Social media is ubiquitous. Over 20 million Canadians have a social medial account. It is a major source of information about our friends and the world around us. It is also an important vehicle for recruiting and background information.
Employers will often have good reason to formally check an applicant’s social media profile in the
The impact of the use of social media in the workplace has regularly given rise to controversies and debates as how this subject is to be handled by a company’s management. The current state of employment law is still not entirely settled in this respect. It is however possible to provide some guidance on the
The Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK (ICO) has updated its Subject Access Code of Practice (the Code) which deals with requests from individuals for personal information. The amendments are mainly to reflect the Court of Appeal’s decisions in the recent cases of Dawson-Damer and others v Taylor Wessing LLP [2017] EWCA Civ 74 and
In France, the issue of religious behavior in the workplace is extremely sensitive.
The principle under French employment law is that while public sector employers are required to enforce a policy of strict neutrality, in private sector companies, a balance must be maintained between the principle of secularism and the prohibition of discrimination based on
There is a growing body of arbitral jurisprudence upholding summary dismissal of employees who breached workplace codes of conduct, confidentiality and privacy policies by deliberately snooping into co-worker or client records without any legitimate purpose and for reasons of their own. A number of these cases have concerned privacy breaches by hospital employees. Ontario Nurses’
In a preliminary award, an Ontario arbitrator allowed covert video surveillance footage to be used as evidence in a wrongful dismissal grievance. The complainant, Mr. Donnelly, was one of three elementary school custodians dismissed for allegedly smoking marijuana, adjacent to school grounds during working hours.
The wrongful dismissal case between Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and
In a time where social media is everywhere and a business’s reputation means everything, employers continue to try and understand how certain posts on social media can justify an employee’s termination in the appropriate circumstances.
In MacKinnon v Helpline Inc., the Court ruled that an employee’s private, non-confidential, off-duty communications via Facebook
Surprisingly, name tag policies have become the subject of recent litigation and labour board decisions on the topic have been hitting the news. However, the resulting litigation still leaves room for debate. In the recent decision of Prairie North Health Region v Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 5111, an arbitration board in
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has held that an employee’s right to respect for private life and correspondence is not breached where an employer monitors the employee’s personal communications at work, subject to reasonableness and proportionality. Whilst this has caused a large amount of media interest in the UK, employers should be aware
Can hospitals implement policies that require nurses to get a flu shot or wear a mask? An Arbitrator in Ontario says no. This has left about 30 Ontario hospitals who implemented such policies unable to enforce them.
The test case involved Sault Area Hospital (“SAH”) in Sault Ste. Marie. The hospital introduced