Employment lawyer on nursing home worker termination and vaccine policies

Chartwell Residences, an Ontario nursing home has recently terminated a nurse due to her refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine. This is the latest in a rise in workplaces terminations associated with employee vaccination status. What will this mean for employee rights and businesses?

Mackenzie Irwin, a Toronto employment lawyer and Associate at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP spoke with the Toronto Star on the recent terminations and what employees could be owed by their employers.

“Absent a government order requiring a certain industry or employer to impose a mandatory vaccine policy, it’s very likely that policy is illegal,” Irwin states.

LEARN MORE
• Chartwell severance packages

Irwin goes on to explain the risks involved with the termination of employees without government support. “When you terminate an employee, you can either terminate them with cause and provide no severance pay, or you can terminate them without cause and provide severance pay,” Irwin says. “I advise my clients to go the second route if they insist on it because it’s very hard to tell right now whether failure to abide by a mandatory vaccine policy constitutes just cause for termination.”