Employment Law Show: Ontario – S10 E130

Episode Summary

Can you be placed on a temporary layoff? What does your employer have to accommodate? 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, Sundays at 1 p.m. ET, on Newstalk 1010 in Toronto, as the hosts take calls from listeners and provide vital answers to employees and employers.

Listen to the Episode

Show Notes

• Offered either a demotion or a resignation: Employees cannot be pressured to resign by their employer. A resignation must be voluntary and pressure from an employer is effectively a termination without cause. Employees also do not have to accept a demotion or another major change to their job as it is a constructive dismissal.
• Wages reduced due to medical accommodation: Employers cannot impose a significant pay cut or major change to the terms of employment without an employee’s consent. A fundamental change to the terms of employment can lead to constructive dismissal. Employers can reduce pay if due to a medical accommodation an employee is not performing tasks in a job with less pay.
• Duty to accommodate employee returning from medical leave: Employers have a duty to accommodate an employee’s medical condition up until the point of undue hardship. Failure to accommodate an employee by an employer can lead to a violation of an employee’s human rights.
• Put on a temporary layoff by an employer: Many employees as a result of the pandemic were placed on a temporary layoff by their employer. According to employment law, employers do not have the right to place their employees on a temporary layoff. A temporary layoff can be treated as a termination and employees can pursue their severance entitlements.
• Sale of business leads to termination: In the event of a change of ownership of a business, employees can consider their employment to be terminated. Employees that are offered new employment do not have to accept the termination however the amount of severance will depend on the reason for the refusal.

Need an employment lawyer?

• Pocket Employment Lawyer: Before you call a lawyer, use the Pocket Employment Lawyer to find out if you might have a case. 
• Severance Pay Calculator: Discover how much severance pay you should get when you lose your job, used successfully by nearly 2 million Canadians. 
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