Canadian Employment Law Today

PM40065782 Emplo y ment Law Today Canad a ian www.employmentlawtoday.com June 25, 2014 Disabled employee fi red for misleading employer pg. 4 Difference between the way worker carried herself at work and that observed outside of work like 'night and day' New Ontario leaves ONTARIO employers will soon be obligated to grant leaves to workers in more circum- stances. The Ontario legislature has passed amend- ments to the Employment Standards Act, 2000, adding three more types of unpaid leave, effective Oct. 29: Family caregiver — up to eight weeks off to care for a family member with a serious medical condition without a signifi cant risk of death. Critically ill child-care — up to 37 weeks off for a parent to care for a critically ill child. Crime-related death or disappearance — up to 52 weeks off for parents of a child missing because of a crime and up to 104 weeks if the child is believed to be de- ceased. IN SHORT Option to keep working must be clear for dismissed workers pg. 3 Employer's offer as mitigation must be clear ASK AN EXPERT pg. 2 Employees who exceed sick day alotment with Brian Johnston Getting ready for Canada's stringent anti-spam legislation Organizations need to take steps to ensure employees comply with CASL BY SHANNON ANTHONY A SWEEPING piece of federal legislation is poised to have a profound impact on your organization's IT, marketing and business development initiatives. Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) should be a top priority for organizations across the country. at's because CASL regulates all forms of commercial electronic messages (CEMs) originating from orga- nizations, including emails, text and voice messages, as well as the sending of images. In the digital era we live in, one would be hard-pressed to fi nd an organization whose employees did not engage in the commer- cial transmission of these sorts of messages — and if yours is like virtually every business in Canada, then it will fall under the juris- diction of CASL when the legislation comes into eff ect on July 1, 2014. CASL is the result of years of countless complaints by individuals and businesses tired of being inundated by unsolicited electronic messages, commonly known as spam. In response, the new law covers any CEM sent with the intent to purchase, sell, lease or barter a good, product, service or land, or even promote the person connected to those commercial activities. is covers the gamut of CEMs an organization might transmit in the course of regular business. CASL doesn't ban commercial email or text messages, of course. But beginning in Acknowledgment of serious privacy breach saves hospital worker's job AN ONTARIO arbitrator has reinstated a hospital worker who was fi red for accessing and disclosing patient health information without permission. e employee was a health assistant, hired in 2001, with the Georgian Bay Hospi- tal (GBGH). It operates two hospitals — in Midland, Ont., and Penetanguishene, Ont. GBGH had a policy protecting the con- fi dentiality of patient health records, which were only to be accessed by workers in the "circle of care" — practitioners who were directly attending to the patient's health needs. Patient consent was also required to access or disclose health information. GBGH staff were trained on the policy and signed an agreement that breaching it would lead to discipline up to and including termination of employment. On May 19, 2012, a friend of the employee was in an accident and was taken to GBGH. e employee called an X-ray technician at the hospital and asked if the friend was one of the technician's patients, which the tech- nician confi rmed and discussed the injury. e employee shared the information with her husband and the friend's brothers. e X-ray technician reported the inci- dent to her manager, who completed a risk occurrence report for GBGH's privacy offi - cer. e privacy offi cer interviewed the em- ployee and launced a privacy audit of all the employee's accesses of medical records over the previous year. COMPLY on page 6 » BREACH on page 2 » CREDIT: ELTORO69/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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