When employers do not respect well-established workplace rights, this can cause people to suffer reduced quality of life. An employment lawyer can help you figure out if your workplace rights have been disrespected. Here are three rights you have as an employee in Canada:
1. The Right To Know Your Risks
Outside of white-collar office jobs, almost every job features injury risk of one sort or another. Under this nation’s legal system, you have the right to understand the hazards involved in doing your job. You deserve to know about any risks associated with cleaning products, machinery and processes in your workplace.
Besides maintaining unsafe workplaces, unacceptable employer practices include unfair dismissal, employee shaming, discriminatory language and workplace hazing. It simply isn’t fair for companies to engage in improper behavior like this. If you feel that you have been abused by your employer, you should contact an employment lawyer immediately.
2. The Right To Adequate Training
Besides knowing our risks, you deserve the necessary training to perform your work tasks safely. Government officials should do more to ensure that employee rights are protected in this great nation. By improving and modernizing Canadian employment laws, lawmakers can help maintain Canada’s reputation as a progressive, fair-minded society. Fortunately, Canada has already enacted quite a few measures to protect you from suffering undue harm in the course of your occupational pursuits.
3. The Right To Participate In Improving Your Workplace
You have every right to participate in the process of improving the safety of your workplace. This includes the right to participate in health boards and safety committees. This also means you have the right to report unsafe health conditions internally or to an external authority. Employees are also legally entitled to become whistle blowers without retaliation from management or wrongful termination.
Generally speaking, workplaces that are not improving their safety conditions are actively losing ground. As an employee, you should do all you can to ensure safe working conditions. By keeping your employers honest, you help yourself and other employees who work at your company. Even if you feel immense personal loyalty to your employer, you should balance your personal feelings with your civic responsibilities. If people stay silent and refuse to hold companies responsible, this can ultimately lead to systemic problems for the working Canadian public. There are additional resources available at Whitten & Lublin.
Every employee should understand their work rights so they can preserve their personal safety. If people don’t understand their rights, it becomes more likely that they will experience injury or permanent disability in the course of their work. Even worse, people who don’t know what their rights are may not receive just compensation when injury occurs. It is possible that over the years, workplace issues requiring litigation will become less common.
4. The Right To Refuse Unsafe Assignments
This right is a deeply important part of employment law in Canada. Every day, Canadian employees save themselves from harm by exercising their right to refuse. It is likely that this right has saved quite a few lives over the years. It is shocking that even at this late date, too many employers retaliate against their employers for refusing to do unsafe things. These unfortunate situations can occur in many different industries. Although the Canadian government is doing their best to reduce workplace abuses, these things take time. It will take a collaboration between many stakeholders to achieve more progress in this area.
In the future, employers may be forced to show greater respect for employee rights. This developing trend is aided by the tireless work of employment lawyers who are committed to defending the rights of their clients.
