Omar Ha-Redeye finished as a finalist in the Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP Labour Law Advocacy Competition.  The winners were Eric Grigg and Ben Howard.

The case was an appeal of the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in Fraser v. Ontario, which is currently pending judgment at the Supreme Court of Canada.

The moot was judged by Paul Broad, Barry Brown, Aida Gattfield, Bob Atkinson, and Margaret Szilassy.

UWO Law hosted the 2009 Labour Law Lecture & Conference on Equity in the Workplace: 25 Years After the Abella Report.

Hon. Justice Rosalie Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada delivered the keynote speech on Oct. 30, 2009. Kamila Pizon, a 3L at UWO Law, did a write-up on the speech available from Canadian Lawyer magazine and the school website.

The conference itself was held the following day, on Oct. 31, 2009.  Brian Burkett, partner at Heenan Blaikie LLP, provided the introduction and overview.

The first panel, on the evolution of employment equity, was chaired by The Honourable Madam Justice Rosalie Abella, and featured Carol Agocs of The University of Western Ontario, David Lepofsky, Chair of Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, and Nan Weiner of NJ Weiner Consulting.

The second panel discussed policy perspectives on employment equity. It was chaired by Elizabeth MacPherson of the Canada Industrial Relations Board, and featured Patricia Hughes of the Law Commission of Ontario, Elizabeth McIsaac of the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, and Tom Patch of the University of British Columbia.

Raj Anand of WeirFoulds LLP provided a keynote luncheon speech.

The third panel provided some international perspectives on employment equity. Kevin Whitaker, Chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board chaired the panel that consisted of Harish Jain of McMaster University, who spoke of successes in Malaysia, India and elsewhere, Natasha Martin of the Seattle University School of Law, who covered the implications of President Obama’s election, and Michael Stein of Harvard Law School.

Raj Anand of WeirFoulds LLP chaired the fourth panel, providing legal perspectives on employment equity.  Mary Cornish of Cavalluzzo Hayes Shilton McIntyre Cornish LLP provided a union side perspective, while Nitya Iyer of Heenan Blaikie LLP gave a manager side overview. Michael Lynk, Associate Dean at The University of Western Ontario, also added his insight.

Justice Rosalie Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada

Omar Ha-Redeye participated in the 2009 Borden Ladner Gervais Labour and Employment Law moot and finished as a finalist, a second-place runner up in the competition.

This year’s competition addressed a hypothetical appeal of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Evans v. Teamsters Union No. 31, which centered around wrongful dismissal and the duty to mitigate damages by returning to work for an employer.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) is one of the largest labour groups in Canada.

Their convention, held once every three years, was hosted in Vancouver.

The keynote speaker for the event was Madame Louise Arbour, former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.  Notes from the talk can be found on Law is Cool.

The UWO Labour Law Society hosted a career panel on March 31.

Speakers included:

• Joe Liberman from Mathews Dinsdale and Clark LLP
• Claudia Vicencio from the Ontario Nurses Association
• Robyn White from Cavalluzzo Hayes Shilton McIntyre & Cornish LLP
• Cathy Phan from the Ministry of Government Services

Mr. Liberman talked about his background and love for the construction industry, where his practice is still primarily focused.  His firm is the oldest boutique labour law firm in Canada, and covers a wide range of practice areas within this field.  Their clients range from small businesses to multi-national corporations.  He claimed that if you have an interest in advocacy, this is the area you should be in.  It’s a people practice, but also an issues practice, often the issues on the front-page of newspapers.

Ms. Vicencio graduated from law three years ago after practicing as an academic in the social sciences.  She had been involved in unions since her graduate work, so labour relations was something she had been doing for some time through participation.  Labour law is a great area to get a broad exposure to many areas of law because of the type of work they do.  She does not actually practice as a lawyer as part of the Ontario Nurses Association, and has a somewhat unique role.  She eals with discrimination issues, which is an area that is often changing in law.

Robyn White is a new graduate, and spoke about the type of work young lawers do.  Working in a larger firm allowed her to have exposure to many areas of labour law.  Some of the work she deals with is criminal law in the labour context.  A lot of the work is very fast paced, and files can close within three days.

Cathy Phan explained her work as typically when an employee of the government has an issue and files a complaint to their manager.  When it doesn’t get resolved it proceeds to her office, where she defends the government.  She does settle cases, and she has to, due to the high volume and a need to be reasonable.

Omar participated in the 2009 Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP Labour Law Advocacy Competition.

The case centered around the issue of mandatory retirement, and whether it would uphold a Charter challenge.

The problem was based on a real case at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, Vilven v. Air Canada, 2007 CHRT 36, and used cases such as McKinney v. University of Guelph (1990), 76 D.L.R. (4th) 545 (S.C.C.), and Re CKY-TV and C.E.P., Local 816 (Kenny) (2008), 175 L.A.C. (4th) 29 (Peltz).

This workshop is designed to give participants the tools they need to advise on the hot button employment law issues that they may face through all stages of the employment relationship, given the new developments in the areas of privacy and human rights and damages for wrongful dismissal. This workshop will benefit corporate counsel as well as any practitioner who deals with employment law issues from time to time.

During reading week, Omar Ha-Redeye participated in UWO’s STudent INTership (STINT) program.

He shadowed a Bay St. lawyer in the area of labour/employment law.

Meghan Harrison of U-News.ca discusses the strike at York University.  U-News.ca is a publication of the senior journalism students at the University of King’s College School of Journalism in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Harrison selects key new stories and websites in her coverage,

Class-action lawsuit by students could have a shot

Slaw – Canadian law weblog
Slaw is a three-year-old collaborative weblog about Canadian law. In this post, Omar Ha-Redeye, a law student at the University of Western Ontario, considers whether or not York students could file a successful class-action lawsuit against York over the strike. The students wouldn’t be without in-house experts, as the strike also affects York’s Osgoode Hall law school. Ha-Redeye points out that a 2001 suit against the school over lost instructional time was unsuccessful because the judge wouldn’t connect lost instructional time to financial losses. “If law students (and others) can indicate that the tight deadlines around legal jobs and licensing requirements do have a direct financial impact, is it possible that the court could rule different in the future?” wonders Ha-Redeye.

Law students can occasionally follow lawyers during mediations and arbitrations.

On Dec. 15, Omar visited the Grievance Settlement Board in Toronto.

The Grievance Settlement Board provides dispute resolution services to the Crown employers and the trade unions/bargaining agents representing Crown employees in the Ontario Public Service and Crown agencies identified under the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act.