Author: Hannah Roskey

Phoning it in: Termination appropriate for employee who called in ‘sick’

By Hannah Roskey Determining the legitimacy of an employee’s illness is a tricky situation for employers across Canada. The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench recently took a firm stance on the abuse of sick leave and found in favor of the employer in Telus Communications Inc. v. Telecommunications Workers’ Union. Telus was correct in firing […]

Timeless questions on comp time, overtime

Employees and employers alike share questions and frustrations relating to how overtime works, when it must be paid, and whether time off can be substituted for overtime pay. Seemingly simple questions get complicated when intricate rules come in to play. Recently, a group of attorneys addressed some common questions surrounding compensatory time and overtime. Here […]

‘Worker centers’ thriving in the absence of unions

by W. Scott McLellan I’m based in Austin, and as you may know, Texas is not exactly a hotbed of traditional labor unions. Unlike employers in other parts of the country, Texas employers have long enjoyed a degree of flexibility in operations and employee relations that unions can prevent. However, that flexibility can lead to […]

“Team building” requires much more than a weekend retreat

by Dan Oswald We talk a lot about teams in the workplace today. When we recruit to fill a position, we say, “We’re looking for team players.” When the team achieves success, we say, “We win as a team.” When we consider whether we have the right people on the team, we say, “The team […]

Canadian employers hit with record-setting occupational health and safety fines

By Norm Keith With the introduction of the Bill C-45 amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada, occupational health and safety regulation, prosecution and conviction have been on the rise across the country. Recently, Vale Canada Limited and Metron Construction were given record fines in occupational health and safety and criminal negligence convictions, respectively.

free-speech

A horse with no claim

Some colorful (ahem) corners of the Internet were abuzz this week after a report surfaced that an anonymous adult male fan of the cartoon show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was fired from his job after admitting his fandom to his coworkers. The firing of this “brony” (and let’s just assume for the sake of this […]

Tales from the healthcare exchange portal

by Jason Lacey On October 1, we reached a big milestone for the implementation of healthcare reform: the opening of the public insurance exchanges. OK, so the day was largely symbolic, and nothing really took effect. It just happened to be the first day we could take a look at what’s available through these new […]

Disgruntled employees: What are the risks, what are the remedies?

HR professionals know the tips and tricks to keep from making bad hires. There’s never any certainty, but smart professionals armed with strong interviewing skills and solid job descriptions stand a better than good chance of weeding out bad hires on the front end. But what does the savvy HR pro do about “bad quits” […]

Too little too late? Labor movement ‘in crisis’ turning to desperate measures

by John T. Neighbours In 2000, John Sweeney, then-president of the AFL-CIO, declared that unions were going to “organize, organize, organize.” A few years later, a group of unions led by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its president, Andy Stern, split off from the AFL-CIO to form an organization called “Change to Win,” […]

Mariano Rivera offers a lesson in class

by Dan Oswald Either you love the New York Yankees or you hate them. I’m a hater. I grew up hating them. They were the antithesis of my beloved Chicago Cubs. That is to say they were winners. But I didn’t hate them because they were winners—well, maybe a little. I hated them because of […]