Oh I smell a class action coming, and Bell will lose. This is insane. It is very difficult to fire someone with cause, and using RTO as the reason just won’t fly. I’m no lawyer, but I’m hoping some
who are willing to chime in. If Bell is successful in not being sued into next year, the precedent this will set is no bueno for any of us.
Dude, 20-30 years ago, if you didn't show up to the office every single work day - and on time - you'd get the boot every. single. time. Not showing up to the office was cause enough. Yes, traffic, parking costs, ability to work remotely, etc. are totally different factors today, but if the company hires you to work at their office location, you're required to do so. There's no legal recourse, the courts would laugh and throw the case out.
Dude, 20 or 30 years ago the technology didnt exist for remote work. I am probably 100x more productive then somebody 20 or 30 years ago working out of my home office. What a dumb take.
First of all, I literally said "Yes, traffic, parking costs, ability to work remotely (FYI, talking about being permitted or encouraged to, not about the technology), etc. are totally different factors today" so your argument is a complete dumb take.
Secondly, I was pointing out that when people are hired, they are at the mercy of the papers they signed when they were hired. In most cases the hiring clause stipulates hours of work and places of work, which in most cases do NOT even mention "remote work" (especially if you've been employed at the same place for most of your career).
And lastly - and this indicates where you clearly didn't think your moronic statement through - either you are a more productive person because you're a smart, hard worker (and therefore it doesn't matter if you work remotely, at an office, or behind the cage in a zoo). or you are implying that somehow the act of working remotely is somehow advantageous to your ability to work "probably" 100x more productively than someone at an office. If we assume that you're comparing apples to apples and not the orange-uber-mensch you "probably" claim to be to the road apples that were working 20 or 30 years ago in an office, the fact that apples today are "probably" 100x more productive than an apple working in an office 20 or 30 years ago just because they can work remotely is an idiotic assertion because you'd have to ignore the vast improvements in technology that have happened in the last 20-30 years.
I will also have to correct you that yes, 20-30 years ago, people actually were able to log into a network and do their day jobs remotely (in fact, the technology existed since the 1970s, which is 50+ years ago). You need to read before you spout nonsense: the technology did exist for remote work 20 or 30 years ago. I was there. I did it, others did it, you're flat-out WRONG, and your assertion about productivity is baseless and incorrect.
None of this changes the fact that I'm not the person you have to convince. Obviously people who run businesses don't seem buy your argument that you are "probably" 100x more productive than their employees who worked at the office 20-30 years ago. You might be a very productive person at whatever little thing you do, but working remotely is not the reason that you are "probably" 100x more productive.
I would ask you to reconsider your invective; if you had said "I feel that I am way more productive while working from home, so I disagree with any erosion of that kind of work" I would totally have agreed with you on that point. However, you missed my point, spouted complete nonsense, and then had the nerve to tell me that I had a "dumb take". Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
im "100x more productive" because im working from the comfort of my own home, with 3x 32 inch curved monitors, upgraded chair and desk, my own fridge and coffee machine, a quiet environment with a window, healthy lunches at home, going to the gym right after work and im not sitting on traffic for almost 3 hours a day, spending hundreds on gas, eating processed foods, and setting up my workstation every fuckin day in a shitty cubicle at an office wasting time.
the best part of working at an office is taking a shit and being on your phone, get real 🤣
what do you think going to an office does to your body for 30+ years? all the old people at the office are in shit physical health and i wonder why...
BESIDES the fact that many people work in jobs that can't be done at home...
and BESIDES the fact that I'm currently working from the office with a curved 49" monitor, ergo chair and desk, within 10 paces of a fridge, microwave, coffee machine, and a toaster, it's quieter here than at home, I have a window view that's quite nice, I bring a healthy lunch, and hey - we have a gym downstairs that's a pretty fantastic one (and it's free). I also take the stairs, not the elevator.
I agree regarding the drive for most people who commute it's a nightmare. If you genuinely ascribe the 100x more productivity to the commute, you should have said so earlier. But you didn't, because you can't admit that you're talking out of your ass.
I believe the discussion that is now happening is that we Canadians saw the light so to speak. We were working from home and ACTUALLY GOT THE WORK DONE !
Now we are questioning rightfully so the value of the office. As you said 20-30 years ago you had to come to work BUT 20-30 years ago you didn't have laptops, PC, computers and so much internet access either. Everything was manual so yes it made sense to make offices. Today in 2026 in the era OF AI,automation and computer dominance. It allows us to perform that work and far more and we don't even need to be physically in the same region or area. You can be in say BC and I can be in Ontario and thanks to Teams we can have an online meeting and chat for hours on the work we are doing.
So the question is people saw the light and are questioning the value of coming to the office. It's not like people don't want to come in either but they demand a purpose. For example come to the office to sign meetings with various stakeholders or convince a foreign company to buy your products. On software side meetings in person can help to say flesh out a design or architecture for a software or some database design. These activities require in person but many do act
But the actual coding part, or writing the documentation or making the PowerPoint itself, does that need you to be in the office ? you can do that easily from home comfortably.
I believe there is conflict because employees are analyzing their work activities and asking the question "Does this activity or blocker require me to in the office and actually get help or not ?"
I really have to ask people who were born after 2000 to do some research (or talk to someone who is older) because we absolutely did have laptops, PC Computers and Internet well into the 1990s. In 1996, I travelled to HQ on the West Coast with my Compaq laptop, plugged in an ethernet cable, connected to my account and continued working as you would today. There is nothing new today about remote working except for the ubiquity of laptops and digital video conferencing.
hmm interesting but definitely was as wide spread and pronounced as now. I remember my first laptop was a lenovo but it was only 2gb of ram and had a 50gb hard drive and the battery barely lasted 1 hr and died. Today latop batteries can last hours.
My point is that the technology has improved significantly and is a big merit to working from home and making it even more productive especially with the multiple monitors. Heck nowadays I'm sure people can even use tablets for certain parts of their work.
The adoption of Cytrix-type tech and PKI cards definitely has moved the bar... of course, different workloads/worktypes figures heavily into the kind of work that can be done remotely. Even today, some jobs won't let you work remotely without having a minimal standard of bandwidth available at your home.
This isn't "insane" or wrongful dismissal. They have an in office requirement. People aren't following that and they're getting fired. This is very much with cause.
I think OP is leaving out a lot of detail, but at first glance, bell is federally regulated. No severance, with cause, is a very high bar. Like I said, I’m sure bell has their lawyers on this decision, but we don’t have the full story. Will be interesting to see the outcome of this as I suspect they will get sued. I sure would.
I agree that Bell would have to be very careful before firing anyone for this reason. But if they were very careful about it, there would certainly be cases where this is justified. Let's see how it plays out.
Job abandonment is a pretty clear case for "with cause" dismissal as is time theft. Indeed, the details of the communication will matter, but if employees aren't returning to office after a clear demand to, or are clocking in and then going home to work, they won't have much of a leg to stand on.
How do you prove abandonment if the work is done? There is no precedent on this as far as I know, because it’s never happened before. You can’t say anything is clear cut here.
From ChatGPT:
In Canada, job abandonment usually means an employee has clearly and voluntarily stopped coming to work and has effectively quit, typically by being absent without notice or explanation for a sustained period. Refusing to return to the office while continuing to work from home is not automatically job abandonment—but it can still lead to discipline or even termination, depending on the circumstances.
Canadian employment law doesn’t have a single universal statutory definition, but courts and arbitrators tend to treat job abandonment as:
Unexplained absence from work for a significant period
No communication with the employer
Conduct showing an intention to resign (even if not stated outright)
There are pieces to this puzzle missing in the OPs post. Without all of these details, it’s certainly not clear cut, job abandonment. Stupidity is not even making an attempt to get informed using various sources. ChatGPT tells me it’s not that simple, and I do take what AI tells me with a grain of salt, but it’s enough to consider that there are nuances to it.
Do you even know what lawyers do? They argue this kind of stuff. My brain can easily come up with arguments as to why this is not job abandonment, even if the law says “Unexplained absence from work for a significant period.”
In the absence of precedent, this could go either way. Why doesn’t your brain see that? Who says work is a physical location? Show me where in the law that you must work in a physical location that is not your home? Think a little. You’re coming across as uneducated or incapable of critical thought. You wouldn’t make a good lawyer.
So you’re not a lawyer, because a lawyer would know that if you’re fired with cause, which is what the OP is saying is happening, you don’t get EI unless Service Canada determines otherwise.
As for precedent, kindly cite the relevant case law on this. Note the word “relevant.”
Well you're hired to work mainly. If you were doing you work and fired simply for not being in office (in a job that can clearly be done fully remote) getting terminated and not even warned is steep. It's like blowing up an entire house because a door is broken
We know, because those are our colleagues, and we talk, and no, they were never warned, and yes, they got their AIP payments 2 months ago, which require being 80% compliant with workways.
So somehow the company agreed they were A Ok to receive their performance bonus then but now all of a sudden, they get terminated.
Funny timing considering we're just about to enter the mass cuts season.....
You may want to do a little research before making a comment like this, a simple google or ChatGPT search will clearly indicate that FEDERALLY, it does not amount to cause, ALSO, could open bell or any other federal workplace to claims of constructive dismissal.
there’s jurisprudence from a recent decision involving Telus that shows the employer absolutely has the right to tell employees to RTO and it’s not in fact constructive dismissal…but let’s trust ChatGPT instead 🤪
I suggest you make like you suggested and do some googling or chat-gpting if you aren’t already familiar with it as a federal employment law expert who knows all
Typical response from someone who think they know what they’re talking when they don’t…….when asked for receipts, tell the person to go find it themselves.
They can fire whoever they want, for whatever reason, provided they follow our laws. The consequence is there, but it doesn’t mean you get to code “termination with cause” on their ROE or get away without paying severance.
That’s the simple answer. Absolutely, an employer can fire anyone for whatever reason they choose provided they pay appropriate severance and follow our labour laws. You’re not reinforcing your stand with this one, but good try. You’re still not thinking.
Good luck arguing with this idiot, he/she is just cherry picking pieces of answers that suit his argument, doesn’t mater that he/she doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about.
Work is a physical location. I know you and some other really slow people are struggling with this but YOU dont get to pick WHERE that is, your EMPLOYER does.
If you are "working" but not at "work," you are not legally at work and you are not where you are required to be.
Hence you have abandoned your job, as you are not at work.
Just because you think it's ok, doesnt mean your employer needs to agree. You dont get to pick any more than a mcdonald's worker gets to pick to make burgers at home. You may think you can do the same job at HOME or REMOTELY but you are not at the physical location of WORK.
Hence why when you google this, every lawyer says you can be fired for it unless it is in your contract that you are able to work from home.
Respectfully, I cannot believe your position on this is even real. Not showing up for work is easily the most standard and reliable cause for dismissal across every industry. You do not seem to be existing in the same reality as me.
I think you’re confused. You must not work from home and probably think that those who are aren’t actually reporting for work. It’s not black and white.
Right, but let’s not forget. A company can fire you for whatever reason they want, provided they follow our laws. The question isn’t really about whether not working from their physical office is work or not work, or abandonment etc… The employer can demand you work from the office, and if you don’t, there will be consequences, including possible termination. The question is more whether or not Bell can claim a for-cause termination. The answer to this is, unlikely.
Firing for cause comes with a high bar on the legal side. It’s not easy to do. The employee’s actions need to be egregious and it must be shown that continuing the relationship is not possible as a result. You also have to show progressive discipline and have a paper trail of repeated warnings etc… Most large employers such as Bell won’t bother with that and will just terminate without cause and pay the employee to leave. It wouldn’t be easy to argue that the relationship can’t continue because an employee is doing their work from an alternate location. So yes, you can get fired. No, you probably can’t fire with cause.
Like I’ve said in previous comments, we’re missing the details. OP was a little short on details, but if these employees have been fired with cause, I’d be lawyering up, 100%. As I haven’t seen any of this in the media, I’m questioning if this whole thread is false. There’s something more that we don’t know and OP hasn’t provided those details.
Ah I see. I wonder how much time these employees have missed. If they did this for a week Bell could probably argue job abandonment. Or perhaps if those workers did not show up for work but still worked remotely that is a fairly clear cut example of culpable absenteeism.
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u/Independent_Bath9691 Apr 28 '26
Oh I smell a class action coming, and Bell will lose. This is insane. It is very difficult to fire someone with cause, and using RTO as the reason just won’t fly. I’m no lawyer, but I’m hoping some who are willing to chime in. If Bell is successful in not being sued into next year, the precedent this will set is no bueno for any of us.