disputes arise over salary amounts, serving as a basis for resolving the consequences of the unlawful unilateral termination of the labour contract.
In cases where the enterprise has established labour agreements or internal regulations, employees should collect this information to seek relevant content related to the unilateral termination of labour contracts and the rights of employees when facing such unilateral termination.
6. Other relevant documents
Apart from the documents mentioned above, based on the actual situation, the employee should gather other documents relevant to the incident. For instance, if the received salary by the employee differs from the salary specified in the labour contract, the employee can collect evidence showing the actual salary paid to the employee, such as individual payroll records, salary transfer documents to the employee’s account, etc.
Collecting and compiling evidence will support the employee in proving the employer’s unlawful unilateral termination of the labour contract and establish the basis to protect the employee’s rights. In other words, thorough evidence collection will provide the employee with the necessary grounds to demonstrate that the employer’s unilateral termination was unlawful, and allow the employee to demand that the employer fulfil responsibilities.
The above is the article “Evidence is required to prove that the employer has unlawfully terminated the labour contract” that TNTP provides to the readers. For any issues requiring discussion, please contact TNTP for assistance.
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