Employment Law Show: Ontario – S10 E111

Episode Summary

Can you be fired for any reason? Do you have to return to the office if requested? Employment Lawyer Lior Samfiru, co-managing Partner and national practice leader at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP, answers those questions and more on the Employment Law Show. 

LISTEN BELOW to Ontario’s premiere radio show about employment law and workplace rights featuring the province’s leading employment lawyers. You can hear the show live on Mondays to Thursdays at 640 Toronto and 980 CFPL in London at 6:30 p.m. ET, as the hosts take calls from listeners and provide vital answers to employees and employers.

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Show Notes

• Employee hired under remote arrangement but now told to return to the office: Employees generally who were working in the office pre-COVID must return to the office if requested by their employer. Employees who refuse this request can be considered to have resigned. Employees who have never worked in the physical workplace, are in a different situation. Employees who have never worked in the office and refuse to return are owed severance pay if terminated.
• Fire employees due to vaccination status: Employers do not have the right or ability to suspend employees as a result of their vaccination status. Employers who choose to implement this practice could face legal action if they have not adequately offered severance pay to terminated employees. Terminating an unvaccinated employee without severance pay could be considered wrongful dismissal.
• Terminating employees for no reason: Employers are within their rights to terminate employees for any reason, as long as adequate severance pay is offered and the reason for termination was not discriminatory. Many employees mistakenly believe that a wrongful dismissal occurs due to the reason for termination and not how the termination was conducted.
• Terminating or changing employment terms for an employee returning from maternity leave: Employees returning from maternity or parental leave must return to the same position they had before their leave. Penalizing an employee for taking leave or terminating an employee as a result of pregnancy or maternity leave is considered a human rights violation.

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