contract-law legal-terms
Is it legal to renew my secondment job contract without my consent?
<p>I'm an employee of a company called <strong>X</strong>, And I works for a company called <strong>Y</strong> by a Secondment contract(Company <strong>X</strong> is in my country, <strong>Y</strong> is an overseas company.I'm getting paid through company X, by the money of company Y).</p>
<p>I started the job at july-2019 and after two years of time the company <strong>X</strong> has renewed my secondment at july-2021 BUT I'm not informed. I'm curious about the legality of renewing my secondment without informing me or without my consent.</p>

<p>We can't tell, since we haven't seen the relevant contracts. Ordinarily a secondment agreement would be between companies X and Y, and you are not a party to the contract, therefore your agreement is irrelevant. But we don't know if you are, legally speaking, a party to the contract. Check the secondment agreement that you signed to see what it says, and if you didn't, then that's one reason why your agreement to renew is not needed.</p>
<p>Note <a href="https://www.globalworkplaceinsider.com/2020/05/ten-essential-terms-of-secondment-agreements/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this article</a> with a South African perspective on such agreements. The first point is</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When agreeing to participate in a secondment, the terms of the
secondee’s employment contract will inevitably be varied. The
secondment agreement must therefore provide that the secondee agrees
to the variation of the terms of their employment. The employer must
therefore ensure that the secondee agrees to the arrangement before
concluding the secondment agreement. The secondee must be a party to
the agreement or otherwise consent to the terms affecting the
secondee</p>
</blockquote>
<p>though it is IMO a leap to conclude that the terms of your contract with X is <em>inevitably</em> varied. It might be: so check what your contract with X says. Did they unilaterally change the terms of your employment? Or is this reassignment consistent with those terms? Still, you have implicitly accepted such a reassignment by continuing for a year to work for Y without objecting to the renewal.</p>

<h2>You work at what your employer tells you to work at</h2>
<p>An employees duty is to follow the lawful and reasonable instructions of their employer. Secondment is not illegal and unlikely to be unreasonable.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Is it legal to renew my secondment job contract without my consent?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Your consent to the renewal, and therewith of the secondment, can be inferred from your continued (?) performance there. This has to do with the notion of <em>parties' conduct</em> in contract law.</p>
<p>If the renewal actually contains material variations compared to the initial contract, those variations are null and void for as long as your awareness of them is neither actual nor reasonably expected. The end-date in the renewal might be in this category unless your initial contract outlines the scenario of renewal by default.</p>

<p>You have a contract with company <strong>X</strong> and your responsibilities are defined by that contract. Fulfilling the contract between <strong>X</strong> and <strong>Y</strong> is a responsibility of whoever signed that contract on behalf of <strong>X</strong>. If your contract with <strong>X</strong> expires in two months and the contract between <strong>X</strong> and <strong>Y</strong> expires after one year you are not obliged to stay there after your contract is expired. Whoever signed that contract with <strong>Y</strong> on behalf of <strong>X</strong> will have to find a way to provide the missing ten months of work.</p>
<p>No responsibility from one side means also no legal obligations on the other, so signing the agreement without informing you was legal. Whether omitting to inform you was a sensible thing to do is a different matter.</p>
