Employment Services
With complex employment and labour laws, an aging population, technology that opens businesses to increased risks, and the complications of a global marketplace, being an employer is a sophisticated endeavour. With a multi-disciplinary team of lawyers practising in all Bennett Jones offices, our employment services practice represents private and public sector clients whose operations span business, government, trades and the professions. Whether the issues call for preventative measures or decisive action, we work with employers to manage their human capital and mitigate employment risk and disputes. Our practice includes all aspects of employment such as corporate immigration, labour, occupational health and safety and pensions and benefits.
We view our role as a combination of legal counsel and compliance advisor. To help our clients navigate their way through legislation, precedent and trends in employee relations, we conduct human resources audits, develop internal dispute resolutions programs, and draft a wide variety of employee risk management policies to avoid protracted litigation. We also provide opinions on these issues, both evaluating and ensuring that they comply with the broad spectrum of employment standards legislation within and between provinces and countries. Bennett Jones has developed extensive expertise in human rights and privacy law, advising on pay equity, diversity, harassment and discrimination issues as well as confidentiality matters involving the safeguarding of employee records and health administration matters.
A major element of our practice involves advising on employment matters arising out of mergers, acquisitions, takeovers and reorganizations, including developing executive compensation structures, handling business immigration issues, and devising action plans and termination packages for company relocations, closures, corporate downsizing, employee outsourcing and contract staffing.
We also advise on pension and employee benefit matters, provide counsel on the wide array of employment benefit plans and guide fund and investment managers who manage pension funds. From an employer perspective, we help clients structure pension plans and other benefit plan trusts – such as employee share ownership plans, bonus and stock-option incentive plans, group benefit plans and supplemental retirement plans – by advising on design options, drafting the required compliance documents, and setting up the necessary contracts and procedures governing employee subscriptions and distributions.
Our advice to pension plan, administrators and trustees involves pension plan review and interpretation, plan administration issues such as preparation and review of plan texts and related funding agreements, communications with plan members, plan governance structures, pension fund investment structures and strategies and fiduciary obligations. We also advise on the tax implications of various plan structures, pension deficit and surplus issues, wind ups, disclosure and compliance issues and pension-related litigation.
In the labour arena, we represent employers involved in union certification drives, collective bargaining sessions, and in the negotiation, drafting and interpretation of collective agreements.