Take the Severance or Not???

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Anonymous

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So i mailed my severance letter today... I know theres alot of talk about not doing it and waiting for there to be a lawsuit... im sorry but i cant turn down $20,000 plus for a slim chance that there possibly could be a lawsuit that just might come 4 years down the road...To much of a gamble. why turn down guaranteed money... the company has already dealt with the 'women' lawsuit and im sure have there ass covered this time around...its an at will employmeny neway and anyone can be released at any time... the lawsuit many talk about will never come to be...if it does...good luck to you willing to wait 4 years..i personally need the money and need it now...i dont have the luxury of pissing money away
 






I am sorry to hear that you dont want to take the severanc ebut have to. I am not taking it. We can easily live off my spouse's income and I have a couple of prospects and two interviews lined up. I have been told I have a pretty good case so Iam going for it.
 






How strong is your case? Even if you did win, it may be awhile until you get it and you don't even know how much you will be compensated.
Case isn't strong enough to withhold for them to lose and besides, how many cases have you read of lawsuits that big pharma companies has lost in the past regarding to downsizing/layoffs? They began the process long time ago and having their legal team to make sure that the chances of them being sued is slim to none. Take the severance and go on with your lives. There are plenty of opportunities out there. And you can file unemployment in addition to your severance.
 






Apparently friend, you have not consulted with an attorney. There are holes in the severence agreement. If you read the last paragragh of the page before the signed page, it states:
However, if I file a charge against any of the Company releases with the EEOC, I agree to forego and not accept any monetary relief that may result from that charge. I further agree that I will reimburse the Company for any monetary consideration previously received by me under this Agreement and pay the reasonable attorney's fees and costs incurred by the Company if I assert a claim released under this Agreement; PROVIDED, HOWEVER, THAT I WILL NOT BE OBLIGATED TO DO SO IF I FILE A CHARGE WITH THE EEOC OR IF I CHALLENGE THE ENFORCEABILITY OF THIS AGREEMENT UNDER THE Older Workers Benefit Protection Act with respect to claims released under the AGE DISCRIMINATION in EMPLOYMENY ACT.

If you are under 40, do not feel you have been discrimnated against, have only been at N for a couple of years, take the severence. Many are over 40 and 50 and have been wrongfully terminated based on age, wage, pension, politics, reverse discrimination, gender, etc, and they are the ones that need to press forward and stop the illegal actions of this company once and for all. The FDA, Department of Justice, EEOC, and Stock Holders, do not like what has gone on in the past and will not tolerate further violations of US law.
 






I would say that 97% of primary care reps laid off were over 40 and of course higher salaries. The managing directors are evualated by their profit/loss equation and this is how their ratings will come into play and how much bonus will be paid. The company basically challanged the md's to get rid of who they needed to say that they would have a profit.
 






Well Thank God to that! Now I know why I was laid off, I thought it had to do with me showing up drunk all the time to meetings and was beligerant. Cussed at my customers and told them I didn't care if they write my drug or Not!... Whew... It was because I was an overpaid 40something year old rep! Now I am relieved...
 






Anonymous said:
I would say that 97% of primary care reps laid off were over 40 and of course higher salaries. The managing directors are evualated by their profit/loss equation and this is how their ratings will come into play and how much bonus will be paid. The company basically challanged the md's to get rid of who they needed to say that they would have a profit.
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I don't know where you are getting your 97% estimate from. If you were displaced you got the packet and included in that was the breakdown of those displaced by job title and age. This information is a federally mandated obligation that Novartis has to provide so I believe it is very safe to assume that it is not faked. According to that information if you do the math we have:

1115 were displaced and breaking this down by age group, it looks like this -

Ages 20 - 29.............................103
Ages 30 - 39.............................471
Ages 40 - 49.............................399
Ages 50 - 59.............................114
Ages 60 and up...........................28

(So 574 were under age 40 and 541 were age 40 and up, or 48.5% age 40 and over and 51.5% age 39 and younger).

These numbers don't mean too much unless you look at how many were in each age group and the percentage severed in each group, in each group we have the following -

Age Group........Total Employee Count...........Number Displaced......Percentage of Group

20-29 274 103 37.59%

30-39 1616 471 29.14%

40-49 1397 399 28.56%

50-59 348 114 32.76%

60 & up 103 28 27.18%


So the percentages displaced by age group is pretty similar, but a slightly larger percentage of those in the age 39 and younger group were displaced than those in the 40 and up age groups.

Look I was displaced too and I don't agree with how some of the severance was handled. If as some pointed out, some that did not have a 1 in either 2008 or 2009 were displaced and they were at least equal to others in the other factors considered, I really think that saying 2008, 2009, geography and tenure were the factors considered has less credence. If attempts were made to try that route but because of not enough "1"'s that did not produce the numbers they wanted, that plan should have been scrapped. It may then have been much better to do the layoff based upon letting whole sales divisions go, take your pick of any 3 numbers between GM 1 and GM 10 and then backfilling vacancies with the best qualified reps. Or perhaps a lottery system much like the U.S. Gov't used to do in the 70's for VietNam. That system was random, fair and not subjective.

The other issue I have was the fact that 08 was a shortened year based upon 9 months of data, not 12, so there were some that got "1" that possibly would have received a "2" with 3 months of additional data. There were also some that got a "2" that may have dropped to a "1" with an additional 3 months of data.

However when it is all said and done, we were employed "on demand" and we could have been let go with less information than what was used and we could have been let go without a severance. Another fear is that if you fight this you may be put under a very strong microscope and who can say that they did not "jaywalk" on at least one occasion?
 






You are an idiot. Do you really think you would send the right numbers, no because they know that they are incorrect. Do you believe everything that you see? Please, we are talking about a company that discriminates against females. Why don't you try to do your own research to see if the numbers are accurate. That's right. you can't. They know that. It would take a court order to get that info. Just like in the gender discriminatin case. It took a court order to get the salaries of the all employees so that a judge could see for himself that discrimination took place.

If anyone had a 1 and was over 40 then they have a solid case due to the sales numbers not being accurate. Sales numbers are not correct. Pharm not reporting, physicians blocking data yet your goals still reflect you getting their data, physician inquieries but still have goals based on the physician being in territory, higer goal increases by managing director for your pod due to them trying to manage you out because salary, pension, benefits, etc. was a bit much for their profit/loss equation that their evualation is based on. This new evualation critiera began for them when the Cost Cutting Initative started. Excuse me the CCI.
 






THANK YOU LAST POSTER!!!!!!! Someone finally gets the story right without calling names and belittling other representatives with or without jobs.
Look at DM post on Arkansas blog. Managing Directors were to cut costs to make themselves look more profitable so they and General Managers could get big bonuses. They targeted many ESC with tenure, high salaries, high pension contribution from company that they did not like due to personality indifferences. Does this mean these people were not productive? I think not! This was for personal gain.
What should have taken place was a displacement off all sales representives in the bottom 30%, averaged over 2 years. This would have been the number needed to go due to the inability to provide value/coverage of their employee cost to the organization.
HOWEVER, if the data is wrong, if no formulary is given for goal calculation, and year was shortened which could prove to be a detriment/benefit to individuals, then everything was done poorly and unjustifyably!
Sure, we are "at will" employees. If we misrepresented products, sold off-label, mis-appropriated funds, used company expenses for personal purchases, then we should not be fired for that because that is not wrong either by your standards? If it is wrong, IT IS WRONG!
Our rights have been violated, AT WILL or NOT!. When this lawsuit is settled (if is brought), many more dollars will be lost, the US government will be even more skeptical of N business practices, and then more will be let go to cover the immence cost of the lawsuit settlement to cover for N mistakes. Funny how this occurred after Novartis lost off-label lawsuit (1/2 billion, and gender lawsuit (1/4 billion). Stock holders will be finally getting an idea of what this sleeping giant has been about.
 






Anonymous said:
THANK YOU LAST POSTER!!!!!!! Someone finally gets the story right without calling names and belittling other representatives with or without jobs.
Look at DM post on Arkansas blog. Managing Directors were to cut costs to make themselves look more profitable so they and General Managers could get big bonuses. They targeted many ESC with tenure, high salaries, high pension contribution from company that they did not like due to personality indifferences. Does this mean these people were not productive? I think not! This was for personal gain.
What should have taken place was a displacement off all sales representives in the bottom 30%, averaged over 2 years. This would have been the number needed to go due to the inability to provide value/coverage of their employee cost to the organization.
HOWEVER, if the data is wrong, if no formulary is given for goal calculation, and year was shortened which could prove to be a detriment/benefit to individuals, then everything was done poorly and unjustifyably!
Sure, we are "at will" employees. If we misrepresented products, sold off-label, mis-appropriated funds, used company expenses for personal purchases, then we should not be fired for that because that is not wrong either by your standards? If it is wrong, IT IS WRONG!
Our rights have been violated, AT WILL or NOT!. When this lawsuit is settled (if is brought), many more dollars will be lost, the US government will be even more skeptical of N business practices, and then more will be let go to cover the immence cost of the lawsuit settlement to cover for N mistakes. Funny how this occurred after Novartis lost off-label lawsuit (1/2 billion, and gender lawsuit (1/4 billion). Stock holders will be finally getting an idea of what this sleeping giant has been about.
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This lawsuit will never make it to court! Novartis is not about to let a jury decide how much to give the reps. Poor little reps let go right before Christmas by a big bad pharma company that makes billions off the suffering of others. They will settle just to keep from losing AGAIN!!!!
 












Anonymous said:
Apparently friend, you have not consulted with an attorney. There are holes in the severence agreement. If you read the last paragragh of the page before the signed page, it states:
However, if I file a charge against any of the Company releases with the EEOC, I agree to forego and not accept any monetary relief that may result from that charge. I further agree that I will reimburse the Company for any monetary consideration previously received by me under this Agreement and pay the reasonable attorney's fees and costs incurred by the Company if I assert a claim released under this Agreement; PROVIDED, HOWEVER, THAT I WILL NOT BE OBLIGATED TO DO SO IF I FILE A CHARGE WITH THE EEOC OR IF I CHALLENGE THE ENFORCEABILITY OF THIS AGREEMENT UNDER THE Older Workers Benefit Protection Act with respect to claims released under the AGE DISCRIMINATION in EMPLOYMENY ACT.

If you are under 40, do not feel you have been discrimnated against, have only been at N for a couple of years, take the severence. Many are over 40 and 50 and have been wrongfully terminated based on age, wage, pension, politics, reverse discrimination, gender, etc, and they are the ones that need to press forward and stop the illegal actions of this company once and for all. The FDA, Department of Justice, EEOC, and Stock Holders, do not like what has gone on in the past and will not tolerate further violations of US law.
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You are all lawsuit hungry greedy fools. Dont you know that the layoffs were driven by a third party , based primarily on geography, and other objective measures. One of the previous posters was correct, all pharma companies have seen this dance before, and that is why there is no more "hand picking" of who stays or goes. This is why you see people who have won multiple awards let go, while others stay. YOUR LAWSUIT WILL FAIL.
 












Each managing director was able to pick how they wanted their area to play out. Just because your area still had some people with a 1 then other areas did chose this way of managing older reps out. Get over the ratings and look at who was let go! OLDER PEOPLE with pensions.
 






all this tenure stuff did not apply in my area...i was least tenured, never had a 1, won a few awards, and was consistenly top performer...but i was least tenured and still let go....other districts around me were the same...so the tenure argument doesnt hold true in every case...
 






Anonymous said:
Each managing director was able to pick how they wanted their area to play out. Just because your area still had some people with a 1 then other areas did chose this way of managing older reps out. Get over the ratings and look at who was let go! OLDER PEOPLE with pensions.
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I believe the rationale for letting people go was inconsistent, but I also believe a number of you have to get over the feeling that a disproportionate number of older people with pensions were let go. The team I was on is an "older" and while I was the 2nd oldest in the group and I have a penision (I am older than 55 and I have been with the company since the mid-90's), I don't believe that. One older than me with more than twice the number of years I have invested in Novartis, was retained. His pension is worth more than mine. In addition my pension follows me, it is not erased.

I also contacted an attorney and was informed that the list included with the Severance Package is now standard practice that is mandated by law with severe penalties for intentionally manipulated that list. Some of you can believe all the conspiracy stuff that you want, but at least as far as singling out older reps with pensions and manipulating the severance list, I don't believe it.
 






ive heard arguments from people all over the country...there are certain areas where older reps were let go..some areas young reps were let go...some areas where people with 1s let go...or people with 2s or 3s... some in trouble with HR....some not in trouble with HR...nothing can be explained...everyones argument is stupid and ignorant ... it was different in every territory so there is NO ONE WAY of argument...let it go..move on..take package....if still retained.....look for another job if your so unhappy...but good luck...there are alot of jobs but alot of people....finding one is getting hard...
 






Lawsuits suck away your life, energy, spirit, and time. Take the severence and enjoy having what essentially amounts to more than 7 months of pay. Take a vacation, look for a new job, and put Novartis in the past, where it belongs.

Life is short. Enjoy the free money and live in the moment. Don't waste your life on a lawsuit!
 






Anonymous said:
Lawsuits suck away your life, energy, spirit, and time. Take the severence and enjoy having what essentially amounts to more than 7 months of pay. Take a vacation, look for a new job, and put Novartis in the past, where it belongs.

Life is short. Enjoy the free money and live in the moment. Don't wastlawsuit!
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Spoken like a true Novartis kiss ass!
 












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