By Sara Parchello

Overtime class actions in Canada are not dead. If you thought that last year’s court decision refusing to certify the class action against one of Canada’s largest banks, CIBC, meant the death of such lawsuits in Canada, think again.

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By Dominique Launay

In Quebec, an employer may fire an employee with “reasonable notice” of termination or pay in lieu of notice unless there’s a contract dealing with termination or there’s “just cause” for dismissal (and save for specific statutory regimes). Like the rest of Canada, reasonable notice is determined on a case-by-case basis taking into account factors such as the position, age, and length of service of the employee.

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By Stephen Acker and Ariel Thomas

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By Derek Knoechel

Canadian arbitrators have been dealing with the issue of how to deal with video surveillance of employees for over two decades. Early decisions dealt with off-site surveillance of employees suspected of faking or exaggerating illnesses. But countless battles have since been waged over the use of video surveillance cameras in and around the workplace. When can such equipment be used in the workplace? When can the resulting evidence be relied upon?

Video cameras in the workplace
There have been numerous skirmishes over the use of security cameras covering entrances and exits to the worksite and other nonworking areas. The use of hidden cameras at the worksite as part of an investigation also has been the subject of much controversy. By far the most fever-pitched battles have been over the surveillance of production work, monitoring employees for disciplinary reasons, or conducting surveillance of social or sensitive areas of the workplace.

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By Katie Clayton and Farrah Sunderani

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By Ralph Nero and Ida Martin

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By Dominique Launay

Your employee is a single parent. He has to drop his children off at school each morning. They can’t be dropped off earlier than 9 a.m. He has to be back at the school by 5 p.m. to pick them up from their after-school care. He has no family to assist him. Is he covered by the family-status protections in some provinces’ human rights legislation? Do you have to accommodate him?

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By Donna Gallant

A recent appeal court decision demonstrates once again that defining work relationships is far from an exact science. Somewhere on the spectrum between employees and independent contractors, we have seen the emergence of “dependent contractors.” What hasn’t been entirely clear is how one determines “dependent contractor” status.  Nor what that status means in terms of the worker’s entitlements on termination.

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Mandatory retirement has a long and storied history as part of the Canadian labor system. As we enter 2010, it appears that a new chapter is being written, one in which mandatory retirement is the exception rather than the norm.

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By Alix Herber

Canada’s two largest provinces — Ontario and Quebec — now have laws requiring employers to seek to provide workplaces free of “harassment.” No longer limited to human rights-related harassment, the term is broadly defined in these laws. Further, Ontario’s new law extends beyond harassment. It, like the federal law, also will require antiviolence policies and programs. These laws will apply regardless of whether a workplace has any prior history of such problems.

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