Anyone help with potential constructive dismissal case?
Wasn't sure whether to put this in the careers section or not, but hoping someone on beyond would have some insight.
A family friend has worked for an established Canadian retail store for many years now in a store manager position, with over 30 years retail management experience from various places over the years.
Recently, a new district manager was employed. He's basically a bully and has been trying to weed out anyone from the company who will not blindly say yes to him without question, already causing another manager to quit and cite him and his bullying as the reason. However each time there's a complaint, the HR Department (which is basically one person with an assistant) doesn't do anything on paper and just tells this district manager who's complained and what they've said, rather than any disciplinary action.
Said family friend was one of the persons who was kept on lay-off due to covid when the stores were allowed to re-open, which they were OK with, since they knew the store had some people with younger families and bills to pay who could use the money more than they could.
Within days of returning, aforementioned district manager came in and gave F.F their first ever verbal warning, for the store not being in tidy and standard condition, you know, the store that the assistant manager and team leader had been running for the last however many months. FF was aggrieved about this and during his "conversation" he verbally berated her and made ageist comments regarding FFs tenure etc, also berating another store employee who has documented history of addiction problems and has been through rehab and is getting their life back on track (i was especially angry when FF told me about the ageism).
Within 2 weeks of FF's return, DM came to the store, completely ignored FF and said hello to other employee and started re-arranging the store that had just been organised back to the standards he had given the verbal warning for. As he was just about to leave, he pulled FF to the side and gave them a letter saying they were being transferred from the highest volume store in the city, to the lowest volume one (think going from working in Timmies in Downtown Toronto to working at Timmies in Inuvik). Again he made ageist comments saying that "at this time in life, you'll be looking to slow down and work a M-F, 9-5 store".
FF had been really struggling due to DMs previous verbal warning and this really put them over the edge. FF went to family doctor who would only sign them off for 3 days on stress leave because "any more is too much paperwork" (no wonder Canada has a mental health problem, but thats another issue). FF followed all company protocols for taking sick time, including finding another staff member to cover their shift and going in to open the store for this person on the first day as they were not a keyholder. She had also logged her sick time in their tracking system properly etc etc.
When FF returned to work, in a slightly better frame of mind after chatting to some other friends who'd been in a similar position, they were immediately called by the DM to say he'd be coming to the store to speak with them. FF was given a final written warning for "going over on stores allocated hours" by 3 hours. Basically the DM had gone into the time tracking system and changed FFs sick day when they opened for the other employee to show them as working for 3 hours and then sick for 5.5hrs whilst the other employee sits at their full 8.5hr shift. There's the 3 hours that should have been sick time used to give FF a final written.
FF is devastated. They loved working for this company until this DM started and I honestly feel helpless because all my experiences from the UK have been polar opposite. The doctors take stress at work very seriously and employers actually pay for your counseling should you require it and bullying at work is zero-tolerance
What advice can I give? This all to me sounds like constructive dismissal should FF end up quitting in order to preserve their health.
Any employment lawyers or anyone worth calling? They don't have a lot of income between them and their spouse so they're both very worried that DM will find another way to fire them for something so little since this final written.
Thanks for any advice!
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Originally Posted by Kloubek
