OLRB Agrees To Hear Another Harassment Case

The debate continues as to whether the Ontario Labour Relations Board has jurisdiction to hear harassment-reprisal complaints under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, but another Vice-Chair of the OLRB has said "yes".

As we wrote in another post, an earlier OLRB decision called Investia had suggested that because the OHSA does not require employers to prevent harassment – but only to have a harassment policy and program, to provide "information and instruction" to employees on harassment, and to post the policy – the OHSA does not protect employees who were dismissed for complaining about harassment.

Recent decisions of the OLRB, and now the OLRB's November 21, 2014 decision involving Celco Inc., have come to the opposite conclusion.  In the Celco case, an employee alleged that she had experienced continuing workplace harassment from a co-worker and had complained to the employer about it several times.  She said that the employer took no action, but