Bell fires employees it claims falsified attendance records, but some deny

Canadian corporate giant BCE, which owns Bell, has fired a number of workers for violating policies around workplace attendance or working from home, but CBC News has learned the company is facing allegations the terminations were unjustified and used to avoid paying severance.

In an email to employees obtained by CBC News, Bell’s chief human resources officer Nikki Moffat said terminated employees were “misrepresenting their presence in the workplace” — though now-fired workers have been disputing that claim on social media and in conversations with CBC News.

In addition to accusations those fired were deceptive about when they were in the workplace, Bell claims some terminated workers were caught “swiping in and leaving shortly after,” according to Moffat’s email.

Not so, say workers contacted by CBC News, as well as Jean-Alexandre De Bousquet, a lawyer representing at least 30 terminated Bell workers.

“I would say most of those people have never worked in the office, not even before the pandemic,” said De Bousquet. The Mississauga-based employment lawyer said he has been contacted by more than 30 fired Bell employees and believes there could be “hundreds.”

A Bell representative told CBC News the company disagrees with the claim hundreds have been terminated, saying that number is inaccurate. Bell would not provide specific details on how many people have been terminated or confirm any names of those affected, but the company said only a “small number” of employees were fired.

WATCH | Most people want to work remotely, but not their employers:

Most people want to work remotely — companies want them back in-office

A recent Angus Reid survey suggests the majority of workers would prefer a fully remote or hybrid workplace, but many employers are opting to have employees in the office more often.

Bell said it’s been policy for corporate office employees to be in the office at least two days a week since 2022 and three days since 2023. But De Bousquet and his clients dispute that.

“We’re talking about people who have been hired 12 years ago and never stepped foot in the office … they never agreed to this,” said De Bousquet. “It was a unilateral change by Bell.”

Multiple Bell employees contacted CBC News to advise that not only were they never required to work in the office under strict policies before, but their immediate managers had explicitly approved the very working arrangements they were terminated for.

“They were getting different and contradictory messages. … Their managers would say, ‘well, no, as long as you come in and swipe your fob, you don’t have to stay the whole day,'” said De Bousquet, who is in the process of filing multiple claims in court for employees in Ontario and Quebec.

De Bousquet says many of his clients were not given warnings or suspensions before they were fired.

He and several of the terminated workers have said it is their opinion that Bell fired them for economic reasons, and the company is claiming…