Employment Law Show: Ontario – S10 E114

Episode Summary

Can you be pressured by your employer to partake in illegal activities?  Employment Lawyer Lior Samfiru, co-managing Partner and national practice leader at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP, answers this question 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.

Listen to the Episode

Show Notes

• An employee in the financial department worried about work practices: Employees should never be involved in any work practices that are illegal or unsafe. Employees who feel that they are being asked to participate in compromising situations are within their rights to refuse. Employers placing employees in a difficult or unethical situation have breached the terms of employment. Employees can treat this pressure by an employer as constructive dismissal.
• Called back to work from a temporary layoff: Employees do not have to wait a certain amount of time in order to be recalled to work. In most cases, employers do not have the right to place employees on a temporary layoff. Employees are within their rights to treat the layoff as a termination unless they have agreed to layoffs in an employment agreement.
• Ministry of labour severance entitlements: The Ministry of labour can only advise employees on their minimum severance entitlements. Employees should remember that upon termination they are owed much more than just their minimum severance entitlements. Before contacting the Ministry, employees should speak to an employment lawyer.
• Company shuts down and severance entitlements: A company shutting its doors does not mean that employees are not entitled to severance pay. Employers that have declared bankruptcy, however, will have difficulty paying severance and employees might not be able to receive any compensation.
• Resigned and asked back to the job only to be let go: In the event an employer has convinced an employee to return to the workplace after a previous resignation, only to terminate employment, there is a very strong argument for continued service.

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