Employment and Labour

Our Employment and Labour group is committed to addressing our clients’ needs efficiently and effectively. In keeping with our client-centred approach, our lawyers prepare and outline strategies offering imaginative, creative and practical advice with a view to achieving an early and favourable resolution of disputes. If settlement is not possible, our experienced lawyers and sophisticated support facilities allow us to forcibly advocate on our clients’ behalf throughout the litigation process, at a reasonable cost.

To complement our employment litigation practice, our employment and labour lawyers provide opinions on various matters and represent clients in a wide variety of commercial and contractual disputes as well.
Our practice encompasses all aspects of employment litigation including:

• wrongful dismissal actions
• commencing injunctive proceedings and responding to injunctive proceedings
• negotiating and interpreting collective agreements
• collective bargaining and interest arbitration
• advising on bad faith bargaining complaints
• advising on de-certification applications
• strikes, lockouts, injunctions, picketing
• offering strategic advice during grievance process
• judicial review applications
• representing our clients before the Ontario Labour Relations Board
• harassment and discrimination
• accommodation
• workplace investigations
• representing our clients before the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal
• representing employers before regulatory authorities when there is a workplace accident or illness
• defending against orders or penal offences
• navigating the claims process

We provide practical and strategic advice to our clients with respect to human rights issues, including:

• harassment
• discrimination
• accommodation
• workplace investigations
• drafting and implementing anti-harassment policies
• drafting and implementing anti-discrimination policies
• drafting and implementing accommodation policies
• representing our clients before the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Canadian Human Rights Tribunal

We provide practical and strategic advice to our employer clients on a broad range of labour-related issues, including:

• applications for certification
• best practices to avoid applications for certification
• negotiating and interpreting collective agreements
• responding to and/or commencing unfair labour practice complaints
• collective bargaining and interest arbitration
• advising on bad faith bargaining complaints
• advising on de-certification applications
• strikes, lockouts, injunctions, picketing
• successor employer applications management training
• offering strategic advice during grievance process
• judicial review applications
• representing our clients before Provincial and Federal labour relations boards and arbitrators

All employers are required to provide a healthy and safe workplace. We provide practical and strategic advice to our clients with respect to health and safety issues, including:

• compliance with health and safety legislation drafting health and safety policies drafting workplace violence prevention policies
• drafting workplace harassment policies
• training workers on issues of workplace violence and harassment as required under Bill 168
• advising employers about the minimum legal standards and duties of employers, managers, supervisors and employees
• representing employers before regulatory authorities when there is a workplace accident or illness
• defending against orders or penal offences

All employers are required to provide a safe work environment and promote the safety of their employees and, where applicable, must have statutory insurance in place. We provide practical and strategic advice to our clients with respect to workplace safety issues, including:

• applying the legislation
• meeting statutory obligations
• navigating the claims process
• navigating the labour market re-entry process
• providing representation before the applicable administrative tribunal