She was hired on November 1, 2018 on a six-month fixed-term contract then on a permanent contract by a company on the Dutch side with a salary of 1 USD. Everything is going well until March 360; the company which works with cruise lines, is hit hard by the crisis linked to covid-2020, it has seen its turnover decrease by around 19%.
In mid-March, the boss summons the employees to present them with two proposals: either they leave their jobs on April 1 with two months of gross salary as compensation; or they accept a reduction of half of their working time from April 1, and therefore a reduction of the same amount in their salary. Two weeks later, a second meeting is organized during which all employees accept the reduction in their working time and their remuneration.
The company must then close following the lockdown imposed by the government. It reopens on May 11. A week later, the employer indicates that the number of working days goes from 6 to 3 per week, that the remuneration decreases accordingly; the employees sign the agreement which is valid from April to the end of August. "New discussions will take place after examining the financial situation of the company," he said.
On August 27, 2020, the employee contacted the Sint Maarten Labor Office to try to obtain information on the regulations regarding the reduction of working hours. Then the employer contacted her by WhatsApp to ask her to call the authorities back and reassure them about the situation. The employee confirms that she accepted the reductions in working hours and wages until December 2020. The employer further explains that she had to modify the pay slips for the following reason: the 100% salary was still mentioned on the slips despite the reduction in order to benefit from the aid of the stimulus plan (Sint Maarten Stimulus and Relief Plan), but as these were not granted, the amounts were corrected in order to reduce the tax amounts.
At the beginning of September, the employee's lawyer sent a letter to the employer to inform him of his client's dissatisfaction: she criticized him for not having informed the employees of having requested and received financial aid from the government to maintain their job at 100% when he asked them to change them to 50%. In response on September 15, the employee received her retroactive dismissal as of April 1, a decision motivated, according to the boss, by the behavior of the employee and her lawyer to have seized the authorities.
The employee asks the Sint Maarten court to recognize an unfair dismissal and to award her damages. After examining the case, the court on January 13, recognized that the employer had terminated the employment contract irregularly and that he was therefore responsible for paying him damages and interest, ordered him to pay to the employee 50% of the normal salary during the period of notice and to give her the corrected payslips.
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