Employment Standards Trial
Fact Scenario
Jessica began working for TDHB Company on September 1, 2019. She was hired as a customer service representative where she processed customer complaints and entered them into a database. Jessica was earning $924 per week, not including vacation pay.
Andrea is the general manager of TDHB. On September 17, 2019, Andrea and Jessica signed an employment agreement. In the agreement, Jessica would be paid time in lieu for any overtime that she worked. It was a very busy time for TDHB and Jessica worked many hours of overtime. From September until the end of February 2020, Jessica worked a total of 144 hours of overtime. In March, Jessica took a week off and used 44 hours of lieu time and therefore has 100 hours remaining.
When she returned on March 9th, she was informed that she was now going to be a manager. In addition to her existing duties, Jessica would be tracking overtime hours and absences of employees. For the time being, Andrea makes all decisions regarding discipline and termination. Maybe one day, Jessica will be permitted to make discipline and termination decisions but for now, Andrea feels that Jessica is not ready. Jessica now earns $968 per week, not including vacation pay.
According to TDHB Company policy, Jessica is no longer entitled to payment of overtime or any lieu time because she is a manager. Andrea promised to pay out Jessica’s banked overtime from his previous position over the next six months.
However, COVID radically changed the reality for the company. The company lost a lot of business during this economic calamity. In order to save the company, the company announced that all earned overtime is now forfeited.
A number of employees have been laid off so Jessica now has to work harder. She is now working an average of 65 hours per week. From March 23rd to August 28th, she had no time off work. She was even working on Sundays! She even had to work every public holiday during this period but she was given time-and-a-half for each hour worked on these days.
At the beginning of August, Andrea noticed that the emergency exit door had been kicked in from the inside of the building. As the company was struggling, it did not want to pay to fix it. Instead, it deducted $150 from a total of 6 employees, all of whom who work in the vicinity around this exit – surely one of them is responsible for this damage!
Things were getting really bad quickly! On September 7th, the company suddenly announced that all employees would have a pay cut. Jessica will therefore earn $600 per week.
On October 14th, the company suddenly closed shop! All 100 employees were terminated! Jessica received 2 weeks pay in lieu of notice.
On October 21st, the company filed for bankruptcy.
Jessica has approached you for help. Your job is to present her case to the Employment Standards Tribunal.
Assignment
You are to provide a written report in the following format:
Summary of Issues:
this is where you summarize the complaints under the Employment Standards Act, 2000that Jessica has
Issues:
here you provide details of each complaint. You should make reference to the applicable section(s) of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 and provide examples of relevant case law. Outline any tests, if applicable. The text has examples of cases with similar fact scenarios. Use online resources such as canlii.org to find more examples. Separate into subsections for each pertinent issue.
Conclusion:
this is where you draft your conclusion and state the remedy sought. In this case, you are asking the tribunal to award Jessica an appropriate remedy.
