Canadian Employment Law Today

PM40065782 September 3, 2014 Emplo y ment Law Today Canad ad a ian www.employmentlawtoday.com Family farm gets exemption for kids THe SaSKaTcHeWan government has granted an exemption to a family- run chicken farm to allow the family's children to work there. The farm, near Endeavor, Sask., raises and process chickens manually with the help of neighbour children. Recently, an OHS offi cer found the farm to be in violation of regulations preventing children under 16 to work in a meat processing plant. The government stepped in and said children of the farm owners could work on the farm as long as no other children under 16 worked in the processing facility. IN SHORT additional duties lead to constructive dismissal pg. 3 Employee fi red after refusing to continue with Stuart Rudner employee's constructive dismissal accusation too hasty Reduction of responsibilities Vancouver city employee had taken on unoffi cially weren't part of regular job duties A ReSTRuCTuRinG of Vancouver city staff that resulted in some unoffi cial duties being taken away from a manager did not fundamentally change the manager's em- ployment contract, the British Columbia Supreme Court has ruled. Carlene Robbins was an employee of the City of Vancouver hired in 1975. In 2007, she was appointed to the position of man- ager, property use inspection. She had 29 employees reporting to her in the property use inspection branch. In April 2000, the assistant director of by-law compliance was also put in charge of the property use inspection and by-law administration branches. At the time, Rob- bins was the manager, records services and by-law administration, so she began report- ing to this assistant director for by-law ad- ministration maters while reporting to an- other director for records services. Robbins developed a close working re- lationship with the assistant director, who delegated some of her by-law enforcement work to Robbins. In particular, Robbins was involved in working with police and fi re of- fi cials in eff orts to close down marijuana grow-ops. Robbins wrote applications Worker suspended for harassment, fi red for retaliation An onTARio ARBiTRAToR has upheld the termination of an employee who sexually harassed a co-worker. e employee, referred to as R.V. in the judgment, was the subject of a complaint by a co-worker who was the only full-time fe- male employee at the Blue Mountain facility for Unimin Canada, a producer of industrial minerals. e female co-worker was comfortable in the male-dominated workplace, joking and exchanging coarse language with her co-workers. However, R.V. made fun of her size, eating habits and sexuality on several occasions, making her uncomfortable. He targeted the co-worker with belittling com- ments and attempts to embarrass her. He also made comments to other employees behind her back and they were getting tired of R.V.'s behaviour. e female co-worker fi led a complaint with Unimin on Aug. 1, 2013. Her complaint included the following examples: • R.V. showed her a picture of an obese wom- an in the newspaper and said "I didn't know your picture was in the newspaper." • At a company event, she asked for a me- dium T-shirt and R.V. said it wouldn't fi t. • At a charity barbecue, R.V. changed her food order from one hamburger to 10 ham- burgers and 15 sausages. • She ordered a diet coke and R.V. said to her and others that "it was not going to help." • R.V. ended a humourous conversation with CRedit: VOYAGeRix/ShUtteRStOCk.COm employment contract bars unjust dismissal complaint pg. 4 Termination clause specifi ed Canada Labour Code minimums — which employer fulfi lled duTIeS TaKen aWaY on page 6 » HaRaSSMenT on page 7 » aSK an eXPeRT pg. 2 Access of employer information on personal mobile devices

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