Unsolicited: The Blog

With the rise of remote work or hybrid work, these types of questions have become all the more common. Gabriel Hoogers and former articling student Erin Sobat review the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal’s approach to injuries sustained while working from home.

Lawyers at Goldblatt Partners successfully argued that the conversion of a pension plan should be frozen until the OLRB determines whether the employer’s unilateral actions breached the Labour Relations Act, 1995. As both sides were involved in a decades-long bargaining relationship, the Board intervened because the employer’s unilateral actions could cause serious harm to the union’s status as exclusive bargaining agent.

It can be extremely difficult for unions to navigate situations where a member files a harassment or
discrimination complaint against another member. Chris Donovan and Gabe Hoogers explore a union’s
responsibilities and the duty of fair representation in those circumstances.

In 2014, the Ontario government amended workers’ compensation legislation to make it easier for workers to make claims and be compensated for “mental stress”, i.e. mental illness caused by the workplace. In this post, Christine Davies and Gabriel Hoogers explain how this change has played out in practice and question whether workers really have access to meaningful remedies for mental stress.

The federal government recently enacted a new public holiday, to be observed every year on September 30, which honours Indigenous People and commemorates the legacy of the residential school system. Gabe Hoogers explores what the day means and who will get the day off.

Many workers want to sue their employers in court when they become injured or ill at work, but the rules of Ontario’s worker’s compensation scheme mean most won’t get that opportunity. Christine Davies, Gabriel Hoogers, and Simone Truemner-Caron explain why.