The Test for Reprisal Under Section 50 of OHSA

If you have been terminated after raising health and safety concerns to your employer, you may feel that your termination was a reprisal.

You may also consider bringing a complaint to the Ontario Labour Relations Board, but how will the Board decide your case? When and how does a termination become a reprisal under Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act?

A guest post by Henry Bertoia

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Termination for Failure to Respect Workplace Rules Regarding Decorum When Expressing Health and Safety Concerns NOT Reprisal says Labour Relations Board

Sometimes it is not so much what you say, but rather how you say it that matters.

In Derya Marquardt v Rasmussen Starr Ruddy LLP, 2022 CanLII 9123 (ON LRB), the Ontario Labour Relations Board held that an employer’s decision to deem the employment relationship at an end was prompted by the manner in which the employee communicated her concerns and her insubordination, and not by the fact that she was seeking compliance with or exercising rights under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Workplace Assault Does Not Automatically Trigger Protections of Section 50 of OHSA: OLRB

Does the fact that an assault occurs in the workplace automatically trigger the protections of subsection 50(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act?

In a case involving a fight at a male strip club, Mazen Jamal Chams Eddin v 938088 Ontario Limited, 2019 CanLII 37953 (ON LRB), Ontario Labour Relations Board Alternate Chair Matthew R. Wilson held that it did not.