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13. A to Z Services Index

Digest of Benefit Entitlement Principles - Chapter 6

6.3.14    Undue Pressure by an Employer on Employees to Leave their Employment

There are many reasons why an employer would want a person to leave: the person's performance is no longer satisfactory, the person's salary is too high because of seniority, or the employer wishes to eliminate certain positions. An employer may be prevented from laying off the person because it will be necessary to build a file to justify the decision, the employer does not want to confront the union or face action on the grounds of unlawful dismissal or simply because of image.

The temptation therefore is strong to pressure the person to leave on his or her own. This pressure and the tactics used can become intolerable over time¹.

Mere innuendo or insinuations by the employer regarding the advantages of early retirement or to the effect that the job is going to become more demanding, that a person has lost some of his or her skills or that it would be better for the person to leave on good terms with excellent service records and a letter of recommendation do not constitute just cause for voluntarily leaving employment. Nor do the impressions of no longer being wanted or the feeling of not being able to keep up with changes constitute just cause.

The situation is different if the innuendo is more pressing and regular or if the employer subtly or overtly uses tactics that make the situation intolerable and the work atmosphere unbearable. There could, for example, be intimidation, thinly veiled threats of losing the right to early retirement allowances or efforts to downgrade a person by assigning him or her only useless or demeaning work.

Provided he or she used the available reasonable alternatives, either through the union or using the collective agreement, a person has just cause for leaving his or her employment if these alternatives failed to remedy the situation.

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1. Jurisprudence Index/voluntarily leaving employment/just cause/undue pressure to quit/.

Summary Undue Pressure by an Employer on Employees to Leave their Employment

Reasonable Alternatives:  contact the union;  use the provisions in the collective agreement;  look for another job;  Just Cause:  pressure truly intolerable for some time;  does not include early leaving without searching for other employment;  does not include innuendo based more on pretext than on genuine grounds;  does not include leaving simply to receive certain monetary benefits.

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