Chapter 13: Employee Rights and Disciplines Flashcards
What are the three regimes of employment law?
- Common law of employment
- Statutory employment regulation
- Collective bargaining and arbitration law
What is the common law of employment?
The body of case law where courts interpret employment contracts and the legal principles taken from those cases
What are implied contract terms?
Terms judges read into employment contracts when the written contract does not expressly deal with the matter
What are some items included under statutory employment regulation?
Employment equity legislation, pay equity legislation, employment standards legislation
What is a collective agreement?
An employment contract between an employer and a union that sets out the terms of employment of a group of employees
What is a labour arbitrator?
A person assigned to interpret and decide disputes about the meaning, interpretation, and application of a collective agreement governing employees
What is constructive dismissal?
When an employer commits a fundamental breach of the contract, such as by unilaterally changing a key term of the contract, the employee can treat the breach as a termination
What is summary dismissal?
When a nonunion employer terminates an employee without notice because the employee has committed a serious breach of contract
What is wrongful dismissal?
A lawsuit filed in a court by an employee alleging that they were dismissed without proper contractual or reasonable notice
What type of employer does not require a reason to dismiss an employee?
Any nonunion employer
When can an employer take action in response to an employee’s online conduct?
When the employer can establish that the off-duty conduct adversely impacts the economic interests of the employer such as business reputation or the employee’s ability to perform their job
What are the general steps of a disciplinary model?
- Develop organizational discipline policy
- Define discipline
- Violation of organizational rules
- Investigation of employee offence
- Disciplinary interview
- Progressive discipline
- Due process
- Just cause
- Discharge
What happens if an employer fails to take action against employee misconduct?
It implies that the performance of the employee has been satisfactory so it may be difficult to use it as a cause of dismissal later on
What is progressive discipline?
The application of corrective measures by increasing degrees
What is positive discipline?
A system of discipline that focuses on early correction of employee misconduct with the employee taking total responsibility for correcting the problem
How should a manager go about informing an employee of their termination?
- Rehearse the termination meeting with peers
- Come to the point in the first two or three minutes and list in a logical order all reasons for the termination
- Make the discussion private, businesslike, and fairly brief
- Provide information concerning severance and the status of benefits
- If the employee becomes agitated the meeting should be stopped immediately
- When terminated employees are escorted off the premises the removal must not serve to defame the employee
What are some alternative dispute resolution procedures?
- Step-review system
- Peer-review system
- Open-door policy
- Ombudsperson
- Mediation
- Arbitration
What is a step-review system?
A system for reviewing employee complaints and disputes by successively higher levels of management
What is a peer-review system?
A system for reviewing employee complaints that uses a group composed of equal numbers of employee representatives and management appointees which functions as a jury because its members weigh evidence, consider arguments, and vote independently to render a decision
What is an open-door policy?
A policy of settling grievances that identifies various levels of management above the immediate supervisor for employee contact
What is a ombudsperson?
A designated individual from whom employees may seek counsel for resolution of their complaints. They have no authority to finalize a solution to the problem
What is mediation?
The use of an impartial third party called a mediator to reach a compromise decision in employment disputes. The mediator has no power to force either side toward an agreement
What is arbitration?
The employee and employer present their cases to an arbitrator who then makes a decision that parties have agreed to be bound by
What is ethics?
A set of standards of conduct and moral judgements that help determine right and wrong behaviour
