The Ontario Labour Relations Board (the “OLRB“) has just released a fascinating decision which involves the interplay between immigration and employment law. The case involved a German foreign national who entered into an employment agreement with Essar Steel Algoma (the “Employer“) prior to Citizenship and Immigration Canada (“CIC“) issuing him a work permit to work for the company. Things did not work out between the Employer and the foreign national, and the Employer terminated the relationship. The United Steelworks of America (the “Union“) filed a grievance, and the issue of when the foreign national became an employee of the Employer arose. The OLRB decision involved numerous factual determinations involving contested issues of when the foreign national alerted the Employer that he was a foreign national who required a work permit, whether the Employer promised the foreign national that obtaining a Labour Market Opinion (“LMO“) would be easy, and whether the Employer rescinded the foreign worker’s job offer upon the LMO being rejected. Lurking in the background of these factual disputes was the legal issue of “when does a foreign national become an employee of an employer?” The Union argued that as a matter of contract law a person becomes an … Read More