Employment Law Final assignment

Final assignment

1. (15 MARKS) Sandro “has it all”: a handsome banker husband, Rex, a beautiful home in the city, and a healthy son, Oliver, aged 5, whom he and his husband adopted from China. Sandro is busy with his Public Relations business. And he is also the primary caregiver to his invalid mother, Luisa, who refuses to move into a nursing home and lives in her own apartment across town. Sandro is stressed and needs help managing everything.

Sandro decides to advertise and interview for three different positions: 1) a personal caregiver for his mother; 2) a nanny for his son; and 3) a personal assistant for himself. Sandro loves his mum but she holds objectionable opinions on a number of issues, including, oddly, Scandinavians. She wouldn’t tolerate anyone from those countries or backgrounds being her caregiver. Sandro would like his son to learn Mandarin. He wants to only hire someone Chinese as his son’s nanny to speak to him entirely in proper and correct Mandarin. Lastly, his husband is a very jealous man and would not tolerate him having a male assistant so Sandro must only hire a woman for that job.

What Human Rights Code issues must Sandro be aware of in both advertising and interviewing for these positions? Will he be able to hire whom he wishes or will there be any HRC violations in any or all of these situations? Refer to case and statute law where appropriate in support.

2. (15 MARKS) Marian has been working at a small graphic design company for ten years. Recently she was promoted to a management position. One of the other managers has been rude and disrespectful towards Marian, undermining her authority and making tasteless sexist “jokes” and then claiming Marian is being overly-sensitive. After a number of weeks of this behaviour, Marian complained to the company higher-ups but nothing really changed. The other manager found out about the complaint somehow and called Marian a sexist epithet in front of another employee and said if Marian wasn’t careful, she might meet with an ‘accident’.

Marian wants to know what legal options, steps and remedies she might have under the Common Law, HRC, ESA, OHSA and WSIA. What would she need to keep in mind in deciding how to proceed under one regime or another?

3. (15 MARKS)

Shalini is CEO of WINGS AIRLINES which has fallen on hard times recently. She needs to cut costs and is looking at reducing her staff, but is worried about the costs of doing even that. She might need to fire over 50 employees in the next six months but is hoping not to have to do so.

There are three employees in particular she is considering firing first: Amanda, who has worked for 20 years, but who has been caught on camera stealing office supplies over the last couple of months; Bako, who has worked for 5 years and historically has been a good employee but seems stressed and just yesterday yelled at his manager for having to ask him a number of times to complete a task. He swore at her and left early and didn’t come in today; and, thirdly, Cosimo, who was just hired last year. He is a nice guy, but is always messing up in one way or another and just can’t seem to do the job.

Shalini wants to know if she can fire any or all of these employees for ‘cause’ under the ESA or Common Law so she doesn’t have to pay them any sort of notice. If not, how would she calculate what each be entitled to under the ESA and under Common Law? Are there any unstated factors might affect the calculation? If so, what are they and how would they?

These are all employees on indefinite term contracts with no contractual termination clauses. They are not unionized and work in Ontario. For the purposes of this question, do not worry about other legislation that might affect any of the employees.

4. (15 MARKS TOTAL)

PART ONE (10 Marks)

What is meant by “Accommodate to Undue Hardship” in the context of the Human Rights Code? When is it triggered? Are there any guidelines in the HRC as to how far one must go to exercise this duty? How does Case Law help understand how far one is to go?

PART TWO (5 Marks)

How does this Duty to Accommodate intersect with both Common Law Frustration and Frustration under the ESA when it relates to illness?