Question about sick days in Ontario, Canada

[shad0ws]

Hi. I'm posting this here because I don't feel it falls under the other two topics... but I have a situation and require some sound legal advice.

I'm working for a company, and coming up in April I'll be celebrating my second year of employment with this company.

However, last year I was sick for quite a few days, and mid way through the year I was hospitalised for a week and diagnosed with Crohn's disease, which is now under control. It was the underlying reason for a lot of my missed days up til that point, and for some missed days until medication was able to stabilise my health.

For most of my missed time last year, I provided doctor's notes, or a hospital note. All doctor's visits were scheduled ahead of time, and time was sometimes even made up.

Last year in November, after all the time that I missed, I received a written warning about how many days I've missed (15.5, Ontario Labour Laws allow for 10). I signed the written warning after writing a short paragraph on why I was away for so many days, and thought it to be over and finished.

Today, I again received a new written notice about missed time from last year, the opening paragraph is as follows:

"The purpose of this document is to bring your attention to your attendance performance. For 2006, you were absent for 15.50 days. This performance is not acceptable. If this level of performance were to continue in the New Year, your employment could be terminated".

Now, if it was just a memo stating that I'll be expected to improve, which I have done, I'd let it all be. The thing is, this new write up goes into detail about how if I'm away from the workplace in excess of 1 hour, I'll be required to provide documentation as to where I am.

My question is... where should I go from here? Should I seek legal advice? Should I sign this and hope that this is the end of it? Should I refuse to sign this and let is hang over me as a dark cloud? I feel this is borderline harassment, because it was agreed last year that this situation would be put under control, and it has been, yet still they persist on aggravating the whole thing.

If there's anyone who is well versed in Ontario Labour Law who would be able to help me out with this situation, I'd be more than happy to provide a scanned copy of this document.

Any advice would also be well appreciated.

Thanks!

You cannot be harassed or even fired for legitimate illness. Have a lawyer briefly help you draft a response if you would like.

Originally Posted by Unregistered You cannot be harassed or even fired for legitimate illness. Have a lawyer briefly help you draft a response if you would like.

Will the legal fees be worth the result? It would simply be easier (if you've kept records, maybe your doctor can help) to provide documentation of where you've been that November? I'm sure you've shown/given that documentation already, but the onus now is on you to provide it again, I beleive.

Originally Posted by Unregistered You cannot be harassed or even fired for legitimate illness. Have a lawyer briefly help you draft a response if you would like.

I'd agree on the Harassment but I think you are wrong on the illness point:

Paid sick leave has its advantages

Employment Standards FAQ | Ontario Ministry of Labour

Ontario has no legislation for sick days paid or unpaid until you employ over 50 people. Then you are required to provide up to 10 days per year unpaid leave.

Now I'd say an employer offering no sick day options at all would not be a very good workplace but from the looks of the above they have no requirement to do so in Ontario.