The Ontario Labour Relations Board has suspended a Ministry of Labour inspector’s compliance order relating to an employer’s harassment investigation after the employer appealed the orders and the complainant resigned.
The MOL inspector’s compliance order read as follows:
The employer shall ensure that an investigation is conducted into incidents and complaints of workplace harassment that is appropriate in the circumstances to protect a worker from workplace harassment. At the time of this visit, additional information regarding an allegation of workplace harassment was reported to the employer by this Inspector and an investigation appropriate in the circumstances had not been conducted by the employer.
The OLRB noted that the person who filed the harassment complaint and reported it to the MOL had since resigned. Also, the employer said that it had investigated the complaint and reported the result to the parties.
The OLRB stated that there was nothing in the application (the appeal document) suggesting that there would be ongoing safety issues posed to any workers, including the worker who complained, if the compliance orders were not suspended.
Because the MOL had not opposed the employer’s request for suspension of the compliance order, the “low threshold for establishing a prima facie case” had been met. There did not appear to be any reason to defer to the MOL inspector. The compliance order was therefore suspended pending the result of the appeal.
A link to the decision may be found here.
