PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten — Five (5) workers from the EFFY group, which exists of different entities all dba as EFFY, decided to take their employer to Court in an effort to obtain their outstanding salaries including commissions. The employees have not been paid their full salaries since April 2020 as EFFY unilaterally decided to apply a Corona virus deduction on their salaries.
From July they received no salary whatsoever and the employees lodged a complaint against EFFY with the Department of Labor and Social Affairs.
The EFFY workers through the Department have been trying for months to reach a settlement, however nothing came out of these settlement attempts. The employees decided to take the matter to Court and engaged Attorney Ms. Cindy Marica of Mariflex Attorneys to represent their interests.
A final summons was sent to EFFY to pay all outstanding salaries and commissions, however, despite EFFY’ lawyer Attorney Mr. Remco Stomp asking for more time, nothing was paid to the employees. In Court Attorney Marica argued on the Employee’s behalf that the work hours and salary cannot be reduced unilaterally by any Employer.
The Employer should have engaged in negotiations with the Employees and come to some form of reasonable arrangements if the Employer really suffered significant losses that justify a change of the Labor conditions. This was never done by EFFY, no reasonable settlement was offered and their full salaries were withheld, despite the fact that EFFY received SSRP support for some months.
Although EFFY’s Attorney Stomp claimed that EFFY did offer a reasonable settlement and claimed that the Employees refused these proposals, the Court rejected these statements from EFFY.
EFFY was condemned to pay the 5 Employees their outstanding salaries and average commissions as claimed increased by 10% late payment increase and legal interest. EFFY also has to pay the legal fees and costs to the Employees’ Attorney Cindy Marica. A summons was already sent to EFFY’s Attorney Stomp to comply with the rulings.
