Originally Posted by
canadiancow
My employer forces me to go home every day. They do not allow sleeping in the office.
So if I fall down the stairs in my place, are they liable?
Your argument seems to be yes.
The Quebec argument seems to be that only between "home" (however that's sanely defined that covers for WFH) and work are covered.
I'm honestly not sure how that would apply to things that happen after you're forced to clock out.
Your employer forces you to leave their office at the end of the day. They don't particularly care where you go. If its your regular office, off site is your problem. Returning to their control and responsibility is some truly leisurely 16 or so hours later. And neither of us work in a job where we are punching a clock.
But, and it should be pointed out strongly here, if you are, say, a traveling consultant and your client "forces" you to leave their office at the end of the day, and you break your ... at the Category 16 Marriott you are put up at, your employer
is responsible for that. Even if during your 16 hours of non-billable time they are forcing you to be somewhere.
Its materially significant here that this was not the
end of the day. Buddy wasn't rushing because they poorly managed their personal time and had to get to a thing. It was on a
mandated, paid break. There was a place to be 15, 30 minutes later. They were not held late, and got stuck in traffic their regular scheduled had them avoid. They were not forced into OT and commuting in an ice storm. They had exactly some short amount of time - paid time - to not take calls, and were expected within some strict number of rings to get back to the job.
Good reasons or not, if WFH is mandated, then other things must change besides "just work from home". That includes the tribunals (and my) logically reasonable, if practically absurd, reasoning here. Pilots get pods, and mechanics get yelled at to lift with their knees. Humans are fallible sacks of meat and management is responsible for ensuring their workplace safety. Call center agents shouldn't be expected to run up and down rickety stairs to get back to their job to answer calls. AC preemptively bought the extra kit on the Boeing death traps because they care about safety, but also never inspected the stairs they simply expected to be serviceable, because they don't. So which is it? Should we foster a culture of collective systematic safety, or do we expect heroic - impossible - levels of inhuman perfection always?
Things don't change unless it costs real money. And insurance - even government sponsored workers comp - is a force for both quantifiable risk and safety.