the difference between American and Canadian Employment law

There are, of course, many differences between the way the two countries deal with the employment relationship. However, those can all be boiled down to perspective. Since America, even through this self-created economic turmoil, believes in the invisible hand of the market, which given enough time will correct all wrongs, it stands to reason that they would not look too kindly at regulating the interaction between employees and employers. Why should an employee need rights? If an employer treats them badly, they will leave, and find work elsewhere. The invisible hand works. Canada, on the other hand, believes that there are minimum standards that ALL workplaces should meet, and any attempt to circumvent these is generally seen in bad faith and punished.

As such, there are no such things as implied work contracts in America. Unless it specifies a time line in the employment contract (should the employee sign one), it is assumed that the relationship is brand new from one moment to the next, and that unless basic human rights are violated in easily traceable ways,  the invisible hand will be the only judge of whether a company's hiring/employing/terminating employees is competitive. After all, a good candidate can pretty much write their own checks, right?

Canadian law assumes that once a working relationship has started, the employee and employer immediately have certain rights, even if no contract is signed. They have a right to a reasonable amount of honesty from each other (e.g. don't lie on a resume or about how many hours are expected). They have a reasonable expectation of mutual respect, of vacation time, of not abusing drugs in the workplace, etc etc. Common sense things that essentially have been deemed by courts to be so fundamental to any employment relationship, that even if a contract was signed without any of these clauses in it, it will be implied that both parties wanted the clause in there, they just forgot or something.

Having this difference makes a huge impact on the relationship because for one, a Canadian employee doesn't have to worry about arbitrarily being fired any day they walk into the workplace. They're not immune, but if they employer doesn't have a good reason, at least you'll be compensated. It also levels the power balance between the board room and the assembly line, and since the invisible hand seems to forget itself when the economy slows and jobs are few and far in between, its nice to have a back up - just in case.

TTC Incompetence

Because I've held my tongue for a little while.

The reason for the posting is because, hilariously, the TTC has decided to hire what they're calling a "Chief Customer Service Officer." He seems to be touted as The Man With a Plan. A man with years of experience in public transit who will come in and make the reputation that the TTC has worked very hard to earn over the past couple of years go away. Because clearly, since there were over 700 complaints last year the problem is customer service.

Here is why the TTC is bound to go private in the fairly recent future. As always, it is HR which takes a company to the top (when managed well, e.g. Google) or takes it to rock bottom (when abused, e.g. the Enron debacle, or Nike's sweatshop problems in the 90's). The TTC's [solvable] problems are within the HR arena of Labour Relations. Yes, one of main reasons for all these slowdowns and service interruptions are most certainly due to the lack of funding for infrastructure, but this is largely out of the TTC's hands. However, the employee issues are mostly solvable.

(a) Employee morale has most certainly suffered in the past couple of years, leading to the surly service the TTC is now known for.
(b) Under a powerful union, the employees have been given rights that under normal circumstances would be considered anything from inappropriate (e.g. very high pay with very low education or experience requirements) to dangerous (not requiring drug testing for employees with a history of alcohol and drug abuse)
(c) Lack of money due to excessively high operational costs due to HR costs (wages, benefits, vacation pay, mat leaves, detox programs, etc)

And so on. How is that going to be fixed by adding a layer of bureaucracy? What they need to do is take some heat from their people in the short term to create a more efficient system. Firstly, in order to get consumer confidence back, they must institute drug and alcohol testing where relevant (e.g. employees with past problems, since only in the past year two employees have been fired for driving drunk, and those were the ones apprehended by customers, not TTC officials). If our safety is as important to them as they claim on their posters, this is a no-brainer.

Next is compensation. Now it would be illegal to reduce their pay substantially without giving them something in return, but I do not propose their income be reduce, but its contents changed. Rather than a steep base pay, create a base pay plus performance bonuses. The employee ran his bus on time for an entire month (excluding things out of the driver's control)? They receive a bonus. They go above the call of duty? (e.g. the driver who helped a woman who fell near the bus by offering medical aid and dropping her off at her door) Bonus. Perhaps requiring some customer service experience before hiring may prove prudent in providing better service.

Simple(ish) things such as modifying the compensation structure, being more selective during the hiring process, and rewarding good employees will easily alleviate the public pressure on the TTC. Spending more money on something other than service, that will doubtfully help the TTC make the tremendous turnaround it needs to stay a monopoly.

Modern day sweatshops

I recently spoke to an acquaintance of mine who was having trouble at work. Of course, trouble it seems, is not enough to describe it. He is currently attempting to enter a certain field as a professional, and such had a co-op opportunity arranged through his school to provide him with experience. An added bonus was that this job, though co-op, does indeed pay. The good news end there. On his first day he was coerced into signing a document agreeing to work more than 60 hour weeks, and has been working every day for the past month (i.e. not even a single day off) at over 10  hours per day. Even worse, since this is a special kind of illegal, the company is not paying him his full hours worked, presumably since doing so would shed light on their illegal actions. This has excabrated certain medical conditions this person already has, and substantially reduced his quality of life. He fears losing the opportunity altogether if he complains, and thus he tolerates.

Really though, is this such a rare story? In this person's scenario, of course, he has options such as speaking to the co-op facilitator who sent him there in the first place. However, in most instances, people who find themselves in situations like this tend to be desperate, something the employer would know, and unfortunately sometimes exploit. The victims often feel that even such conditions are better than no employment at all, especially in such a weak job market, and tolerate it silently.

It is truly unfortunate that such blatant exploitation still occurs, especially with the vast number of laws and regulatory bodies established with the exclusive intent of preventing employers from acting immorally. At the end of the day this sad story illustrates that until more people utilize the resources available at their disposal to prevent victimization, not all the laws and all the committees and lovely speeches will change the reality that sweatshops exist, and you don't have to be an illegal immigrant with no language skills to end up in one. 

CRTC and the day democracy died

Warning, this post will have little to do with HR, and only marginally.

The purpose of this post is to express my utmost disappointment in the CRTC bending down to the will of the conglomerates purposefully to reduce access to information that is not a cable, satellite or printed source (strange that both Rogers and Bell have tremendous investments in such ventures). Thanks to their spineless move, people who use the internet for academic research, viewing news reports online, or using web-based messenger programs such as skype to connect to their world, will either have to stop or be willing to shell out 2,3,4 times more than they have.

What confuses me about their ruling is that they just recently allowed foreign competition into the wireless phone market, suggesting they were finally going to open Canada's borders to something a little different than the stifling monopolies which allow overpriced service and unparalleled customer service (the dramas I could share about Bell and Rogers could probably not even raise a candle to some of the stories I do not yet know).

I guess I was wrong.

Good bye affordable communication, easy access to information, and as a result, a little chunk of democracy.


I sure hope someone at the CRTC got greased for this, at least then this decision would have an, al bight less than acceptable, explanation.

SIGN THE PETITION:
http://openmedia.ca/news/openmediaca...uture-internet

Knowing your limits

My return to the gym has brought back to my mind the importance of knowing your limits. While this is important in the gym, to prevent injury and maintain progress, it is equally important at work. The reason for that is because stress is associated with nearly all illnesses, either as a cause or an aggravator. The thing is, though, that people generally tend to stress about the same things: money, family, work.

There are lots of articles and professionals who will tell you all sorts of exercises and such you absolutely must do to overcome stress and stay healthy, but for me it comes down to two things: counting to 10 if I'm aggravated, and knowing my limits.

These two principals manifest themselves in lots of ways. If I'm sent a snooty email, receive criticism, or given instructions, I pause, digest the information for a few seconds, and only then move forward. It's a tiny delay but it makes a big difference, especially if you're like me and your first instinct response has gotten you in trouble in the past!

The other principle, knowing my limits, plays more specifically towards time management. You don't have to say yes to every damn thing that passes your desk, every favour to a friend, every chore at home. Prioritize, and develop a schedule that will allow you to take whatever time is necessary to get the job(s) done and done right. Anything else needs to be shelved, delegated, or scrapped. Just knowing you have the time you need to complete the tasks at hand can be such a huge weight lifted off your shoulders.

Now I'll be heading off to stretch, as I overdid it in the gym, and then foolishly went back for more.

KNOW YOUR LIMITS. Or suffer the consequences like me.

Happy holidays!

I know I'm a little late, what with Hanukkah having come and gone quite a while ago, but I was getting acclimated at my new job. So happy holidays to everyone celebrating, and retroactively to those who have already celebrated. And in the spirit of the holidays, let's talk office parties.

The holiday parties have a few commonly known obstacles:

1. People forget how to dress appropriately

• This is still a work engagement. You may not have to wear dress clothes, but don't wear something you wouldn't want you boss or coworkers to see you in

2. Alcohol

• Even the appearance of hitting the bottle hard can have significant ramifications on your career, so even if you can handle 10 shots of tequila without impact, keep it to a glass of wine and take your binge drinking elsewhere
• Getting drunk has obvious issues

3. Eating etiquette

• For most situations it's not a big deal if you don't know which is the salad fork and which is the dinner fork, but talking with food in your mouth, being a jerk to the server, spitting food into people's faces- you shouldn't do it ever, but definitely not when your boss is around

4. Inappropriate topics of conversation

• This is extremely situation specific, but understand the company culture enough to know what you can talk about, and when you should keep the information for your close friends or your diary.

Good luck and have a good time!

The truth about vacation pay

With the holidays coming everyone wants to take a vacation. Of course, not everyone will be eligible for one, especially since the recession means that even if you are working, chances are you have not been there for a full year.

The ESA discusses some fairly complex calculations for vacation pay/time, but essentially it boils down to this: 

• You are not eligible for a vacation unless you've been working there for 12 uninterrupted months
• Depending on the company's fiscal cycle (when the start vacation entitlement), you may have to wait longer than a year, but your vacation time will continue to accumulate
• At minimum, once you completed 12 months of eligibility you should have around 2 weeks saved up
• You have 10 months from the day you're eligible to redeem those vacation days to use them
• If you're on some medical, parental, etc leave you must use up the days immediately upon return, unless there's a written agreement otherwise between you and your boss
• Companies are allowed to just pay out vacation time on each cheque if they are hourly employees
• Vacation pay must be paid on the cheque on or before the payday on which the vacation falls
• If the working relationship is terminated, you're entitled to being paid out the vacation time you have yet to redeemed

Of course, if you're unionized, none of this will really apply to you, as vacation is generally a well-outlined issue on most collective agreements. Just ensure you're not getting less than the minimum.

So long as you know these fairly simple rules, you should be able to take at least a bit of time off this holiday season, and employers can be fairly accommodating, even if you're not yet entitled to vacation time; just ask respectfully and really early.

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