Parent company merged operations of multiple radio stations
This instalment of You Make the Call features a radio announcer who was let go during a restructuring of several radio stations by the parent company.
Christine Pare joined radio station CFLG in Cornwall, Ont., on Dec. 2, 2012 as an announcer on the afternoon drive show. She left her position at another radio station to work at CFLG and had more than 20 years of experience in radio broadcasting. She also assisted the music department, did voice work for commercials, broadcast from remote locations and contributed to social media posts.
In January 2014, Corus Entertainment, the owner of CFLG, purchased two Ottawa radio stations. The company decided to merge the Ottawa stations with CFLG and another Cornwall station that it owned under one regional manager. According to Pare, the regional manager told the announcers at a town-hall meeting in June that their jobs were safe. Corus denied this but indicated they may have gotten that impression.
On June 25, station management called Pare into a meeting and informed her that her employment was being terminated effective immediately. The letter of dismissal stated that her termination was “due to the restructuring of Corus Entertainment Inc. operations and the resulting elimination of your position.” She was offered four weeks’ pay if she signed a release giving up any claim against Corus, but she refused to sign. As a result, she was given three weeks’ pay, which Corus described as “the payments prescribed by statute.” Two weeks were for the notice required by the Canada Labour Code for employees with more than three months of continuous employment, plus one week’s pay for severance pay required by the code.
Four employees in total were fired in the Corus restructuring, with another CFLG announcer taking over Pare’s afternoon shift and an announcer from Corus’ other Cornwall station taking over that announcer’s slot. The latter announcer was also shuffled between Cornwall and Ottawa while an announcer was hired in Ottawa.
Pare filed a complaint of unjust dismissal, saying Corus could not claim a lack of work as a reason for dismissal without cause under the code, because her job continued to exist and they just filled it with someone else after her dismissal. She also said Corus hired two announcers in Ottawa and Cornwall shortly after she was fired.
Corus claimed that it had to dismiss one announcer in the restructuring to reduce costs at the Cornwall stations and increase their profitability, which was the company's right in running its business. They evaluated all of the announcers and found Pare to be the “weak link” in her performance. The company said she didn’t use social media enough and she repeated words too often on the air. Though Corus said she wasn’t fired for her job performance, it was a factor in deciding she was the announcer to be cut to reduce costs. The reduction in a position qualified as a lack of work under the Code, Corus argued.
You Make the Call
Did Corus dismiss Pare due to lack of work?
OR
Was pare unjustly dismissed?
If you said Pare was unjustly dismissed, you’re correct. The adjudicator found that Pare was not dismissed for lack of work, as this wasn’t an example of layoffs or downsizing caused by a significant negative change in the employer’s economic circumstances. Instead, there was a change in the Corus management structure but “no evidence of a restructuring or a lack of work affecting the announcers — as far as I could tell the announcer’s shifts and the work done by them stayed the same before and after Ms. Pare’s dismissal,” said the adjudicator.
The adjudicator found the only difference was that Pare wasn’t working anymore and another announcer was doing her shift. No other announcers were fired and there was no indication of a discontinuance of a function.
“It appears that management took the opportunity presented by the newsroom reorganization to dismiss an announcer who they considered to be a ‘weak link,’” said the adjudicator.
The adjudicator noted that the code allowed dismissals without cause for employees with more than 12 months of continuous employment only if a lack of work or discontinuance of a function is the reason, or the employee is a manager, or there is a provision in the employment contract allowing for it. The adjudicator already found there wasn’t a lack of work or a discontinuance of a function, Pare wasn’t a manager, and the employment contract didn’t have sufficient language to supplant the common law notice requirement.
Corus was ordered to pay Pare compensation and benefits for 13 weeks in addition to the three weeks she had already received. The adjudicator noted that the job market for radio announcers was limited, especially since Corus owned many of the stations and wouldn’t be willing to re-hire her.
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