Mass Dismissal of ‘Non-Employees’ at Bruce Nuclear
There’s a peculiar news story in today’s Toronto Star describing how ‘dozens’ of ‘contract workers’ had been dismissed by Bruce Power Corp for misuse of the internet. The story gives virtually no details about what happened, other than that the workers are alleged to have violated Bruce’s “Code of Conduct”.
If you are one of the workers affected, please feel free to leave a comment detailing what happened.
The observation I wanted to make was about another point raised by the story. Bruce Power claims that none of the workers are their own employees. Presumably that means that it is Bruce’s position that the workers are self-employed or employees of some other company, but who are provided with the use of computers by Bruce and subject to a code of conduct related to the computer use. The story itself describes the workers as ‘employees’, but that doesn’t mean anything, since reporters often miss the legal niceties.
Curiously, though, one person who was dismissed described himself as a ’20 year employee’. Does that mean he has worked for Bruce for 20 years as a contractor?
Who knows. Some companies like to call their workers ‘independent contractors’ so they can avoid the costs and responsibilities associated with having employees. But just because an employer calls someone a contractor, it doesn’t make it so. There are legal tests for determining if someone is an employee or not, as I noted in another recent post. So, for example, if the workers at Bruce believe that really are ‘employees’ and not self-employed, they could sue Bruce for wrongful dismissal, or file a claim for notice and maybe severance pay under the Employment Standards Act. The adjudicator would then need to decide the issue of employment status and then whether the employer had ’cause’ to dismiss the workers without notice. If they are not employees, then they are not entitled to any rights reserved in law only for employees.
A nice discussion of this appears in Belton v. Liberty Insurance, for example.
We’ll have to see if more information comes out about the status of these Bruce workers.
guy clampitt
September 21, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I .was a contractor that is directly paid by brucepower. My email use was very limited and I was working as usual when thursday aft. my life was dissrupted I was escourted with armed guards to escourt me off site because of what the called inapprioate e-mails from I went home and now i am waiting to find out if i will be banned from working at bruce power .
I was given an interview to answer to my bad deeds usage in May of this year but was not . Bruce power thought that I had been warned and this was my secound time,my union steward and my immediate supervisor said that I have never been dissiplined for anything and,that I was a very dedicated employee. The evidence consisted of three e-mails two that were sent to me by a co-worker that was not affected by this sting . Their was no nudity just funny still pics off the internet NO PORNO!
I explained that i did not understand that these ,e-mails would put my job in peril,or that my family would suffer because of this incident .The biggest stress is now not knowing my financial future and the stigma that Bruce Power has put out in the public.So here i wait day 18 not knowing if i will be ostrasized like a terriorist from working in the nuclear industry not just here at bruce power, but pickering ,darlington or any nuclear project think that past practice should prevail (days off 3 to 10 off, not public humiliation at the hands of a human resource gone out of control.
Do I retain legal counsel; as everyone works in fear of dissmissal as most of my co-workers are just as guilty under bruces law or let Bruce power brutilize their employees!!!