Thread regarding Chevron Corp. layoffs

Your comment perfectly encapsulates the defeatist mindset that corporations love. The idea that employees should simply “buy stock” if they want fairness is not only absurd but also dismissive of the very real contributions workers make to the success of a company.

Chevron employees aren’t trying to own the company—they’re trying to ensure they aren’t discarded like trash after building the $6.5 billion asset that Chevron is now profiting from.

Let me educate you a bit. Courts don’t “toss out” claims of constructive dismissal or unfair treatment when employees act in good faith to protect their rights. In fact, courts are increasingly aware of the imbalance of power between corporations and individuals. Chevron’s scare tactics about legal fees are nothing more than empty threats—Chevron has never won attorney fees in labor cases. Judges see through this nonsense and recognize when companies are trying to manipulate the system to avoid accountability.

And as for your veiled threat that this will “impact your career at CNRL,” let’s be clear: If companies like CNRL want loyalty and productivity, they’ll respect employees who stand up for their rights, not punish them for seeking fairness. The only people who think standing up for yourself is a career risk are those too cowardly to ever do it themselves.

Lastly, if you think protecting workers’ rights is “nonsense,” then perhaps you should take a moment to reflect on the fact that without those rights, none of us would have minimum wage, overtime pay, or safe working conditions. Your suggestion to “just buy Chevron stock” reeks of ignorance and blind allegiance to corporate power. Employees are not disposable, and they have every right to fight for what they’ve earned.

If you want to own the company and profit from this sale then just buy some Chevron stock. Otherwise, you are just an employee. The courts will toss you out pretty quick for this type of nonsense. It will get back to CNRL as well and impact your career.

Here are our steps

1. Sign the offer.
2. On the same day, send a demand letter to Chevron outlining the debt they owe you for the losses you’ll face until retirement. This step is critical to registering your claim.
3. Contact your MP and MPP. Inform them about the $6.5 billion leaving the country while Canadian employees are being left behind with diminished compensation. Highlight the impact on workers and local economies.
4. Decide your next move: You can either hire a lawyer (possibly on a contingency basis), take the matter to court yourself, or drop it altogether.

If you choose to do step 1, make sure step 2 happens on the same day to preserve your rights. Acting quickly and decisively is key.

This formatting ensures the numbers remain intact.

Here’s a more concise, direct version of the reply incorporating your points:

The claim that the value of the sale is irrelevant ignores the core issue: Chevron employees built the $6.5 billion asset with their work, expertise, and dedication. They’re not asking for charity—they’re asking for fair compensation for the sacrifices they made and the risks they now face being handed off to CNRL with diminished benefits and uncertain futures.

1. Lawyer Fees Are an Empty Threat

The suggestion that Chevron will win attorney fees is a standard scare tactic. Courts in Canada recognize the power imbalance between corporations and employees and are extremely reluctant to award fees against workers in labor cases. Chevron has never won attorney fees in such cases—not once. These threats are designed to silence employees, not because they hold legal merit.

2. Collective Action is Powerful

When employees act together, Chevron’s ability to intimidate collapses. Multiple claims expose systemic issues, making it harder to dismiss individual cases. Courts take these seriously, and Chevron will feel the pressure of mounting legal costs and reputational damage.

3. Employees Built This Asset

The argument that employees didn’t “own the asset” is a distraction. Every dollar of the $6.5 billion sale is a result of their efforts. To profit off their work and then force them into lesser positions with worse terms is unjust and exploitative.

4. What Employees Should Do Now

Employees don’t need to commit to costly lawsuits right away. All they need to do is send a demand letter to Chevron outlining the debt owed based on losses until retirement, including diminished benefits and risks from the transition. This confirms Chevron’s obligation. Afterward, employees can decide to pursue it themselves, hand it to a lawyer on a contingency basis, or drop it altogether.

5. Fair Compensation is the Minimum

The request for $300,000 isn’t greed—it’s basic fairness. That’s less than 1% of the sale proceeds for a group of employees who created the very value Chevron is cashing in on. Courts won’t ignore this imbalance or Chevron’s attempt to intimidate those seeking what they deserve.

Bottom Line: Employees have nothing to lose by standing their ground. Courts understand the imbalance of power, and a unified effort can force Chevron to account for their actions. This isn’t about greed—it’s about justice, fairness, and holding Chevron accountable.

Don’t think accepting the offer is good advice.

Also stating to think some of the comments might be coming from CNRL people.

The value of the sale is completely irrelevant to what employees receive. Employees did not own the asset and thus do not participate in 1% of the proceeds. Employees keep their same pay and benefits under the new owner, nothing more. You will find your CNRL job different but not materially different and not worth paying a lawyer for five years then having Chevron hand you their attorney fee when they prevail.

Who knew seal clubbers were so incredibly greedy? Chevron has merged five times in the last 20 years and nobody ever complained and whined for $300,000. This is a first.

This comment has drawn an unusual number of downvotes compared to upvotes, and it makes you wonder—who would downvote something like this unless they’re Chevron (CVX) loyalists trying to suppress the truth? CBU is clearly feeling the heat.

Here’s a fail-safe approach: accept the offer, but immediately send a demand letter outlining the debt Chevron owes you. Calculate the difference in compensation you will lose until retirement and preserve your right to collect on this debt later. It’s about protecting your future and not letting them manipulate the situation.

CBU is scared because employees are waking up to their rights—rights that Chevron doesn’t want you to know about. The lawyers they provided have clear conflicts of interest, and now people are finally being shown the truth.

Plain and simple, Chevron made 6.5 billion dollars—that’s with a “B”—on the backs of its employees. And what do they do? Discard those very people like damaged goods, handing them over to a company with inferior compensation while using intimidation tactics to keep them from seeking fair treatment.

What’s fair? At the very least, $300K for every employee who transitions to CNRL. In the grand scheme, this is only around $60 million—less than 1% of the wealth these employees generated for Chevron. It’s a drop in the bucket for the company but life-changing for those affected.

Stand your ground. Fight for your rights. Demand what you deserve. You’ve built this company’s success, and now it’s time to make them honor the value you’ve created.

so reddit children are now a legit source of info? say it aint so

You’re wacko. Read this. Way more negative than positive.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/1gyam2b/thoughts_on_working_for_cnrl_as_an_ex_devon_or/

Everyone I know at CNRL likes it pretty well and considers the pay and benefits better than Chevron. You won't find anyone whining about layoffs - they haven't had any!

CBU are very scared now. They know that someone is showing people their rights other than the hired lawyers (which was a conflict of interest)

Plain and simple, the company made 6.5 Billion (with a B) dollars form the work of the people and then throw them out as damaged and used goods to a lower position and they try to manipulate the system and intermediate them so they do not seek compensation

What is fair is 300K as a minimum to everyone accepts CNRL position. This is fair compensation and in the big scheme of things it is only 60 Million or so which is less than 1% of the value these people have created for Chevron.

Stand your grounds and fight for your rights and what you deserve.

How about if you get laid off you go out and do your best to find another job instead of wasting endless time and effort trying to play the victim and get something for nothing.

bottom line if you’re a Canadian employee thinking about turning down the offer, get proper legal advice and be very cautious of using AI. I think the posts shared here show just how offside it can be, especially if your prompts aren’t formulated well.

You would have to work at CNRL for a while to demonstrate the pay or benefits are different. The base pay will be the same. The pension will be the Chevron scheme grandfathered. The bonus will be according to the CNRL scheme and as long as the potential range looks ok, it can be very lumpy just like Chevron based on a mix of personal and corp performance. Then you would have to drill second to tertiary benefits like paid leave, free counseling, etc. I don't think you'll get much traction on those unless you can show you were using them a lot at Chevron.

There will be more than 3-4 that file and there will be a lot of aspects that make the positions not equivalent.

We were compensated (past tense) above average, let’s see you say that at CNRL when their stock price stays flat for 5 years.

@1mwu, Or it could simply be normal everyday Chevron employees and contractors seeing how pathetic and absurd the attempts to be relevant the Chevron younger guard groupthink is. There are layoffs everyday, everywhere. No one is special or a protected class and deserving of victim status "just because" and merits some sort of legal payoff. Most of the cases that are referenced are essentially fraudulent by bad actors. Everyone else's paychecks and future employment options from all companies, not just CVX gets impacted by these fraudulent schemes. It's the equivalent of insurance fraud where everyone else has to pay for a few whiny bad players who figured out how to game the system with lawyers. Sure, you may think you are smart and you came out ahead, but all you are in those cases are a different type of parasite, sponging off of others, your coworkers, your neighbors. Go ahead, make fun of common sense posts. We've seen it again and again on these boards. how bout some terms like "bootlickers" and "corporate shills"? We are compensated well above average for the type of work we do. But of course you can't seem to find another job and make an honest living? Bless your heart.

If more than 3 or 4 CBU staff file suit, Chevron will simply assign a single inside or outside labor attorney to manage all the cases because they will all be similar legally. There will actually be a lot of synergy for Chevron handling the cases this way and a paralegal can manage all the admin. Their position will be very clear - you were offered a job equivalent to your existing one and chose to resign. You would actually have a possibly stronger case if you took the CNRL job and then worked to demonstrate that it was not equivalent. You can't really prove it was not equivalent if you didn't take it you are just speculating. Chevron will say if you didn't like the CNRL job, that between you and CNRL.

There are a lot of downvotes on some of these comments, it could be either people that have decided to go to CNRL and are trying to convince themselves they made the right decision or they are from chevron and they are trying to deter people from fighting.

How they’ve handled this is all is terrible. Re read the townhall transcripts where everyone was assured multiple times how open and transparent CNRL would be with employees and how regularly they would be responding, “just email them”…I know I’m not the only one who has not had questions answered at all or whose questions somewhat made into the FAQ but in reality were not actually answered. It took more than two weeks for me to see some vague resemblance of my questions in the FAQ. Reasonable questions that a reasonable person would ask to evaluate a job offer.

Have they ever come out to say if they would pay the CBU LTIP? The townhall transcript says they would follow up, but I don’t believe they’ve ever actually updated employees on that.

If you want to understand how afraid Chevron is of litigation, especially given their legally weak position, just look at the frantic pace of their down voting efforts in this thread and the rush to get money flowing from the asset sale. It would be interesting to see what happens if one of these cases leads to a court injunction, stalling the sale until the labor disputes are resolved. That would certainly make MW tremble as he tries to reassure Wall Street about the expected Q4 cash windfall.

Chevron should be offering at least $300K to each employee transitioning to CNRL, accounting for the risks of layoffs and the inequitable packages being forced on them. Anything less is not only unjust but exposes their glaring disregard for the employees who built the value they’re now profiting from.

While Chevron might avoid settling purely to discourage more claims, the decision to settle often depends on more than just the merits of the case. Litigation isn’t only about winning or losing—it’s also about time, costs, and risk management.

Corporate legal strategies are complex. Even if Chevron believes it can win, the costs of prolonged litigation can be significant. Their external legal teams charge steep rates, sometimes nearing $1,000 per hour. Cases that drag on for months or years can cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars per lawsuit—even before trial begins. At some point, the economics of fighting every case outweigh the benefits of maintaining a hardline stance.

In this case, Chevron has effectively thrown its dedicated employees into the lions' den after years of loyal service, without proper compensation or equivalent offers. Instead of handling the transition responsibly, they have maneuvered the system to sidestep their obligations, profiting immensely from the $6.5 billion sale of assets to CNRL. The very people who helped create that value are now being discarded.

Given Chevron’s reputation and past controversies, judges in the King’s Bench are unlikely to look favorably upon such actions. Courts often consider the broader implications of corporate behavior, especially when dealing with companies that profit significantly while neglecting their moral and legal responsibilities. A corporation that gains billions from the hard work of its employees yet refuses to treat them fairly invites scrutiny—and potential consequences.

Settlements happen not just because companies fear losing but because they’re a practical way to manage costs, avoid bad publicity, and limit exposure to greater risks. For Chevron, the combination of its questionable actions, the reputational damage, and the mounting legal expenses make their stance less tenable over time. Employees who are persistent and well-prepared have the potential to push back and secure the justice they deserve.

Settling nuisance suits attracts more which is why Chevron will NOT settle unless they fear losing at trial based on merits.

Chevron’s legal strategy often involves protracted litigation, a tactic known as "legal sparring." This approach is designed to exhaust opponents’ resources and resolve through extended court battles. While it may seem intimidating, this strategy can backfire, as it leads to substantial costs for Chevron itself. For example, their external law firms reportedly charge around $1,000 per hour. Even initial steps like responding to a demand letter and filing an affidavit can easily rack up $100,000 in expenses. Over several months, these costs can skyrocket, making settlement a more appealing option for the company.

Courts are increasingly aware of Chevron's tactics and the power imbalance that comes with their deep pockets. Judges often factor this into decisions, and Chevron has lost numerous cases without being awarded court costs. Their bluff often involves threats and long delays, but they tend to back off once the mounting legal expenses and risks of setting a bad precedent become apparent.

It’s also worth noting that while Chevron may be capable of managing multiple lawsuits simultaneously, the cumulative legal fees and risk of losing even one case—potentially setting a precedent—can influence their decisions to settle.

In summary, while Chevron's legal team may appear formidable, they are far from unbeatable. Persistence, preparation, and strategic litigation can work in your favor. Don’t let their tactics intimidate you. By letting them face the burden of prolonged legal costs and focusing on building a strong case, you can shift the balance of power and increase your chances of success.

If CBU is in the wrong, they will offer to settle. If not, they will fight you in court as far and long as they can and they will, like Devon, ask the judge to award them court costs if they win. I have seen Chevron elsewhere fight as many as 100 suits at once with a staff of 3 attorneys (and prevail).

Having navigated the layoff process at Chevron, here’s my take on the CBU legal approach: it’s surprisingly weak. Their tactics rely heavily on intimidation, but don’t be fooled—it’s all smoke and mirrors. In my experience, they were outmaneuvered without even involving a lawyer.

If you’re in a similar position, here’s my advice: skip the lawyer. Their strategy hinges on wearing you down—financially and emotionally—hoping you’ll give up. Instead, flip the script. Leverage the tools at your disposal, like ChatGPT, to prepare and strategize effectively. Play the long game and make the clock work for you, not against you.

Stay strong, stay smart, and take control of the process.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/1gyam2b/thoughts_on_working_for_cnrl_as_an_ex_devon_or/

Google “Thoughts on working for CNRL as an ex Devon or Shell employee” . You can read about how it went for some that went to CNRL as part of past acquisitions.

Just because it’s taken that case that long doesn’t mean that will be annother’s experience. It all depends on your own circumstances.

Why would I want to wait five years AND pay for an attorney AND risk getting nothing?

What is reasonable in the circumstances is highly fact dependent to the individual, which is why it is so important to get your own legal advice on your own circumstances.

Were any details shared about how different the total comp was? What is their main proof that their offer was not substantially similiar?