Is it even safe to return to the office?

As the pandemic is visually beginning to wane many companies are requiring their employees to return to the office. This is to the dismay of many workers, pets, children and families. These are workers who have for the first time felt freedom from their jobs. Many people in the pandemic felt for the first time that they lived to do more than work. Individuals learned how to play beautiful songs on musical instruments, started hobby businesses that they are passionate about and now this is being clawed away from them.

The 40 hour work week is too long. Even more so when you consider commutes often add an extra 10 hours of time dedicated to work. People are only left with enough time to cope for a few hours, days or even 2 vacation weeks a year. After any reprieve they are thrust back into their lives unfortunate purpose: Pointless, unrewarding, demeaning “work”. Working to survive and surviving to work is the reality we inhabit.

Happy employees are productive employees. Studies show that working from home overall increased productivity per worker. Why does management and the executive suite want their employees back? Management is desperate to keep their slightly better jobs. The executive suite wants nothing more than control of their business in every regard, which means controlling their employees, what they wear, who they are able to talk to.

Most workers want to remain working from home. Most workers do not want unknown life altering / ending effects from “long Covid”. Most employees are anxious about returning to the office and exposing themselves and their loved ones to risks they have been safe from for the last 2 years. With management mandating the opposite, how do employees continue working safely from home? Employees in Ontario do have some rights bestowed upon them by various labour legislations:

• Occupational Health and Safety act (OHSA)

  • The Right to Refuse Unsafe Work

    • (OHSA) gives a worker the right to refuse work that he or she believes is unsafe to himself/ herself or another worker.

    • This would prompt an employer and their health and safety representatives must make a investigation with the worker.

  • The Right to know about risks to their health in the workplace

    • Are unmasked or unvaxxed co-workers hazards?

    • Do sick or symptomatic employees have to work in person to avoid an unpaid day off?

    • Do Covid-19 exposed employees have to work physically in office? Are other employees notified that their co-worker has been exposed?

    • What administrative or work practice controls are in place to reduce an employees exposure to these hazards? (Working from Home?)

  • Protective equipment and devices

    • Is the employer providing its employees with PPE for the Covid-19 risk?

    • Is the employer making sure not only workers are wearing PPE, but customers, contractors, managers and the executive teams as well?

    • Is PPE being enforced?

• Ontario Human Rights Code

  • The Ontario Human Rights Code protects people with disabilities from discrimination and harassment under the ground of “disability.”

    • This includes invisible, physical and mental disabilities.

      • People with autoimmune system disorders, obesity, asthma, chronic smokers are all at higher risk of damage from a Covid-19 infection

      • Mental disabilities such as anxiety of catching Covid-19, or having Covid-19 and infecting / killing someone are valid and legitimate fears that employers may have to accommodate for their employees.

        • People are losing sleep and enjoyment in life at the thought of catching Covid-19 or worse. Catching Covoid-19 or spreading Covid-19 causing harm to others is a reasonable thing to be very stressed about.

    • Employers must accommodate for these employees to the point of undue hardship. Unless this requirement is a bona fide occupational requirement for the employment

      • If the employee was performing their duties from home for the last period it is unlikely it is a bona fide occupational requirement

• Ontario Labour Relation’s Act

  • Organizing a workforce, unionizing a workplace is a legally protected right.

    • It is illegal for employers to punish their employees in any way for joining a union, wanting to join a union and talking about unionizing.

    • In these difficult and unprecedented times organizing a workplace may be the only way of protecting you and your fellow employees from the pandemic we are living in.

It is illegal for employers to punish employees for wanting their labour rights to be respected and enforced. These labour laws are not made arbitrarily, they exist as the result of blood and graves. Because of workplaces that took everything from an employee and their family. Employers are not allowed to punish employees for asking that their labour rights be followed. Employers who reprise or punish employees for being educated and safe about their rights are harshly punished by the governing bodies.

These are unprecedented times that we are living in and all of above is purely legal conjecture. Please seek legal advice if you are considering or interested in anything in my blog.