Is it legal to take back a retroactive raise?
I work for a pretty well known company based out of Quebec. I was informed of an increase to my salary that would be retroactively effective from Jan 2026 and would be paid out in my next paycheck. I didn’t sign any document explicitly stating this, but it was part of my annual evaluation which my manager and I both signed. Later I saw the new salary reflect in our HR platform. Due to some circumstances, I had to resign and couldn’t wait till after I received my next paycheck that would include the backpay (in hindsight, I should have waited). Even after I resigned, my salary in the HR platform remained the new number after my raise and nothing about it potentially getting retracted was communicated to me. BUT when I got my paycheck, I saw that it didn’t include the backpay AND did not reflect my new salary. While investigating, I saw that my salary in the HR platform was also reverted back to the old number…….
Brought this up to HR and learnt that they took back my raise since apparently “raises are reserved for employees who are continuing their role in the company”. Is this legal??? Considering the fact that the raise was retroactive (and the fact that this was never communicated to me)… I believe I should still be owed the backpay for the time that I WAS an active employee (Jan-April). I’m waiting on HR to send me the policy they’re basing this raise retraction on but in the meantime, if anyone has any legal knowledge, I would love advice on this.
I feel particularly upset because I even gave this company an extra week on top of my two week notice because of my close relationship with my manager and coworkers. I feel blindsided and disturbed that they would do something like this in bad faith. It’s even more surprising given the size of the company, but maybe this is common…