Each month, our Advocacy Committee answers your questions about the AD 10 policies (aka, your terms and conditions of employment.)

Hello. I’m Mike Peragine, an advocate on APSA’s Advocacy Committee. On behalf of the Committee, I’m answering your question about recourse for job description changes.
 

Questions? Submit them anonymously here. Your question will be answered in a subsequent monthly advocacy corner issue. For an immediate answer, please contact us.

I’m worried that SFU will change my job, and I won’t want it anymore. Do I have the right to refuse, and if so, what happens then?

I advise contacting the APSA office, as the details of your situation would be very helpful to give you more specific guidance. I can offer some general comments in this space, however. 

SFU can change your job description (JD) to reflect the current operational needs of your department or unit, which can include revising your current duties, removing no longer needed duties or making other reasonable changes. Your revised JD should, however, still be in the general purview of the job that you were hired to do: your job can't, in good faith, be changed to something entirely different, such as doing software engineering if you're a departmental advisor, for example. SFU also shouldn't change your job description so substantially as to effectively position eliminate you. 

In certain circumstances, the last point could well become an issue of what's called constructive dismissal. This is where an employee feels forced to quit due to an employer's behaviour or breach of contract. Examples of this include:

  • A serious breach of your contract (such as not paying you or demoting you for no reason).
  • Forcing you to accept unreasonable changes to your conditions of employment without your agreement (such as making you work in another town or work night shifts when your contract is only for day work).
  • Bullying, harassment or violence against you by work colleagues.
  • Making you work in dangerous conditions.

If, when reviewing the changes to your JD, you feel that there may be elements of constructive dismissal, I strongly urge you to contact us right away so that we can more fulsomely advise you on your situation.