Lay Offs Without Exposure
Business is down and the workforce is idle. The office staff are gossiping at the coolers and the plant employees are standing around exchanging jokes. Confident that this is just a passing phase until the economy turns around, management decides to temporarily lay off staff. Someone calls the Ministry of Labour which informs them that […]
Do You Have Just Cause?
Why do employers invoke just cause as a defense to a wrongful dismissal action? Sometimes the employee’s behaviour is so egregious that the employer feels that it has no choice. In other instances, employers know that their case is weak but they want to set an example for other staff. Finally, for some employers, this […]
Why Employment Agreements?
Strategies to curb soaring severance costs have become even more pressing. Recent court decisions have removed the traditional ceiling of 24 months’ of notice. Other judgments have diminished the importance of the traditional factors such as character of employment as significantly affecting the amount of notice. The effect is that even administrative employees with long […]
The Imperative of Workplace Investigations
When a manager’s assistant confides in H.R. that she is being sexually harassed; when staff come forward that they are being abused by their supervisor; when a visible minority employee complains of racial slurs, what should the employer response be? Panic? Fire the suspected employees? Or maybe the complainants? The answer is none of the […]
