Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
By Olivier Lamoureux In Séguin v. Dessau Inc., a tribunal, the Commission des relations du travail (CRT), upheld the dismissal of an employee who had behaved in a vexatious manner toward a subordinate he was enamored with. The dismissed employee had refused to collaborate in the employer’s investigation into an incident of psychological harassment.
It’s March, a time when employers find themselves dealing with office pools, college rivalries, and a tendency for sports fans to shift their attention from work to the college basketball national championship tournament. The distraction of the “big dance” can cause even the best employees to slack off as they follow games during the workday […]
The U.S. Department of Labor will likely propose changes to its overtime regulations this spring, Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez told lawmakers March 18. President Obama last March instructed DOL to simplify its rules and raise its salary threshold defining which workers are exempt from overtime. To be considered exempt from the minimum wage […]
One of my colleagues did an evil thing last month: He encouraged me to give NBC’s The Blacklist a try. Ever since, I’ve been hooked on James Spader’s character, Raymond “Red” Reddington. Without spoiling anything for the uninitiated, Red is a fixture on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, a supremely enterprising international underworld mercenary, […]
by Leslie Silverman In his 2015 State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama pressed Congress to “pass a law that makes sure a woman is paid the same as a man for doing the same work.” Although the president’s plea for the passage of stronger pay discrimination laws is unlikely to sway the Republican-controlled […]
by Andrew Bratt and Megan Rolland Canadian human rights legislation generally requires employers to accommodate the disabilities of their employees up to the point of undue hardship. In the recent case of Pourasadi v. Bentley Leathers Inc. (2015 HRTO 138), the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario considered whether undue hardship was reached in the context […]
by Mark I. Schickman One of my earliest cases involved a client who ran a livery service—with a fleet of luxury cars to drive passengers all over town. But neither his cars nor his drivers were properly licensed, and his vehicles were impounded and the drivers were arrested every time they hit the streets—such was […]
by Jerry Glass Leaders of organizations must navigate constantly changing times, whether it’s in the form of unpredictable events or the competitive marketplace in which they operate. When we look back at what has occurred nationally and globally since 2000, it’s nothing short of earth-shattering. We have had global health scares, including SARS, the H1N1 […]
Last week, entertainment powerhouse and former talk-show host Oprah Winfrey announced that Harpo Studios in Chicago will be closing its doors by the end of the year, resulting in the loss of nearly 200 jobs. In typical Oprah fashion, she delivered the bad news to her employees in person, probably ambling around the room, microphone-in-hand, […]
by John D.R. Craig, Christopher D. Pigott, and Brandon Wiebe In the January 2015 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour (SFL), the Court found, for the first time, that Canadian workers have a constitutional “right to strike.” In reaching this conclusion, the Supreme Court overturned almost 30 years of […]