The Top 11 HR Compliance Cases of 2022 (So Far) & Their Impact on You
The court cases most likely to directly affect your HR program and policies. HR law comes from 2 major sources: legislation and court cases. While new legislation, like the recent Bill […]
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No Duty to Accommodate Drug Addiction that Employer Didn’t Know About
The employer knew a railway worker was struggling with personal issues and undergoing counseling via the company’s employee assistance program. But it didn’t know about his substance addiction until he […]
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OHS Bill 88: Naloxone Kit Requirement
New Ontario law (Bill 88) requires naloxone kits at high-risk workplaces. The opioid crisis is having a devastating impact on Canadians, especially in the western and northern parts of the country. […]
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Are You Prepared For An Incident Of Workplace Violence In Your Workplace?
Many of us were stunned to witness Will Smith slapping Chris Rock live on stage at the 2022 Oscars award show. Fallout from that incident is still continuing to mount […]
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Ontario’s Bill 88 Would Establish Electronic Monitoring Policies, Create Rights For Workers On Digital Platforms, And Require Naloxone Kits
On February 28, 2022, the Government of Ontario introduced Bill 88, the Working for Workers Act, 2022. Bill 88 would enact the Digital Platform Workers' Rights Act, 2022, which would establish rights for […]
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Bill 88: Ontario Proposing More Employment Law Changes
Labour, Employment & Humans Rights Law Bulletin. Context In December 2021, the Ontario government passed the Working for Workers Act, 2021, which introduced new employer policies regarding disconnecting from work, prohibitions on non-compete agreements, removed […]
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Ontario Introduces Bill 88: Legislation Mandating Electronic Monitoring Policies And Workplace Naloxone Kits And Increasing Fines Under The OHSA
Bottom Line On February 28, 2022, the Ontario Legislature introduced Bill 88, Working for Workers Act, 2022. In addition to the enactment of the Digital Platform Workers Rights Act, 2022 (which will be analyzed […]
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How Far Must You Go to Accommodate an Employee’s Drug Addiction?
Employees must cooperate in their own rehabilitation and accommodation. Drug and alcohol dependencies are considered disabilities under human rights laws. Consequently, disciplining or firing an employee who’s addicted to drugs for […]
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Is an Employee’s Failure to Disclose Medical Marijuana Use Grounds for Termination?
Don’t expect employees to self-disclose substance abuse if you don’t have a disclosure policy. There are nearly 300,000 legally registered medical marijuana users in Canada, nearly 8% of the population. Firing […]
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Drugs & Alcohol: Being Impaired at Work Is Just Cause to Fire Safety-Sensitive Railway Worker
A track operations foreman got fired after a post-incident test came back positive for cocaine. The union contended that the penalty was a gross over-reaction resulting from an unfair investigation. […]
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Testing Policies at Work: Drugs, Alcohol & COVID-19
Recorded Date: February 2, 2022 Time: 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM PST Speaker: Preston Parsons This session will look at the current state of the law around testing your workers at your workplace […]
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OK to Apply Zero-Tolerance Policy to Legal Use of Medical Marijuana
An air ambulance provider unilaterally adopted a zero-tolerance policy for cannabis use by safety-sensitive employees. What irked the union wasn’t so much the policy itself, but the employer’s insistence on […]
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Ontario Case Draws New Line on Power of Arbitrator to Review Drug Testing Policies
Arbitrator declines union’s bid to overturn nuclear power plant testing policy based on federal regulations. Labour arbitration boards have served as the primary battlefield in the decades-long war between employers and […]
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Ontario Board Draws New Line On Arbitrator Review Of Drug Testing Policies
Labour arbitration boards have served as the primary battlefield in the decades-long war between employers and unions over the legality of workplace drug and alcohol testing policies. However, if it […]
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OK to Require Medical Exam of Marijuana User’s Fitness for Safety-Sensitive Job
An energy company required safety-sensitive workers to pass pre-assignment drug testing before letting them work at the refinery. The company learned that a journeyman electrician the union sent to the […]
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Potential Suicide Risks Grounds for Workers Comp Not to Pay for Medical Pot
Does workers comp have to pay for medical marijuana legally prescribed to treat a former prison guard’s work-related post-traumatic stress disordered? After ping-ponging around the workers comp appeals tribunals, a […]
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OK to Fire Safety-Sensitive Worker for Not Being Fit for Duty
A safety-sensitive tree utility worker got fired for flunking his drug test. The Nova Scotia labour standards officer found that there was no just cause to terminate, but the employer […]
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Firing Union Nurse for Alcohol Addiction Is a Labour, Not a Human Rights Case
A case that has drawn national attention has now gone all the way to the nation’s highest court. It began when a home care aide came to work drunk. She […]
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Failing to Disclose Medical Marijuana Use Doesn’t Cost Employee His Job
A welder on a last-chance agreement and subject to random testing knew that ingesting medical marijuana might cause him to flunk his drug test. But since the pot was legally […]
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Positive Urine and Negative Oral Swab Test Don’t Prove Marijuana Impairment
A federal arbitrator reinstated a railway worker who was fired after testing positive for marijuana. The hi-rail truck derailment incident in which he was involved wasn’t reasonable cause for drug […]
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Legal Drug Disclosure Policy Is Enforceable for Safety-Sensitive Workers Only
A Crown corporation in Québec adopted a policy requiring dockworkers to disclose their use of medical marijuana or other legally prescribed medications that could potentially impair them at work. The […]
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Substance Abuse Red Flags Checklist
The first step in helping and making accommodations for workers with substance abuse problems is knowing about those problems. Ideally, workers will self-disclose their problems voluntarily. Regrettably, though, people with […]
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Workplace Impairment Removal Policy
Here’s a template of a policy providing for the immediate removal of workers who are impaired by drugs, alcohol or other substances, based on a model published by the Northwest […]
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Your Right to Immediately Remove Workers Impaired by Drugs or Alcohol
Keeping drunk and high workers out of the workplace to prevent danger. It goes without saying that being drunk or high on the job is a significant safety risk, especially when […]
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Workplace Drugs & Alcohol Cases Scorecard, 2020 to 2021
Employers continue to lose drug test cases more often than they win them. October 17, 2021 marks the third anniversary of legalized recreational cannabis in Canada. Slowly but surely, courts, arbitrators […]
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Nuclear Plants Can’t Do Random Drug Testing Until Privacy Issues Are Resolved
After 10 years of study, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission issued a regulation requiring nuclear power plants to perform random alcohol and drug testing on safety-sensitive workers. As expected, when […]
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Are Your Workplace Drug Testing Policies Legally Sound?
It’s illegal for workers to use or be impaired by drugs while they’re on duty. Legalization of recreational marijuana didn’t change that. Nor did it directly impact drug testing rules. […]
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Does Legalized Marijuana Provide More Leeway for Random Drug Testing?
The union contended that unannounced random urine drug testing of safety-sensitive public airport workers, in this case a firefighter, was an undue invasion of privacy. While acknowledging that case law […]
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The 10 Most Important HR Compliance Cases of 2021 (So Far)
Key cases focused on COVID as well as drug testing, discrimination and other perennial HR issues. Halfway through 2021, courts across Canada have issued a number of extremely important case rulings […]
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Avetta presents: Opioids/Cannabis Workplace Drug Testing – What Should Employers Know?
The opioid crisis has escalated dramatically in the past decade across the country, and those affected may also be your employees. At the same time, the marijuana legalization movement has […]
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