Another Karen goes too far
Karen was the payroll person/office manager for a small landscaping company. One Friday, as usual, she handed in all the employee hours to the owner along with the paycheques to be signed. When she returned, she noticed that one worker had not been paid. When she asked why, the boss said that he did not think the hours recorded for that employee were accurate and that person had taken his truck home the night before and forced the owner to pay someone else to go and get it. He wanted to deduct some pay. Karen thought she knew better. She told the owner that the hours were accurate and any deduction he made would be illegal. She was right about the last part, the boss could have disciplined the worker for taking the vehicle home but he cannot dock pay even if the employee did deserve it. That would contravene the Employment Standards Act of Ontario.
Karen knew she was right on that issue but decided she was entirely right. They discussed it several times that morning with the boss insisting the hours were incorrect and overstated and Karen contradicting him. She told the boss that she had a mind to walk out and not return to work until the paycheque had been signed as is. What she did instead was tell everyone she had a headache and was taking the day off. She said in court, that she intended to return to work on Monday. The owner said she took all her belongings with her but she denied that. That Friday night Karen had a meeting at her house with all the employees. They prepared a document called a strike notice and everyone signed it. It had a variety of demands and one of them was that Karen be allowed to prepare all the work schedules without any alteration by the owner. The next day, the boss was given the strike notice and immediately sent Karen a text indicating that she should not return to the work place…ever. Karen sued for wrongful dismissal. The boss claimed she had resigned from her employment or repudiated the employment agreement. For resignation to have taken place, it must be unequivocal and clear.
If the boss really thought Karen had resigned on Friday, he would not have bothered to send her a text on Saturday telling her never to return. The Judge did find, however, that Karen had repudiated her contract. She had withheld her services on the Friday with an ultimatum The strike notice that she signed and that was organized at her house threatened again to illegally withhold her services. Karen had taken things too far. If she and her fellow coworkers had wanted to unionize, then there are legal steps to go through to make that happen. Even unionized workers are not allowed to illegally withhold services. We will never know how much angry drinking took place at Karen’s house on that Friday night, but there were regrets by the end of the weekend. Everyone abandoned her and was back at work by Monday except Karen. All she had left was her lawsuit. Karen clearly did not know when to stop. Even a fully recognized union would not dream that it could ever demand complete control over scheduling. Karen probably could have got away with absenting herself on the Friday. If she had simply showed up to work on Monday, there would have been no clear resignation or just cause for termination. By trying to withhold services without going through the collective bargaining steps required by the Ontario Labour Relations Act, however, Karen went too far.
