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Hi,
There is a Costa Rican housekeeper that worked for me. I fired her because I don’t need her services anymore, and she’s telling me I need to pay her the value of 1 month services for “licuidacion”. I know nothing of this. Is this true?We had no formal contract or anything, I simply asked her in the beginning if she can work for me for so much per week for 3 days per week, and she said yes.
I am NOT an attorney and have no idea how long you have employed her but, if I were you I would ask an attorney what you need to get her to sign to release you of any and all liabilities and pay her the one month she is asking for under the condition she signs that agreement first…
Scott
The end of the year bonus is equivalent to 1/12th of her total pay for the year. You add up the total wages that you paid her for the 10 months that she worked for you and divide that by 12. It is my understanding that employees are due this bonus by law even if they didn’t work the entire year for you and even if you fired her for a reasonable cause such as no longer needing her services or even if she didn’t do a good job. This will work out to be less than one month’s pay since she didn’t work for you for 12 months. I hope this helps.
Cost Rica employment law can be very complicated. Here’s a link to a brief summary:
http://www.therealcostarica.com/costa_rica_business/costa_rica_labor_law.htmlThe best and easiest way to determine your exact legal obligation is to have the Ministerio de Trabajo calculate it for you. They routinely do this upon request of either the employee or employer at no charge. Be prepared to pay a lot more than you probably think is fair. Terminating an employee is expensive here.
What Jim said above about it being expensive is true. Your best source is the Ministry of Labor, but be warned that if you have not been withholding her CAJA payments and your own legally required contributions, those will be due, too.
Jim’s right. Terminating an employee here is expensive. So’s employing one.
This is the Gringo way of doing things here. Ask your Tico neighbor friend how they terminate. Have an attorney write up a dismissal notice that says accepting the money relinquishes her right to claim any further money. Pay her 1/12 of the total amount you have paid her so far. Keep it simple and don’t be intimidated. Gringos here want to be liked by their neighbors so much that they screw up the working relationship. Be their boss not their friend. When you hire domestics tell them there are no purses brought to the job, no ipods or cell phones and you are to be addressed as Don so and so.
If you let your employees run you, you are now the employee no matter that you are the one that is paying. Ticos are experts at putting gringos in defensive positions. You write the rules for your employment, not the employees. Yes, you have to know what is legal here, but after that, it is up to you to enforce conduct on your job site.
I have a former Tico worker who has worked off and on for us for the past 5 years. Several times he quit by not showing up for work for up to 3 months at a time. Last October, he quit coming again and only worked 9 hours in 3 months. We had just planted 9,000 trees 1 year ago and needed someone to keep the areas around the trees clear so that the trees could grow. When he stopped coming in October, it was right in the middle of this vital work. Our caretaker hired someone else to do the job so that we would not lose our trees. I considered that this Tico worker abandoned his job. Our caretaker even saw him working in the coffee fields of other Ticos. The other day he came by our farm to ask for his job back. I told him that we already hired someone else to replace him. Now today he came by to ask for severance pay. Do I owe him severence pay when I did not fire him? Rather he abandoned his job and went to work for other people thereby putting our reforestation project in jeopardy.
Yes, you are legally required to pay him severance pay, whether his is fired or he quits, but only based on the days he actually worked for you. But for only 9 hours, it would be worth talking to the labor relations, just to something in writing.
And never hire him again…He abandoned his job. You don’t owe him anything but xmas bonus PRORATED.
No severance pay (previsio I think).
Tell him to get lost!
If you give him something you will become an easy mark and this stuff will happen to you again when people here that you are either soft or stupid or uninformed or scared.
Nada zero zip!
What arrogance to just walk away from your work. I’d give him a swift kick in the ass is what I would give him…
He abandoned his job. You don’t owe him anything but xmas bonus PRORATED.
No severance pay (previsio I think).
Tell him to get lost!
If you give him something you will become an easy mark and this stuff will happen to you again when people here that you are either soft or stupid or uninformed or scared.
Nada zero zip!
What arrogance to just walk away from your work. I’d give him a swift kick in the ass is what I would give him…
Yes I paid him the Xmas bonus already – added up all of the salary I paid him from December 1st 2010 through November 30th, 2011 (except for the aguialdo from the year before) and divided it by 12. That is the correct calculation as far as I know. I don’t think he deserves severance either and it’s a sure bet that I will never hire him again.
[b]NOBODY[/b] should be [b]OWED[/b][u][/u] any Bonus! That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard of. A bonus is [b]EARNED[/b] if the job performed goes beyond and [b]exceeds[/b] the employers expectations. Where do people get off [b]EXPECTING[/b] they are [b]OWED[/b][u][/u] a bonus simply for showing up for work? That’s just as stupid as those “Tip” Jars you see in Starbucks and other places that provide no service yet these bums expect they should be “tipped” for handing you a cup of coffee.
[b]If you do not pay[/b][i][/i] the required ‘bonus’ you will be hauled into court … and you will have to pay it.
[b]This is not optional[/b]My thoughts exactly. Why should a person be rewarded for abandoning an important job? It left the caretaker wondering when he would return. Then he had to scramble to find another worker in order to save a very expensive reforestation project. I am wondering if anyone else has been through this process. I have receipts for when I paid him and some of the pay was paid directly to his BCR bank account. There were also times that other people paid him that were staying at our farm and we weren’t there. So I’m thinking he needs to talk to these other people as well. He has no proof that I was paying him except those times that I gave him a receipt or he could get a print out from the bank. The farm is owned by a corporation. Also the receipts do not show who the payor is. They only show who received the money. What is the worst that can happen if he gets a judgement against me? A neighbor stole $7,000 worth of cows,horses and other property from us 3 years ago and it still has never come to trial even though some of the animals and property were found on his farm. The police never conficated the stolen property so they just let him keep it.
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