Howard Levitt: Can you lie about your vaccination status to your company?

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Some employees don\u0027t want to admit to being vaccinated for fear they may be asked to return to the office

My answer is that if the employer, in enacting its safety protocols, wishes to know whether employees are vaccinated in order to protect them, their coworkers and customers, the worker is obliged to answer. Being dishonest could be cause for discharge.

If the policy did not exist and the employer provided the paid time as a voluntary benefit to the employee, who took the procedure and immediately resigned, the company could sue to recover its money as the benefit was provided to the employee in anticipation of their returning to work.Article content

Whether there is a policy or not, if an employee takes a paid leave but did not take the time off for the reason provided, the employer can always sue for its money back. There is also the overriding issue that, if an employee resigns without adequate notice, i.e. enough notice for the employer to find a trained replacement, the employer can sue that employee for wrongful resignation to recover its damages suffered as a result of the inadequacy of the notice.

In Ontario, for example, they are entitled to 30 minutes unpaid break after every five hours. In Ontario, once their work hours, excluding lunch but including any breaks, amount to 44 hours per week, the employee is entitled to pay at time and one half for all weekly hours thereafter. There is a similar legislation in each province.

As for the working conditions, if they are unsafe from a health standpoint, the employee can protest and refuse to work until either the workplace is rendered safe or a health and safety inspector visits the workplace to determine whether it meets health and safety standards. Until it does, the employee need not work. But if the inspector rules that conditions are safe, it would be cause for discharge for the employee to continue to refuse to work.

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I thought any lying on an application form was grounds for dismissal.

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