A group of former Bell Canada employees is pushing back hard against claims that they faked their office attendance, and some are preparing to take the company to court over it.
Bell fired the workers for what it’s calling “swipe and go” behaviour: badging into the office and then leaving without putting in a full day. But many of the terminated employees claim that’s not the whole story, and that Bell is using the misconduct label as a way to avoid paying out severance. Some employees even apparently swiped in to use the gym only, then went home.
But Jean-Alexandre De Bousquet, an employment lawyer representing at least 30 of the fired workers, says his clients had been working remotely for years, in some cases over 10 years. When Bell introduced new in-office requirements, he argues, many employees never signed on to them. “This is a unilateral change to their working conditions,” he said.
According to several workers who spoke to CBC News, their direct supervisors were often in the loop. De Bousquet says some managers outright told employees they didn’t need to stay the full day. Just swipe in and get to work, wherever that happened to be.
“They were getting different and contradictory messages,” he said. His clients believed they were following guidance from their own leadership, not breaking the rules. The workers believe they were fired for misconduct so Bell would not have to pay them severance.
Bell has since confirmed that managers who allowed the practice were also let go.
“This is a big money-saving move for Bell, fire all those people for cause and pay them nothing,” De Bousquet said. He’s currently filing claims in both Ontario and Quebec courts.
Bell spokesperson Luc Levasseur said to CBC News it has “clear evidence” of wrongdoing. The employees say they were doing what they’d always done, often with their bosses’ blessing, and that their years of remote-first culture were being used against them.
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They never agreed to work from office…yet were caught explicitly returning to the office, but leaving immediately.
I think the way Bell dealt with it was a bit strange. So you caught number of employees doing swipe and go and instead of giving a warning you just terminated them without severance?? If it’s not a cost saving tactic then what it is.
Warnings for theft? What sort of bizarre workplaces would warn employees once they’ve been caught stealing? I mean, maybe government work, but not many private employers would allow blatant theft.
What theft? I know many employees who worked more than 8hours when they worked from home. The point is as many employees were doing a few hours in office or doing swipe & go then why Bell just fired only some? As many were following the same practice that means it was condoned for a long time and if Bell really wanted to keep the employees then they must have given the warning before this extreme step.
Majority of those employees were top performers and got yearly increments so if attendance hours were that serious then yes warning should be given.
This is similar to the federal government workers beehcing about legislation requiring them having to return to work 4 days a week.
Only CRA staff are effectively exempt because HR created AI generated templates to keep their staff from returning to the office especially management whilst service especially to the public continues to erode. Worst of all, you’ll have the unhinged in blogs like this side with the employees.
Bell doing something shady?
No surprise here
They gonna have to hire a translator to go to court? All bell hires is Indians…
At least they know to use “are” with a plural subject instead of “is,” even if they’re being racist toward a group of people.
This situation really highlights how complicated return-to-office policies have become
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Interesting article — it seems there are still many unanswered questions about what employees were actually told by management. 威樂
The discussion around “swipe and go” culture is surprisingly relevant in today’s workplace environment. 威樂