Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
The Ontario Court of Appeal decision in Jones v. Tsige deals with a novel claim, one for damages for invasion of personal privacy. This decision has garnered a great deal of comment in the popular press in the time since its release. Is the decision as radical as some writers have suggested? What are the implications for privacy rights in Ontario, and, in particular, the conduct of employers and employees?
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Following the increased occurrence of bullying in schools among Canadian youths aged 11 to 16, and high-profile suicides of young persons due to bullying, several jurisdictions in Canada are in the process of enacting anti-bullying laws. The aim of the laws is…
Read the rest of this post »Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
It’s easy to see that that role of workers’ unions is changing, and unions no longer have the respect or power they once had. A couple of recent events in Ontario make that increasingly clear. Is this just how union relations work in the globalized and unsettled economy? Are unionized workers’ demands too great for these austere times?
Read the rest of this post »Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
A January 25, 2012, British research study indicates that people who work 11 or more hours a day have double the odds of becoming depressed compared with those who don’t work overtime. But why is this important for us as employers to know?
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
Many people continue to deny others equal treatment, intentionally and not. Law Times offers a recent example of alleged systemic discrimination; the case Law Society of Upper Canada v. Selwyn Milan McSween raises the question of whether racism hinders black lawyers’ participation in big law firms in Ontario.
Read the rest of this post »Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
The National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2011 is the current departmental standard and was approved on November 21, 2011. The NOC was jointly released for free by Statistics Canada and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) today and includes…
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, January 26th, 2012
Last year I told you about the plan to release a voluntary national standard for mentally healthy workplaces. The standard aims to help Canadian employers support the psychological health and safety of their employees by providing them with the necessary guidelines and tools to achieve measurable improvements in psychological health and safety in the workplace.
Read the rest of this post »Monday, January 23rd, 2012
Hunter Harrison, the former Chief Executive Officer of Canadian National Railway (CNR), faces a dilemma in dealing with his obligations under a non-compete covenant to his former employer. Harrison is being pursued by CNR competitor Canadian Pacific Railway to assume the position of CEO, but taking that position might violate the non-compete agreement.
Read the rest of this post »Friday, January 20th, 2012
Since Honda v. Keays, employment law and human resources practitioners have been watching how the law regarding bad faith dismissals has developed, in particular, the assessment of moral damages. A recently published decision has added some clarity to the moral damages question. The case, Canada (Attorney General) v. Tipple (2011) dealt with the well known case of Douglas Tipple.
Read the rest of this post »Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
In some cases, business leaders fail to recognize that employee travel falls within the physical scope of workplace activities. In other cases, decision-makers believe that only those travelling to international high-risk destinations require any type of security protection. In most organizations, there is also a gap in knowledge when it comes to travel security, contributing to a lack of risk awareness and fragmented ownership of the function within the organization.
Read the rest of this post »Monday, January 16th, 2012
The federal government gave royal assent to Bill C-13, Keeping Canada’s Economy and Jobs Growing Act on December 15, 2011. Several of the measures enacted have an impact on employment law for federally regulated workplaces. One of the measures amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to eliminate the mandatory retirement age for federally regulated employees.
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, January 12th, 2012
On December 6, 2011, the Internet Child Pornography Reporting Regulations were registered in the Canada Gazette and came into force. The goal of the regulations is to establish a framework necessary to implement the mechanics for the designated organizations receiving reports and service providers who report to discharge their duties under An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service.
Read the rest of this post »Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
Employers should never accept resignations from employees that are upset. It simply casts a “wider net of possible financial exposure” if things turn nasty. In other words, judges or juries probably won’t sympathize with the issue of resignation acceptance if the employee is genuinely and legitimately upset (not because someone misplaced their red stapler).
Read the rest of this post »Monday, January 9th, 2012
Valuable information can come from diverse sources. Consider this case I uncovered via the daily commuter newspaper: a female employee complained that a third-party service provider harassed her. The incident took place on the employer’s premises, but the alleged harasser was not employed directly by the employer. He was employed by the company that serviced the company’s office photocopiers…
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, January 5th, 2012
I have often written and spoken about misclassification of workers, specifically that many organizations agree to call workers “contractors” or “consultants” even though they are, in reality, employees. The bottom line is that our courts and government agencies, including the Canada Revenue Agency, will not be swayed by the terms used in a document or the manner in which parties describe their relationship. They will look at the reality of the situation, and…
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Henry J. Chang:
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