Monday, December 12th, 2011
Last month I was consulted by a woman with respect to a new employment agreement that she wanted reviewed. The employment opportunity presented to her was by a company that had purchased the software company she was currently employed with for the past 19 years. Her salary remained the same, as did the total of her bonus, although the bonus structure was altered to reflect seemingly unattainable goals. While the new bonus structure did in fact reflect the purchasing company’s exact bonus structure with all of its existing employees, this arrangement was originally her main concern.
Read the rest of this post »Tuesday, September 27th, 2011
“I am at a party on my day off and a coworker hurls racial insults at me or makes sexual suggestive comments to me.” Am I protected by my employer’s harassment and discrimination policy? Likewise, if I am the one doing the hurling or suggestive commenting, am I subject to discipline under my employer’s policies?
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, July 28th, 2011
On July 15, 2011, several workers showed up to work as usual at IQT Solutions, only to be told that their employer had unexpectedly shut down its Canadian operations: three call centres, one in Ontario and two in Quebec. About 1,200 IQT employees were suddenly unemployed with no final paycheque, vacation pay or notice of termination.
Read the rest of this post »Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
A recent case from the Alberta Court of Appeal suggests that Honda damages, previously known as Wallace damages, are becoming less of a threat for employers in wrongful dismissal suits.
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
In a recent survey of 500 information technology and data security workers, 40 percent said they could easily use their knowledge of encryption keys, shared passwords, weak controls and loopholes in data security programs to make off with information, or hold their organization’s data hostage. And 31 percent said that, even if they no longer worked for the company, with their knowledge of the systems they could access encryption keys and authorization codes and hack in remotely to snoop, secretly alter files or shut down the data system.
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
An oft-overlooked issue is the amount of notice that employees must give their employer when they leave. According to…
Read the rest of this post »Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
A recent case out of the Quebec Superior Court Lysecky v. United Parcel Service of Canada Limited 2010 QCCS 5098 is indicative how the question of “moral damages” is still unsettled law.
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, May 5th, 2011
As we all know, in the late 1990’s the Supreme Court of Canada held that employers had a duty to act in good faith in the course of terminating the employment relationship. In Wallace v. United Grain Growers, our High Court found that the employer had breached that duty, and the majority held that the remedy for such a breach would be to extend the applicable notice period. Over the following decade, claims for “Wallace damages” became commonplace, to say the least. Unfortunately, many courts seemed more than willing to oblige plaintiffs, finding bad faith in all sorts of circumstances that, while not demonstrative of perfect practice in the course of dismissal, hardly seemed to indicate conduct taken in bad faith.
Read the rest of this post »Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011
Long gone are the days when employees would receive pay cheques at the end of the week and possibly a Christmas bonus each year. Compensation for employees, particularly senior employees, has become increasingly complex as employers seek to incent specific behaviours among their executives. In addition, changing tax laws and the wild gyrations of the stock markets have made stock options more difficult to administer and less appealing to employees.
Read the rest of this post »Monday, February 14th, 2011
There has been a lot of press in the U.S. last week over the so-called “Facebook firing case”. An employee of the…
Read the rest of this post »Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
Dealing with disabled employees can be a vexing issue for most employers. A number of questions arise when an employee takes time off either temporarily or permanently due to a disability, whether physical or mental. These issues include:
Read the rest of this post »Tuesday, January 25th, 2011
Pursuant to my blog post of January 11, 2011 discussing the implications of firing by email when an employee files a complaint under human rights legislation, Is it okay to fire an employee by email? It may depend on what course of legal action your former employee pursues.
Read the rest of this post »Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
Can an employer fire a white employee for using the n-word if it lets black employees say it?
Read the rest of this post »Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
A colleague, and good friend, asked me a very interesting question this week: Is it okay to fire an employee by email?
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, January 6th, 2011
In order to be in a position to dismiss an employee for cause, it is critical that the employer have appropriate documentation. However, many managers and supervisors unwittingly place their employers in a weakened legal position by failing to use performance and salary reviews properly.
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Leslie D Foreman:Andrew Taillon:
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