CHAUDHRI: Government measures to combat COVID in workplace falls flat

Provincial regulations give employers a wide birth.

Ontario’s new stay-at-home order has left employers and employees alike bewildered; wondering what if anything has changed in the world of work in this province.

The new stay-at-home regulation largely leaves it up to the employer to decide if an employee is required to attend the workplace over the next 28 days or if remote work will do the trick. The province has warned that a “blitz” of workplaces will be conducted by enforcement officers over the next month to ensure employers are complying with safety regulations.

But, with the regulation giving employers such a wide birth to decide if it will facilitate remote work, the regulation only pays lip service to the issue of COVID outbreaks in the workplace. The dial won’t move.

Where the province has come up short, the city of Toronto promised earlier this month to take an aggressive approach to publicly name employers with sustained outbreaks to promote transparency to residents and increase employer accountability.

The Toronto.ca website provided as of Jan. 4, 2021, that all sustained workplace COVID-19 outbreaks (with employer names) will be published on the site weekly. The criteria the city will use is to name employers with two or more cases of COVID-19 tied to the workplace within a 14-day period.

Toronto Public Health (TPH) has also issued new requirements to businesses and organizations to follow if they are experiencing a sustained outbreak including:

– Immediately reporting the outbreak to TPH if two or more people who tested positive for COVID-19 within 14 days that are connected to the workplace has occurred; and

– The employer must provide a designated contact to work with TPH to immediately implement any additional measures to reduce the spread.

TPH can then mandate a number of safety measures for the employer to undergo (including a system check of the employer’s ventilation system) to make workplaces safer.

The city even named three employers for having sustained outbreaks on Jan. 4 — Sofina Foods Inc., DECIEM Inc. (the Abnormal Beauty Company) and TTM Technologies Inc. — when the new initiative was announced.

Workplace COVID-19 outbreaks contained? Not quite.

I visited Toronto.ca late last week researching the new employers outed on the website in preparation for this article and couldn’t find an employer name anywhere. All one could surmise on Toronto.ca was that 14 “community and workplace setting” outbreaks have occurred in the city as of Jan. 15, 2021. No company names have been posted.

The site only provides that four food processing workplaces are currently experiencing active outbreaks while six “office, warehouse shipping and distribution, construction and manufacturing workplaces” are experiencing active outbreaks. That won’t help anyone zone in on who the offenders are.

Notably zero retail, grocery, and mall workplaces and zero bars and restaurants are currently experiencing active outbreaks according to current the City of Toronto data.

One can only hope the city will maintain its promise to name employers where sustained outbreaks are adding to COVID-19 cases. Until then, the war against this virus will drag on, potentially unabated.

On to your questions from this week:

Q. Food for thought. If you vote for a person whom your corporation doesn’t like or agree with, like Trump, should the corporation be allowed to fire you? You represent the corporation as an employee, therefore you should not vote your conscience but vote according to your employer’s conscience? That’s not democratic.

A. Voting is a private process. No one need volunteer their voting record to anyone, much less an employer. But to entertain your question theoretically, freedom of conscience is a fundamental Charter freedom. Your Charter freedoms must be recognized by all employers in the public sphere (like the government). This is not the case in private organizations. Private companies may promote specific views, mandates and mission statements and can expect employees to fall in line with those views. If employees don’t align with those views, then yes, termination could be perfectly legal.

Q. While on a trip to Nova Scotia (14-day mandatory quarantine upon arrival) I received a text from my employer stating that upon return to Ontario (No mandatory quarantine for entrance from another province) I will have to self-isolate for 14 days or provide a negative COVID-19 test before being able to return to work. They explained it was because the province “strongly recommends” it. I told my employer I disagreed with their decision and would be back in two weeks. There has never been a posting on the employee bulletin board or any mention of this ever being a company requirement. Somehow this doesn’t feel right to me.

A. Travel in general has been strongly discouraged with the provincial lockdown and now stay-at home order. It is quite reasonable that your employer expects you to produce a negative COVID-19 test before you return to work. It’s safer for you and your colleagues. Let your employer know when you’re back, when you took the test and send a copy of your test result. Monitor your symptoms and send an email confirming you don’t have any when you are ready to return. This way you have a written record of having taken all safety precautions after your travel.

Email me at schaudhri@lscslaw.com with your COVID-19 related workplace questions and your question may be featured in a future column. Till then, stay safe my friends.