Canadian Employment Law Today

April 17, 2019

Focuses on human resources law from a business perspective, featuring news and cases from the courts, in-depth articles on legal trends and insights from top employment lawyers across Canada.

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PM40065782 Emplo y ment Law Today Canad ad a ian www.employmentlawtoday.com 'Grumpy old man' fi red for bad behaviour at work, not age Worker's allegation that dismissal was because employer wanted a younger, cheaper replacement didn't hold up to scrutiny BY JEFFREY R. SMITH THE BRITISH COLUMBIA Human Rights Tribunal has determined that an older worker's termination of employment was due to issues with his performance and behaviour, not his age. Yaletown Mini Storage (YMS) operates a car wash in Vancouver and hired Jaff ar Jaff ar, 59, in November 2012 to be a car wash attendant. Over time, YMS found there were issues with Jaff ar's work performance and attitude and by August 2016, the company opted to give him a disciplinary letter. e letter, from the vice-president of YMS, outlined problems with Jaff ar's use of more vacation time than he was allowed, poor interaction with customers — referring to customer comments that he was the "grumpy old guy" on the afternoon shift — and not following an acceptable dress code. Following the disciplinary letter, YMS kept an eye on Jaff ar's conduct. However, the vice-president felt he was "generally ar- gumentative, negative and distrustful" and believed Jaff ar was causing a toxic work A few jokes and no complaint means no sexual harassment Worker said he was off ended by 3 jokes posted in lunchroom and off -colour comment by manager, but his anxiety was attributable to altercation with co-worker BY JEFFREY R. SMITH A BRITISH COLUMBIA worker who was off ended by a handful of sexualized jokes posted at work but didn't tell any- one about it was not subjected to sexual harassment, the B.C. Human Rights Tri- bunal has ruled. Envirogreen Technologies is a company that provides treatment and disposal solu- tions for contaminated materials and soils. Headquartered in Langley, B.C., Enviro- green operates a hazardous waste treatment facility in Princeton, B.C. e company operates its waste disposal business from April through December and runs in main- tenance mode during the winter months. e Princeton facility employed mostly labourer positions and the workforce was all male until August 2016, when Enviro- green hired Katrina Graham as facility ad- ministrator. At the time, there were 20 men April 17, 2019 Disability accommodation must be reasonable, not perfect pg. 3 Worker claimed employer discriminated against him when it didn't accommodate him in old job Sexually harassed CRA worker gets $60,000+ pg. 4 Response to complaint immediate, but then slowed; onus put on victim for solution WORKER DIDN'T on page 6 » NO EVIDENCE on page 7 » CREDIT: MONKEY BUSINESS IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK with Colin G. M. Gibson Ask the Expert pg. 2 Moving an employee to a fi xed-term contract

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