In Evans v Avalon Ford (1996) Limited, 2015 NLTD(G) 100, the employee, Mr. Evans, was Fleet Manager at the Avalon Ford auto dealership, the largest Ford dealership in Atlantic Canada (the “Dealership”), for more than 12 years. On the morning of Thursday, June 10, 2010, a meeting was called by Mr. Wilkins, the Dealership’s owner to discuss an error regarding the delivery of a commercial vehicle without appropriate paperwork being completed.
There is another court decision out of the well-known tragedy in Toronto involving five workers who fell from the thirteenth floor of a high-rise building on December 24, 2009. The men’s duties on the date of the accident included pouring concrete on balconies they were using a swing stage to access.
On May 21, 2013 Chris Boyle, an employee of R.D. Longard Services Limited (“Longard”), died on the job after being electrocuted. Longard was charged under the Nova Scotia Occupational Health and Safety Act. The charges included not taking every reasonable precaution for the health and safety of Mr. Boyle. By decision dated April 17, 2015, Judge Anne Derrick found Longard guilty. Sentencing is to take place later.
We have written a number of times regarding cases that significantly depart from the so-called one month per year of service rule of thumb. Yet another case has illustrated the risk an employer runs in assuming their liability will be capped at one month per year of service.
The Nova Scotia Occupational Health and Safety regime is undergoing a complete overhaul, with potential huge impacts for employers respecting cost of compliance and risk of liability. The changes are part of the five-year Workplace Safety Strategy, a joint initiative between the Department of Labour and Advanced Education and the Workers’ Compensation Board. The Strategy was developed in direct response to a recognition that the old system—a piecemeal assortment of rules and regulations—was tough to navigate and produced inconsistency in interpretation and enforcement.
A recent post cautioned employers to beware of using the one month per year of service “rule of thumb”. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has once again affirmed that, depending on the circumstances, courts are willing to award short service employees significantly more than one month per year of service.
One of the questions at the forefront of many employers’ minds when they are considering terminating an employee without cause is how much it is going to cost. Unless there is a written employment contract with an express termination clause, an employer’s obligation is to provide reasonable notice of termination.
In June 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada weighed in on the issue of random alcohol testing in Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, Local 30 v. Irving Pulp & Paper, Ltd, 2013 SCC 34 (“Irving”). Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Alberta Arbitration Board (the “Board”) recently issued a decision concerning the random drug and alcohol testing policy of Suncor Energy Inc., Oil Sands (“Suncor”). The union in this case, Unifor Local 707A, (“Unifor”) represents over 3,000 employees at Suncor’s oil sands operation in Fort McMurray, Alberta.
Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, Local 30 v. Irving Pulp & Paper Ltd., 2013 SCC 34
On June 14, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a decision that affirmed the role of alcohol testing in the workplace. The Court upheld the arbitrator’s decision which prohibited the employer’s random alcohol testing policy.
The decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal in Imperial Oil Ltd. v. Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union of Canada, Local 900, [2009] O.J. No. 2037 [“Imperial”] marks yet another victory for employee privacy rights in the collective bargaining sector.