Jean-Philippe Couture, a lawyer in the Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG) office in Calgary, has written an article entitled, "Canadian Tax Implications Of Hiring U.S. Contractors To Perform Work In Canada".

The article was published in BLG's Fall 2011 Labour and Employment Law News newsletter.

Lus Laboris has published a guide entitled, "Non-Compete Clauses: An International Guide" (May 2010).

As set out on their website , the lus Laboris alliance is comprised of member law firms in 42 countries, with coverage in more than 100 countries. Its specialisms include: individual employment contracts; collective redundancies; discrimination; expatriation; restructuring; compensation, benefits and tax; pensions; collective bargaining; workplace policies and handbooks; litigation and dispute resolution; and corporate social responsibility.

The Lus Laboris website describes the guide as follows:  read more »

Labour and employment lawyers in Vancouver may be interested to know that the American Bar Association's "5th Annual Section of Labor & Employment Conference" will be held in Seattle this year, on November 2-5, 2011. 

The program guide has not yet been posted to the Section's website. Last year's jam-packed program guide - the conference was held in Chicago - can be found here.

In Mason v. Chem-Trend Limited Partnership, 2011 ONCA 344, the Ontario Court of appeal overturned the application judge's decision and ruled that the following restrictive covenant was unreasonable and therefore unenforceable against a 17 year technical salesperson whose employment was terminated for just cause:

I agree that if my employment is terminated for any reason by me or by the Company, I will not, for a period of one year following the termination, directly or indirectly, for my own account or as an employee or agent of any business entity, engage in any business or activity in competition with the Company by providing services or products to, or soliciting business from, any business entity which was a customer of the Company during the period in which I was an employee of the Company, or take any action that will cause the termination of the business relationship between the Company and any customer, or solicit for employment any person employed by the Company.

The National Employment Law Project is a US advocacy organization for employment rights of lower-wage workers, It has offices across the United States and a staff of lawyers, policy experts and researchers.

Of note to US employers, the Project recently published a "Criminal Background Checks: A Best Practices Guide" (March 17, 2011), which speaks to best practices in the US context.

Jackson Lewis, a US labour and employment firm with offices across the country, posted an article last month on its website entitled,  "Washington State Legislature Targets Bullying in the Workplace" (February 15, 2011).

The article states that:  read more »

The table below contains a comprehensive list of the upcoming workplace law (employment, labour, human rights, pensions, privacy and immigration) conferences in Canada in 2011. The full names of the service providers, and links to their sites, are at the bottom of the page.

 read more »

Jackson Lewis, a labour and employment firm with offices in almost every US state, has published a case summary entitled, "Employee's E-mail to Attorney Not Privileged Where Sent by Employer's Computer, California Court Rules"

Ths summary covers the California Court of Appeal's decision in Holmes v. Petrovich Development Co., LLC, No. C059133 (Cal. Ct. App. Jan. 13, 2011).

An "Individual's 'Private' Social Networking Sites Are Not Exactly Private, New York Court Rules". That is the title of a case summary published by Jackson Lewis, a US labour and employment law firm.

The case is Romano v. Steelcase, Inc., __ Misc. 2d. __, 2010 NY Slip Op. 20388 (Sup. Ct., Suffolk County 2010). According to the summary, in a lawsuit for personal injuries, a New York court determined that information designated as “private” on a plaintiff’s Facebook and MySpace pages could be accessed by the defendants in pre-trial discovery.

Jackson Lewis, a labour and employment law firm with 46 offices throughout the United States, has released the results of a Workplace Survey it conducted of in-house counsel at large and medium size companies across the US.

The survey asked the in-house lawyers about trends and practices in their organizations. As set out in Jackson Lewis' June 18, 2010 press release, among the most notable findings from the survey were:  read more »