In response to months of pressure from employees, Google Inc. said last week it will no longer require employees to settle disputes with the company through arbitration. The change, which will take effect March 21, 2019, will apply to current and future employees. Last year, Google said it would end mandatory arbitration — which requires employees […]
Since the #MeToo movement has brought a deluge of attention to cases featuring all manner of harassment and assault, are the actions of employers, employees and employment legal professionals changing at all? Not for Elizabeth Bingham, a workplace investigator and trainer at Rubin Tomlinson LLP, a firm that exclusively deals with conducting external, third-party investigations of […]
A female employee at an unspecified university in British Columbia reported to her superiors that a male colleague, a faculty member, told her he was “crazy about” her while she was still on permanent-employment probation. The employee alleged that this, and other related behaviour at the time, was sexual harassment. And even if it wasn’t sexual […]
Women are more likely than men to experience workplace harassment, according to a new report by Statistics Canada, which noted it’s more common in health-related fields. The report, which asked about 9,000 people between the ages of 15 and 64 about incidents of harassment during the previous 12 months, defined workplace harassment as experiences of verbal […]
Thousands of Google employees around the world briefly walked off the job Thursday to protest what they said was the technology giant’s mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations against executives. From Toronto and Tokyo to London and San Francisco, highly paid engineers and other workers staged walkouts of around an hour, reflecting rising #MeToo-era frustration among women over frat-house […]
A decision from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice suggests that even broadly worded releases won’t cover subsequent lawsuits against employers for “improper conduct” such as intimidation and sexual harassment. “The decision is problematic because finality is everything when it comes to settlements,” says Arthur Zelikman, a labour and employment lawyer at Zelikman Law Professional […]
Just six months after a City of Calgary employee started her job as a tractor-trailer driver, everything started to go wrong. Her foreman and indirect supervisor both ignored her concerns about the workload, insisting she simply wasn’t trying hard enough. They mocked her appearance, spread rumours she was having an affair with a colleague and […]
With a bill before parliament aiming to amend the Canada Labour Code as it pertains to harassment and violence in federally regulated workplaces, the government is inviting Canadians to weigh in on its proposed regulatory framework. The proposal provides an outline of key elements of a workplace harassment and violence prevention policy, including: timeframes; confidentiality; how to […]
Although employers in Ontario have just as much obligation to address sexual and violent harassment from customers or members of the public as they do when it happens between colleagues, the process can be more challenging, according to one legal expert. “From a legal perspective, the source of the harassing behaviour being a member of […]
With the #MeToo movement in full swing in recent months, criminal lawyer Marie Henein crystallized what needs to change at an event in Toronto recently. “The baseline must be changed,” Henein, a criminal lawyer and partner at Henein Hutchinson LLP, said at a University of Toronto lecture in February. “Women must be entitled to go […]