I am stuck working alone with new coworker who I believe is dangerous. Must the employer take action? I work in a shop. Most of the time I work alone or with one other person. We recently got a new manager who hired two new employees. One of them I have conflicts with (back story on workplace.stackexchange.com) I am concerned for my safety being alone with him. He randomly gets mad. Today he clearly said &quot;I'm not comfortable with you staying and I refuse to work with you&quot; when I asked what was wrong he said it's my work ethic, and he's been here one week. I told him I was stepping outside to speak to the manager one my phone. A minute later he ran outside to interrupt me to ask a work question. Does the employer have some sort of responsibility to fairly resolve this? Or can they just keep scheduling us for shifts together?
An employer has a duty of care to employees and must take steps to ensure their safety. Notably: 125 (1) Without restricting the generality of section 124, every employer shall, in respect of every work place controlled by the employer and, in respect of every work activity carried out by an employee in a work place that is not controlled by the employer, to the extent that the employer controls the activity, ... (y) ensure that the activities of every person granted access to the work place do not endanger the health and safety of employees; (Canada Labour Code (R.S.C., 1985, c. L-2)) If there is a reasonable belief that the other employee is a danger to you, they should take reasonable steps to prevent this. If they choose to ignore this, they may be liable. Whether or not there is a reasonable belief they are a danger to you or others here is unclear. Being annoying or rude does not endanger you and they haven't made threats towards you (I assume, since you'd have mentioned otherwise).
Depends on your definition of "require". In case of at-will employment — where the employer can fire an employee for any or no reason (other than that being discrimination of a member of the protected groups) — it would be perfectly legal for the employer to fire an employee who does not comply with that request. But that aside, no (unless such testing was a term of the employment agreement, be it written or verbal). No party to a contract can require the other party to perform what the contract terms did not include.
Would breaking a rule in the handbook constitute breach of contract? Generally speaking, yes. Of course, most employment contracts are "at will" so a breach of contract often isn't necessary to terminate employment. Does my employer's updating the handbook constitute a unilateral change of contract? It depends upon what is changed in the update to the handbook. Typically an employment contract would have a term that says something to the effect of "employee shall devote his full time effort to perform the duties he is directed to perform by employer in a satisfactory manner." If the employee handbook says, "part of every employee's duties includes cleaning up his work area at the close of business each day, locking his file cabinets and shutting down his computer", this would typically simply be a definition of the duties of the employee which the employer reserved the right to change in the original employment contract, and not a unilateral change of contract. On the other hand, if the employee handbook says, "vacation days may not be taken during December" when the employee's contract simply said that "you have ten vacation days per year", that might constitute a unilateral change of contract which might not be enforceable for an employee with a fixed term of employment who was not an employee at will, without additional consideration. Locale is UK but (I assume) contract law is pretty universal so answers specific to any region are welcome. I have answered based upon general contract and employment law, but the UK frequently sets mandatory standards for different kinds of contracts and modifies common law rules related to contracts (much more so than the U.S.), so it wouldn't be very surprising if this were modified by a statute of which I am not aware. We have UK lawyers who contribute to Law.SE and they can chime in if there are particular statutes in the UK that apply to this question.
The other answers are correct that you should speak to a lawyer, but you should expect your lawyer to tell you that you don't have a viable lawsuit. I can't speak to Pennsylvania law, but these facts would make a pretty weak claim for sexual harassment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. To win a hostile-work environment case, you must demonstrate: you suffered intentional discrimination because of your sex; the discrimination was severe or pervasive; the discrimination detrimentally affected you; the discrimination would detrimentally affect a reasonable person in like circumstances; and the existence of respondeat superior liability. Minarsky v. Susquehanna Cty., 895 F.3d 303, 309 (3d Cir. 2018). Your main problem will be in proving that the harassment was so "severe or pervasive" that it altered the terms of your employment. This is not as high a bar as it used to be, but the courts will not grant relief for "isolated incidents" unless they are extremely serious. Such incidents typically involve some kind of forcible, physical, sexual contact, which I don't see here. The general rule is that the more severe the harassment, the less frequently it needs to occur, and vice versa. Unfortunately, courts would probably look at the events you've described -- not physical, not sexually explicit, not threatening, not intimidating, not soliciting sexual conduct, not mocking you -- and say that they are not particularly severe. Given the lack of severity, the court would need to see them happening with pretty regular frequency, but you've described only two events in the course of about 18 months. And with one of those, the employer appears to have taken reasonable corrective action, leaving you with only one incident to complain about in however long you've worked there. Even if a court agreed that your co-workers engaged in unwanted sexual conduct, I'd expect the employer to be able to successfully invoke the Farragher-Ellerth defense, which permits them to escape liability if they can prove: that the employer exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior; and that the plaintiff employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer or to avoid harm otherwise. Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742, 765 (1998). Since they took corrective action when you reported harassment, and you did nothing to report that there were problems even after the discipline, and did nothing to report that you felt harassed by the second incident, the Farragher-Ellerth defense would probably be successful.
As the owner of your own computer, you can dispose of it however you see fit (as long as your choice is legal). The courts could, theoretically, force you do do something with your computer, but installing software is not one of the things that the courts are empowered to force you to do. (Mostly, they can force you to turn it over for a search). A company can't force you to do anything with your property: only the courts can order the use of force. But there is no legal basis for the courts to grant a company's request for an order to install software. A company can perhaps persuade you to install software on your personal computer, in exchange for keeping your employment. I assume you are familiar with the law regarding firing people. If you do not perform your job, you might be terminated for cause. You could hire an attorney and sue for wrongful dismissal, and it's not obvious that you have a valid reason for non-performance. So I would suggest consulting a Canadian employment attorney before sticking your neck too far out.
could they make a realistic claim that I had voluntarily terminated my contract before the year was over? The employer's act would forfeit its entitlement to reimbursement of bonus. The clause clearly indicates that the triggering event is termination, not the anticipatory notification thereof. Furthermore, the employer's act would be a breach of the [contract law] covenant of good faith and fair dealing. That would be in stark contrast with your compliance with, and/or kindness in, giving a two-week notice. The employer's termination of your employment seems improper in equity insofar as it was aware of your notice and thus took advantage thereof.
I've litigated cases like these before. The IRS enforcement reaction is swift and severe. Penalties for the employer are heavy and rarely waived. It would be rare for a business like this to stay operational long enough to issue a W-2. A business like this would probably be shut down by the IRS and have the people responsible for the payroll function, at a minimum, promptly burdened with tax liens, within four to six months. These cases also constitute a significant share of all criminal tax prosecutions. The odds of someone doing this spending several years in federal prison is high. Generally speaking, if the wrongdoing is fully on the part of the employer without the collusion or knowledge of the employee, the IRS will not force the employee to double pay the taxes that should have been withheld by the employer in this situation. Instead, this IRS will try to recover the amounts that were withheld from the employees but not delivered to the IRS. It will seek to recover these amounts from the employer and also from other responsible persons in the organization (and from outsourced professionals) with the authority to pay the IRS who did not do so. There may be circumstances, if push comes to shove, where the IRS could collect from the employees in a case like this one (I've never had occasion to need to research that issue), but that would be the rare exception and not the rule, in practice. On the other hand, if the employer simply does not withhold taxes or prepare W-2s at all, and either 1099s people who should have been classified as employees (or files no information tax returns at all), the IRS will generally insist that the employee pay income taxes on the full amount owed and that they pay the employee part of payroll taxes. It will also pursue the employer for the employer's share of payroll taxes. The employer will also be jointly and severally liable for any taxes that should have been reported and subjected to withholding that are not paid by the employee (perhaps because the employee spent all the money). Sometimes cases like this are also criminally prosecuted, but it is less common to do so.
The real question isn't whether there is a law, but whether you want to keep your job. If you want to do something that you believe will affect your company negatively, and you ask whether it's legal or not, the question alone should show you it's a bad idea. And another question is whether you can be sued, and what it will cost you even if you can win a case, and the answers to that are "yes" and "a lot".