An Ontario court has ended a 13-year overtime battle between CIBC and 31,000 of its staff members, ruling in favour of the employees although specific damages owing to any of the workers have not yet been determined.
The class action lawsuit was initially launched in 2007 by the 31,000 current and former tellers, personal bankers and other front-line workers in CIBC retail branches across Canada. It was the first class action brought in Canada against the overtime policies and procedures of a major Canadian corporation.
Bank was “careless” and “negligent”
In ruling in favour of the plaintiff and class members, Justice Edward Belobaba found CIBC breached its overtime obligations and was “careless and indifferent, indeed negligent, about its obligation to comply with the requirements of the [Canada Labour] Code.” The judge said the bank “should have known better” with “an able legal staff that can easily advise on the requirements of federal labour law. For some reason this didn't happen. The bank dropped the ball, to be sure."
Justice Belobaba found that the bank’s overtime policies and hours-of-work recording practices were unlawful, system-wide in nature and impeded class member overtime claims
The employees’ lawyer said he hopes that CIBC will accept the judge’s decision and “agree to a fair, reasonable and expeditious process for determining how much unpaid overtime is owing to class members."
