Alberta board determines if worker’s actions add up to job abandonment
An Alberta employer owes no termination pay after a worker gave notice, assured his employer of his commitment to keep working, and then disappeared over the weekend without a word.
In a ruling dated April 24, 2026, vice-chair Jeremy Schick of the Alberta Labour Relations Board found that the employee's failure to return to work and emptied locker amounted to job abandonment under Alberta's Employment Standards Code.
This overturned a July 31, 2025 officer's order that had directed the company to pay termination pay.
One's week notice
On the morning of Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, the worker gave his employer, Alberta Box Centre Inc., one week's verbal notice of resignation. About 10 minutes later, an employer representative told him the company need not hold him to his working notice.
The worker asked whether there was any concern about his work quality. The representative testified that she told him that employees usually do not work as hard once they have provided notice.
According to her testimony, the worker assured her that he had integrity and his work quality would not go down. Since he expressed a desire to work the notice period, the representative left it at that.
At the end of the day, he asked if he could check out a few minutes early. She permitted it and told him "See you on Monday," to which he nodded.
Abandonment of employment
However, the worker did not appear for work the following Monday. The employer representative checked his locker and found it emptied out. The employer concluded he had abandoned his employment.
The worker did not call the company until the following Thursday. In a series of messages, he asked about termination pay. By that point, the board noted, it was clear from those messages that he had already attained other employment.
The worker was served notice of the hearing but did not appear, despite having been warned by the employment standards appeals officer of the potential negative consequences for his complaint of not attending. As a result, the board heard evidence only from the employer representative.
Alberta Box Centre testified that its normal practice when an employee fails to show up is not to call, because most employees provide a rationale for their failure to show up for work the next day. In this case, the locker check confirmed to the employer representative that the employee had no intention to return.
No termination pay required
Hearing the matter de novo, the board found no evidence that the employer took any steps on that Friday that would constitute a termination or an expediting of the end of the worker's employment.
The board applied the test from Smith v Mistras Canada, Inc. (2015 ABQB 673, paragraph 33), as to “whether, viewing the circumstances objectively, a reasonable person would have understood from the employee's words and actions, that he had abandoned the contract of employment."
The failure to attend work on the following Monday and the emptying of the employee's locker would lead a reasonable employer to believe the employee would not be returning and had abandoned the employment, said the board.
"As a result of that abandonment, no termination pay is required."
The July 31, 2025 order directing termination pay was revoked.
