How long does an Employer have to write up an Employee?
A “write-up” has very little legal importance in a non-union setting. An employer can write you up for inhaling every time you take a breath, and in most circumstances there’s absolutely no recourse for it. (Well, that might get into the realm of harassment and alienation…but let’s not go there.) A write-up only becomes important when an employer seeks to rely upon it, in part, to justify terminating employment for cause. In terms of demonstrating progressive discipline, an employer is much better off showing that discipline was imposed promptly. If they fail to do so, it is possible to argue that they condoned the behaviour, and it’s much harder to combine the earlier misconduct for the cumulative effect, to try to show the seriousness of the misconduct. But when it comes to dismissal, one of the main purposes of previous warnings is to show that the employee knew that they weren’t supposed to be engaging in the misconduct in question, and that the employment relationship could be t
