Labour and Employment Law Blog

In the spirit of the season, our December blog posts provide “legal gifts” for employers. Last week, we confirmed that occasional flexibility in start times does not create a contractual right to start work later. This week, our legal gift comes from the British Columbia Supreme Court decision of Belanger v. Tsetsaut Ventures Ltd., 2019 BCSC 560, where the Court ...

Sometimes, employers allow employees to arrive at work later than their official start time. Employers can take comfort in the fact that this occasional permissiveness does not mean that employees can demand a later start time.

In Peternel v. Custom Granite & Marble Ltd., 2019 ONSC 5064, the Ontario Divisional Court held that an employer’s flexibility regarding start ...

A recent Ontario Superior Court decision highlights why it is important for purchasers of a business to carefully consider and address employment liability issues. In Manthadi v. ASCO Manufacturing, 2019 ONSC 5572 (“Manthadi”), the Court ordered the purchaser of a business to pay an employee damages based on a 20 month reasonable notice period, despite the fact that ...

Employers will continue to face challenges in the workplace arising from the legalization of cannabis use. The recent case of BC Rapid Transit Company v. CUPE Local 7000 highlights the complex tensions between employee privacy and public safety, as well as the difficulties employers can have in managing cases where employees exercise their right to use cannabis.

This part ...

Monday, October 21, 2019 is Federal Election Day. Under the Canada Elections Act, employees who are eligible to vote are entitled to three consecutive hours of time off to do so. These three consecutive hours (“voting time”) must fall within the following voting hours on polling day.

Employers who operate safety sensitive worksites will find the recent decision of the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal in Everitt v Homewood Health Inc., 2019 AHRC 36 of interest.  In this decision, the complainant, Brad Everitt, was a member of a building trade union and worker in the construction industry.  The respondent, Homewood Health Inc., administered a rapid site ...

Employers of unionized workforces often face different challenges and legal issues than employers of non-union workforces. The biggest difference is that in a unionized workforce the terms and conditions of employment are governed by a collective agreement negotiated by the union, as opposed to individual employment agreements negotiated between the employer and ...

Everyone has body odour, and occasionally, it can affect the workplace. Take the examples of a long-time, excellent employee who develops a condition which results in severe and “offensive” body odour; or an individual with fragrance allergies. These issues raise various questions. What is the responsibility of the “offending” employee, or the employee with ...

The Ontario Court of Appeal in Dawe v. The Equitable Life Insurance Company of Canada, 2019 ONCA 512 (“Dawe”) confirmed that 24 months constitutes “the high end of the appropriate range of reasonable notice” for employee dismissal, and only “exceptional circumstances” will support a notice period in excess of 24 months. 

At the time of his dismissal, the ...

Many employers seem to think there is an advantage to having a fixed-term employment contract with an employee.  The usual rationales are that it sets the parties’ expectations for a period of employment and that either party can walk away at the end of the term, without any further obligation to the other.   These are reasonable rationales…when the employment ...