Illegal Dismissal of my wife due to my resignation

Hi,

I used to work together with my wife in the same company. The company is a local sales company having 3 business divisions. I used to belong to the Industrial Division heading one of its technical teams while my wife is a sales manager for the Medical Division.

I resigned from the company last month, August 2014, and moved to another local company dealing with systems integration using a competing brand that my previous company is distributing.

After one week of my resignation, the owner talked to my wife and was asking her to leave the company as he claims that I am a direct competitor and that my wife's presence is not healthy and sighting loss of trust and confidence. However, the owner is not putting up any letter of dismissal to my wife yet expects my wife to leave the company by September 17.

In this case, we would like to ask the following:
1. Is there basis of this lost of trust and confidence whereas my wife is on the medical division while my old post was in their industrial division?

2. Can we question the dismissal because the company is not issuing a dismissal letter but just verbally advised?

I hope you can help us on this problem of ours. Thank you.

Bong Paggabao

1. Loss of trust and confidence, while sometimes subjective, is a very valid basis considering you are in competing companies and may result in conflict of interest.

2. There is no dismissal yet, so it may not be right at this time. Maybe the employer is giving your wife an option of resignation instead of termination.

Thanks Council, just want to clarify further.

In the industrial automation field, a systems integrator is not binded to use a single-brand. It just so happens that the company I moved in have people experts only in 1 brand but the plan of me going in is to expand its expertise in using other brands as well.

Meanwhile, the company I left is into distribution and selling a specific brand to systems integrators like the company I am working right now. In fact, there are 3 other systems integrator companies that are using the same competing products that my current company is using that are also current customers of the company I left. Also, I have met with the manufacturer's representative of the distribution company to show my current company's interest to work using their brand. So is the term competition still valid? A distributor competing with a systems integrator?

Also, my wife is handling the Medical Division while I used to be in the Industrial Division. Totally different areas.

On the dismissal, we have been advised by friends working for HR in other companies that the company has to follow due process. My wife was asked to resign, but she does not want to do this and is asking the company to write her a termination letter with its just cause. But the company is shying away from issuing any documentation but gave her until Sept. 19 (2 days extension from original date of Sept. 17) to do her clearance and leave the company. Can you please advise what is the best move to do?

Thank you.