Resources
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Six Months for Six Months: Is One Month’s Notice per One Month of Employment Reasonable?
August 2019
The past few years have seen a wave of Canadian court awards involving significant reasonable notice periods for short service employees, and the recent B.C. case of Greenlees v. Starline Windows Ltd, 2018 BCSC 1457 is a prime example.
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Employee’s Desire to Return to Work After Extended Medical Leave Not Enough to Trigger Duty to Accommodate
July 2019
In Katz et al. v. Clarke, 2019 ONSC 2188, the plaintiff had been hired by the defendant in 2000 as a front store manager. He had gone on sick leave due to a disability in July 2008 and had not returned to work after that. He had been disabled by two falls which had occurred outside the workplace and injured his knee and leg. As a result of the injuries, the plaintiff required a crutch and brace on a permanent basis. He received both short-term disability (“STD”) and long-term disability (“LTD”) benefits.
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Getting Back Together with an Ex: Constructive Dismissal and Offers of Re-Employment
July 2019
In the recently released Ontario Superior Court of Justice decision, Gent v. Strone Inc., 2019 ONSC 155, the Court reaffirmed that an employee’s duty to mitigate may well include accepting an offer of re-employment with his or her former employer.
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Terminating Post-Train Wreck? Let’s Talk Training — Failure to Train Someone Other than Plaintiff Can Erode Just Cause for Dismissal
July 2019
Richard Tymko was discharged from employment when the train on which he was working as a switchman derailed in the internal rail yard of a pulp mill in northern British Columbia. His employer, 4-D Warner Enterprises, terminated his employment because it alleged he failed to tell his co-worker, the trackmobile operator, to apply the train’s brakes and that caused the derailment.
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Unconscionability in the Gig Economy: Ontario Court of Appeal Tackles Uber’s Mandatory Arbitration Clause
June 2019
The Ontario Court of Appeal recently issued a decision in Heller v. Uber Technologies Inc., 2019 ONCA 1 and found that the mandatory arbitration clause in Uber’s form of services agreement was unconscionable.
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Statutory Changes to Collective Bargaining Framework in British Columbia
June 2019
The laws that govern both unionized and non-unionized workplaces in British Columbia are changing. Bill 8, the Employment Standards Amendments Act, 2019, received its first reading in the B.C. Legislature on April 29, 2019. On the following day, Bill 30, the Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, also was tabled for its first reading.
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Canada’s Digital Charter: The Problem of Trust in a Growing Digital World
June 2019
Canada’s privacy legislation may be headed for significant renovation.
On May 21, 2019, the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, The Honourable Navdeep Bains, introduced Canada’s Digital Charter. This Charter sets out 10 principles intended to guide the government’s decisions about the digital and data economy.
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What Could Go Wrong When an Employer Rehires a Former Employee It Previously Terminated, Without Cause, But Under the Cloud of a Sexual Harassment Complaint?
June 2019
It’s surprising that the question in the title of this article even needs to be asked. However, in the case of Colistro v. Tbaytel, 2019 ONCA 197 the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a lower court decision that considered just that scenario. The Court of Appeal’s distaste for the Employer’s conduct is apparent from the opening words of the decision:
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Summary of Changes to the B.C. Employment Standards Act
May 2019
On May 30, 2019, the Provincial Government passed changes to the B.C. Employment Standards Act (the “ESA”). The ESA is the law that sets minimum standards for workplaces in the province, and has not been significantly updated for 15 years. The changes are overwhelmingly employee-friendly.
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Final Amendments to the B.C. Labour Relations Code, Now in Effect!
May 2019
Further to our May 2, 2019, update, on May 30, 2019 the Provincial Government passed Bill 30-2019, Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2019. Everything in the First Reading was accepted, save for a change to the construction industry raid period.
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