Help wanted: Strong case for promised raise

DEAR CARRIE: As part of a company downsizing, my position will be eliminated in June. My employer has also pushed up the deadlines for all raises to April and plans to make them retroactive to Jan. 1. While I was at a recent meeting to explain this policy, the director of benefits and compensation told me in front of other staff that even if I left before my June termination date, I would receive the salary increase, unless I had a negative review.

I have accepted another position, and I will leave the company about two weeks before the personnel committee's meeting this month to approve the salary increases. My supervisor has already told me he has requested a raise for me. But the human resources manager told me that since I am leaving the company before the meeting to approve the raises, I am ineligible for an increase. I disagree, based upon what the HR manager told me publicly. Possibly, he is misinformed.

Because of the tight time frames, and because I have to sign a legal severance package agreement, I am concerned that this matter will be swept under the rug and that I will not receive the additional money. The retroactive raise would amount to $500 after taxes. Does the company have to pay me that raise since the benefits director said I would get it? -- Legal Change?

DEAR LEGAL: You have a strong case for demanding a raise, according to Alan Sklover, senior partner of the Manhattan employee-rights law firm Sklover & Donath.

"The reader has a solid legal and negotiating position to receive his raise," said Sklover, who is the author of the book "Fired, Downsized, or Laid Off -- What your employer doesn't want you to know about how to fight back" (Henry Holt and Co., 2000).

He said three key questions come into play here.

The first: Did the director of benefits and compensation have knowledge and authority to assure you of a raise? "Who else would have better knowledge and authority?" Sklover said. "I can't imagine a better source of information and commitment on the issue."

The second: Did you rely on what the director told you?

"Basic contract law says that if the company official had authority to make a promise, and the other person reasonably relied on that authority and promise, then an enforceable contract was born at the moment of reliance," he said.

The third: The final plank in the analysis is the "kicker," Sklover said. Can you enforce your contractual right to the raise?

Although money due an employee is often inadvertently denied when a severance agreement is written, Sklover suggests that you immediately send a "respectful email" to the benefits director.

Include a reminder of the promise, a reminder of the witnesses to that promise, and your reliance on the promise. He suggests that you ask the director to pay you the raise before the severance agreement is written or that the obligation to pay the money be written into the severance agreement.

"And ask for a written response to your email," he said.

So what if this doesn't work? "If it does not," Sklover said, "then you have perfectly documented grounds to go to the top of the company, in a respectful email or letter, [to] either the CEO or the board of directors."

In the end, he said, "legal or human resources are likely then to grant the request. Companies do a lot of things to get severance agreements signed; in my experience, this would likely be granted."

Click here for more on your rights to a promised raise or bonus at bit.ly/z3jjAn.

Click here for more on general salary negotiations at bit.ly/xiJLXf.