An employer’s worksite ban of a worker due to an alleged safety violation was not a reprisal for the worker’s efforts as a health and safety representative, the Ontario Labour Relations Board has ruled.
“Where there’s a reverse onus [on the employer to prove no reprisal], it’s really key for the employer to be able to document everything, because a decision-maker has to be able to determine if the employer did what it did for health and safety reasons, not as a punishment,” says Aleksandra Pressey, a lawyer and workplace investigator at Williams HR Law in the Toronto area.
