Bill Gates once said: "the Internet is becoming the town
square for the global village of tomorrow". If Gates was
right, how might courts treat offensive blog posts made by a
co-worker in the town square of the Internet?
Taylor-Baptiste v. Ontario Public Service
Employees Union ("Taylor-Baptiste"), is
an important case from Ontario that touches on questions of human
rights, the scope of a tribunal's exploration of the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
("Charter"), and whether posting work related
issues on a blog might be considered to occur "in the
workplace".
In Taylor-Baptiste, Jeff Dvorak and Mariann
Taylor-Baptiste both worked at the Toronto jail where Ms.
Taylor-Baptiste was Mr. Dvorak's manager. Mr. Dvorak was
president of the jail's local branch of the Ontario Public
Service Employees Union ("OPSEU"). In 2009, during a
period of labour unrest and collective bargaining, Mr. Dvorak
operated a blog to communicate with the Local 530 membership.
