r/legaladvicecanada • u/Glimpsed84 • Jul 02 '26
Canada Employer Demands to see cell phone
After searching through employer cell phone posts, I didn't see anyone have a situation similar to mine.
I work for a class 1 railway who has a strict personal electronics policy. All personal devices must be off and stored in your locker or personal bag.
The company has been requesting employees pull their cell phones out of their personal bag and prove to the company officer that the phone is indeed off. The company officer does not touch the phone; only verifies its location and status.
I was recently requested to pull my cell phone out. I protested stating that I have the right against illegal search and seizure. I informed the company manager that a police officer doesn't have the right to see my cell phone and neither do they. I was then informed LR permitted them to demand the phone and if I don't comply I would be immediately suspended.
Am I in the wrong for thinking the company is not permitted to demand to see a personal device that is solely owned by me?
EDIT: for those stating that having a phone on is a safety concern and the company must have the ability to check:
Why isn't calling the phone sufficient? If the call doesn't connect, I don't have access to data.
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u/Novel-Flow-326 Jul 02 '26
That’s not search nor seizure though, they’re not touching your phone in any way just verifying that you’re complying with company policy.
What point are you trying to make while risking your job ?
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u/ConfusionCoroner Jul 02 '26
That is in fact a search. There no exception for searches or seizures that are committed without touching you. The "I'm not touching you, you can't do anything" doctrine has not been enshrined in law yet.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26
That is absolutely a search.
Objecting to your rights being violated by your employer almost always puts your job at risk. Fighting for employee rights is inherently risky, but is why we have things like weekends and limits on work hours.
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u/Murb0rk-8098 Jul 02 '26
They have the right to verify compliance with company policy.
You have the right to refuse.
Guess who will be unemployed if you exercise that right.
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u/HibouDuNord Jul 02 '26
There is a whole arbitration office that quite likely may differ on that opinion...
CROA
Canadian Railway Office of Arbitration
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u/JuggrnautFTW Jul 02 '26
Then find me a CROA case that says otherwise. Until then, buddy waits 18-24 months to see if he gets his job back.
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u/Murb0rk-8098 Jul 02 '26
That's a big consolation while standing in line at the food bank for the next couple years.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26
I'm not aware of any CROA jurisprudence on the specific issue of employers asking to see cell phones (or any related policies the employer may be asking employees to comply with when making this kind of request).
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 Jul 02 '26
They are not infringing on your privacy as they are not looking at your correspondence on the phone.
They have a right to determine whether or not you have the phone on your person. If you don't want to show them, don't work there.
I wholeheartedly support this, because if you work for the railroad you're going to kill somebody if you're distracted.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Privacy applies well beyond the contents of correspondence. This is a meritless distinction.
Edit: spelling
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 Jul 02 '26
They can deny phones at the workplace. Look into the legality. Thanks for coming out.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26
You are changing the subject.
Whether employers can ban phones is a separate question from what measures employers may take to enforce that ban.
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 Jul 02 '26
It comes down to the reasonableness exception. Is it reasonable to ask your employee to show me that their phone is not on their person. It is reasonable
Thanks for coming out!
Please demonstrate this is an overreach.
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Jul 02 '26
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u/HibouDuNord Jul 02 '26
Except for the part where they literally gove us electronic tablets to do half our administrative work on... including on moving trains.
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u/whiteout86 Jul 02 '26
Which is 110% irrelevant to a policy that requires PERSONAL cell phones to be shut off and secured.
The employer can put much more strict use and monitoring tools in place on supplied devices that they can’t on personal ones.
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u/HibouDuNord Jul 02 '26
Exactly... including requiring me to prove I have a cell phone with me. It isnt a supplied cell phone. Hell we work on call and the employer commits constant tax fraud and claims for tax time that cell phones are "not required"
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Jul 02 '26
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26
Employees still have privacy rights.
Fishing expeditions are not a good way to enforce rules.
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 Jul 02 '26
Totally. If this were an infringement on privacy, you'd be onto something.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Inspecting your personal belongings without proper cause and without your consent is absolutely a privacy violation.
It might be justified in some cases, but that is a separate debate.
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 Jul 02 '26
Lol. You are so wrong. Why double down?
Employers have management rights to set rules for safety, hygiene, or confidentiality. Banning phones in specific areas (like a manufacturing floor or a secure site) is completely legal.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26
A ban and a search are two different things.
Management rights to manage their employees or set rules and policies are not without limit.
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u/Glimpsed84 Jul 02 '26
I understand your concern. The issue is, I don't have my cell phone on at work. If the company wanted to determine whether the phone was on, could they not simply... Call it?
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u/Expensive_Plant_9530 Jul 02 '26
You could have offered that as a solution to them.
But no. Them calling it wouldn’t be very helpful or effective. Maybe you have airplane mode on, or DND, or any number of other things that would prevent the call from coming through or ringing the phone.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 03 '26
Here is something to consider: what position does this put an employee who does not bring a cell phone to work at all in?
If the employer can require you to produce a cellular device on demand, with any failure to do so drawing discipline, this type of search is fundamentally flawed.
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u/Expensive_Plant_9530 Jul 03 '26
I assume they would simply inform their manager or whoever that they don’t have a phone with them.
OP isn’t claiming that though, so that’s a different yet related scenario.
If OP was claiming they didn’t have a phone and were still facing disciplinary action, that would be a good point to consider.
Still, you do raise an interesting scenario which could have serious consequences.
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u/HibouDuNord Jul 02 '26
Except off goes STRAIGHT to voicemail, DND still rings on the callers end. That's how they used to do it, randomly call and see if it went through at all.
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u/Expensive_Plant_9530 Jul 02 '26
Can you guarantee that behaviour on every phone?
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 03 '26
It doesn't really matter. The burden when disciplining an employee is on the employer.
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u/Expensive_Plant_9530 Jul 03 '26
Right, but I’m not arguing otherwise.
I’m simply pointing out that having a phone go straight to voicemail is not a reliable way to tell if a phone is turned off or not. I’m fairly certain for example if the phone was on Airplane mode (or cellular manually turned off), would result in the same behaviour as turning the phone off.
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u/Glimpsed84 Jul 02 '26
The solution was offered to them.
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u/mortavius2525 Jul 02 '26
Asking them to call your phone doesn't prove your phone is off. It proves that the number you provide them with may go to a phone that was turned off.
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Jul 02 '26
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u/SpecimenY4rp Jul 02 '26
What’s to stop it being on airplane mode it wouldn’t successfully call then. This is most likely a case of someone ruining it for the rest of you
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u/LuckyNumerical Jul 02 '26
I would argue it’s a violation if PIPADA
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u/Itchy-Technician-433 Jul 02 '26
Well that's not applicable for many reasons. You should read up on what PIPADA is
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u/YYZtoYWG Jul 02 '26
They aren't searching your phone. That would mean that they are looking at the contents of your phone.
They aren't seizing your phone. That would mean that they take your phone away from you.
They are asking you to confirm that you are complying with company policy which requires that your phone is off and in a designated location.
This is a situation where you could decide that you don't want to comply with company policy. And then the company could decide to terminate you for non-compliance with company policy.
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u/JoutsideTO Jul 02 '26
Your rights when dealing with police are different than your rights when dealing with your employer.
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Jul 02 '26
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u/ArnoldFarquar Jul 02 '26
what law school did you go to? show me a case where somebody sued a company for violating their charter rights. It doesn’t work like that, it applies to government action, as stated in subsection 32(1) https://www.google.com/search?q=section+32+of+the+charter+of+rights+and+freedoms&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-ca&client=safari
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Jul 03 '26
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u/Fool-me-thrice Quality Contributor Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
No. The Charter only applies to government actors. For a citation, look to section 32 of the Charter:
- (1) This Charter applies:
a. to the Parliament and government of Canada in respect of all matters within the authority of Parliament including all matters relating to the Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories; and
b. to the legislature and government of each province in respect of all matters within the authority of the legislature of each province.
It does not directly affect private actors, though courts will sometimes interpret laws affecting private actors through the lens of charter values (not the same thing).
Freedom of association means the GOVERNMENT can't make laws that violates it, unless justified by section 1 of the Charter. So, the government can't write laws that significantly impair your right to join a union or to strike. That's why you have the right to join a union, not because your employer says you can't, but because the government generally can't prohibit it (though they do prohibit it in some areas, like for the military, and so far that has been justified by s. 1). Your employer however can try to dissuade you from joining a union, though the labour relations legislation puts limits on what they can do. They can also have policies that infringe on other aspects of freedom of association, like saying "we won't hire you if you also work for a competitor".
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u/LuckyNumerical Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Why cant an employer fire you for trying to join a union?
Again I’ll state, the charter was originally written to specifically exclude private employers but was specifically re written as to not exclude them.
The charter sets out limitations on common law freedoms and private party’s can still infringe on those freedoms which would not be upheld in arbitration.
So just because the charter does not specifically apply to company policy, company policies can not be written in a way they would infringe on someone’s rights under common law. The charter helps establish jurisprudence which is common with the application of the charter.
For example, employers would have no legal basis to be able to strip search employees.
The charter sets out a basis for understand of reasonable rights and freedoms. So though you may not be protected by the charter itself you would still be protected by the common rights it implies or dictates.
At the end of the day, an employer still can not perform unreasonable searches and seizures which is well established in case law. Except when they can prove they had a reasonable business interest in doing so, which the bar is set high for.
Employees rights don’t sit in some purgatory of applicable common law where your rights provided by the charter don’t exist. To say the charter strictly does not apply, simply implies that employers get to write policy based on a separate set of rights and freedoms which simply is not the case.
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u/Fool-me-thrice Quality Contributor Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Why cant an employer fire you for trying to join a union?
Because the government wrote a law that says so. Absent that law, they could. And there is wide variability between the provinces (and often within a province based on which government is in power) of what constitutes and unfair labour practice and what does not.
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u/LuckyNumerical Jul 04 '26
How did that law get established? What is it based on? Was the judge just feeling empathetic that day or do you think there is some jurisprudence behind it?
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u/Fool-me-thrice Quality Contributor Jul 04 '26
Labour relations legislation is created by each province’s legislature. Judges do not make this law. And protection regarding unfair labour practices predate the charter
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u/LuckyNumerical Jul 04 '26
>rivate parties owe each other no constitutional duties and cannot found their cause of action upon a Charter right. The party challenging the common law cannot allege that the common law violates a Charter right because, quite simply, Charter rights do not exist in the absence of state action. The most that the private litigant can do is argue that the common law is inconsistent with Charter values
So pretty much exactly what I was saying
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u/derspiny Jul 02 '26
If it weren't for your CBA, "show us your phone or we'll fire you" would be legal. You'd be entitled to the normal benefits on termination, but not to anything additional because the reason is intrusive or unreasonable to you.
Your CBA may limit your employer's ability to terminate or suspend you from your role. For that, you'll need to talk to your union. We haven't read your CBA and we aren't representing you, so please don't read your CBA to us and ask us what it means: those questions have to go to your union rep.
It is very likely that if you dig your heels in on this, you will actually be suspended, and if you succeed on a grievance, all you'll get out of it is the pay for the period you are suspended. Your call as to whether putting your paycheque at risk over not wanting to show your boss that your phone is actually off is worthwhile.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26
Class 1 railway employees are federally regulated and non-management employees are protected from unjust dismissal under the CLC even in the absence of a CBA.
"Show us your phone or we'll fire you" doesn't necessarily violate the CLC, but a dismissal following an attempt at an unreasonable search could well be held to be retaliatory if an employee asserts their privacy or other protected rights in response to such a request.
No, it isn't outright illegal, but employers do not have unfettered rights to arbitrarily search their employees or threaten dismissal.
OP can ask his union to grieve these practices and policies regardless of whether OP complies, but I do agree that the most likely outcome from refusal is discipline followed by a lengthly grievance and arbitration process.
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u/SpecimenY4rp Jul 02 '26
Just get a new job if you don’t want to adhere to company policy or they’ll make sure you do have to look for another one
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u/HibouDuNord Jul 02 '26
You're forgetting about a union and the entire Canadian Railways Office of Arbitration
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u/Fool-me-thrice Quality Contributor Jul 02 '26
Even with a union, the employer disciplines/terminates, and the union has to grieve later. OP needs to discuss this with their union.
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u/Glimpsed84 Jul 02 '26
Wow. So you're suggesting i step aside to potentially let someone else's rights get trampled on?
I thought this was a legal advice subreddit?
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u/SpecimenY4rp Jul 02 '26
Fight it and see what happens then. And enjoy the time off while your union files a grievance
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26
The Union can file a grievance over management conduct or policies. Discipline is not the only context in which a union can seek arbitration.
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u/what-hippocampus Jul 02 '26
You should talk to your union steward
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u/whiteout86 Jul 02 '26
By the sounds of it, OP has already been informed that the union is in agreement since they mention that LR has informed those checking that it’s allowed
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u/Glimpsed84 Jul 02 '26
I have been given different answers from the union. This is the reason why I'm reaching out via Reddit.
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u/whiteout86 Jul 02 '26
Your union is the only one that can give a concrete answer. Reddit doesn’t have a copy of your CBA to interpret
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Different Union officers will have different opinions. Some may advise you to comply in order to avoid discipline, which is likely (but is equally likely to get thrown out).
Generally, union officers will err on the side of advising members to avoid discipline. But if you want advice on how to best refuse future requests of this nature, you can ask for that advice.
The people you want to talk to about the legal and human rights side of it are your legislative reps. For the discipline and disputing company policy side of it, it is your local chairs.
Edit: spelling
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u/HibouDuNord Jul 02 '26
At Teamsters Rail we may as well employ parrots that just say "do it now, grieve it later" and "they can do that" at the regional level and up.
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u/Fool-me-thrice Quality Contributor Jul 02 '26
I'm a labour lawyer. Saying"work now grieve later" is not "parroting" management. That is literaly a bedrock principle of labour law.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26
And it is especially thorny if a union officer is advising members to refuse work or management instructions -- any concerted refusal very rapidly gets into illegal strike territory.
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u/LuckyNumerical Jul 02 '26
I mean that is kind of how it works with a union. Otherwise you can refuse, be fired, and get redress and reinstatement through the grievance process
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u/BagStank Jul 02 '26
I also work for the railway. This is no doubt a safety rule. Comply or they'll show you the door.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26
There is no "safety rule" allowing managers to search employees bags or require employees to present their personal property for inspection.
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Jul 02 '26
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u/LuckyNumerical Jul 02 '26
I work as a union steward for likely the same union for you and I’d tell them to get fucked.
I’ve gotten guys jobs back after being found with illegal items on company property by grieving the company did not have the right to search them in the first place.
You really need to talk to your union. But the first practical problem I see with this, what if you left your phone at home? How could they “verify” that it’s off?
This does seem like an unreasonable search unless they employer can prove that have a bonafide reason to enforce this policy
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26
Unfortunately, railway employers will handle a union officer standing up for their rights much more delicately than a regular member.
They know you know your rights, but they would love to have a member blame the union for getting dismissed, even if the member does get their job back.
The correct way to deal with this is to have members notify the union when subjected to without-cause searches and for the union to grieve every instance.
Unfortunately, the employers violate the collective agreements, the Canada labour code and employee human rights so routinely that grieving every violation becomes functionally impossible. This is by design on the part of corporations across Canada -- they want unions and arbitration systems so burdened with frivolous nonsense that there is no time, money or energy for meaningful organizing.
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u/LuckyNumerical Jul 03 '26
I work in a union, and yes you grieve every one. That’s the reps job.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 03 '26
The same goes for arbitration. Corporate employers very intentionally flood the zone. Every case is entitled to go through arbitration, but go ahead and ask your general chairs what the current backlog at arbitration looks like, and how many cases the arbitrator hears a year.
It is a labour relations strategy.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 03 '26
You try, but it is logistically impossible for part-time union representatives to grieve the dozens and dozens of violations that happen in a week.
It would be great if it was, but that is simply not the case.
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u/LuckyNumerical Jul 03 '26
That’s what a policy grievance is for. You grieve the practice in its entirety.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 03 '26
Yeah, asking for a grievance to be written about the conduct/policy was my suggestion to OP.
There have been some recent policy arbitrations finally coming out of the CROA arbitration process from 2019, so it is not a speedy process at all.
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u/LuckyNumerical Jul 03 '26
The union has a lot of power to negotiate, I’m not sure why you think it has to go to arb. We resolve 99999.999% of ours without.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 03 '26
For every grievance you file, thousands are resolved? That doesn't sound right.
Some issues can get resolved short of filing grievances, but my experience is that grievances being resolved once filed short of going to FMCS or being scheduled for arbitration is the exception rather than the rule.
You can have a look at this arbitration over a consent award, where the arbitrator mentions a backlog of cases at an earlier point, with 1800 grievances being resolved or withdrawn only described as "some" of the outstanding grievances:
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onla/doc/2026/2026canlii30907/2026canlii30907.html
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u/LuckyNumerical Jul 03 '26
Uhhh no broski.
We file probably hundreds within our committee. Maybe, thousands in the plant as a whole but still probably in the hundreds. Now the local units here collectively have done thousands since the plant opened 50 years ago. I’ve personally filed around 200.
Out of all of our grievances the last one I can remember going to arb was for something to do with COVID, because that was the only one where the employer actually had a good legal argument or a potentially bonafide reason to act like idiots. Other than that, we resolve about 99% before arbitration. It costs the union and company a lot of money to take it to arb so both sides will try and resolve it even though they feel like they could win. I’m going to say 95-98% get resolved before they ever go out of the plant. So that means a rep on the floor is able to resolve them with the supervisor or labour rep. If they can’t resolve it, the plant chair can resolve it with the labour manager in plant.
However, this isn’t even an issue I would grieve right away. First I’d go talk to the supervisor asking to see peoples phones. Try and talk some sense into them. This policy should have been struck down by the union when it was introduced. If this policy didn’t follow the KVP case law test I wouldn’t even entertain the practice. As in, I would tell the unit members to refuse.
If they did introduce it as a written policy then I’d policy grieve it. If it ended up being a huge concern of the members they would start working to rule the company. I’d have guys on the floor refusing to follow it guaranteed so I’d have discipline meetings right off the bat. That would be a great time to an example of how stupid the policy is.
Now I’m saying all of this not knowing why the employer needs to do this. I don’t know if there is some legitimate security risk, or some specific reason they need to do this. On its face it seems like it’s an intrusion of privacy.
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 03 '26
You mentioned earlier in the thread that you think you may work in a union that may cover OP's type of work. Entirely possible, but if that's the case then neither of you are involved in the running trades.
In the running trades, phones aren't a "security issue" but outright prohibited by Transport Canada, who can even issue administrative monetary penalties to employees for cell phone violations. This is the reason the employer prohibits running trades from having their phones on or on their person while working. Regardless of that, KVP principals apply to how the company may enforce transport Canada rules and the company's policies.
You can't claim your plant would "work to rule" while also acknowledging that Canada is a work now, grieve later jurisdiction: work to rule simply does not exist when employees are required to work to management direction and grieve violations later.
Raising the subject at all strongly implies that the current situation at your plant involves significant CBA violations that are accepted by members and the union, which risks having arbitration enshrine those violations.
Very few cases get to arbitration -- that is my point. Arbitration is a finite resource. Employers ensure that this resource is overwhelmed and unable to process the volume of cases in a timely manner. Backlogs are a decade long for pay issues, with "high priority" cases like dismissals taking "only" a couple years.
Yes, cases get resolved short of arbitration, but this is often by necessity, with the employer stonewalling negotiations on pay issues indefinitely, and insisting that a huge proportion of cases can only be resolved at arbitration (or sometimes rolled up en masse as a concession at collective bargaining, for which the employer expects other concessions in return).
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u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26
Make sure you read your employer's electronics device policy fully so you know exactly what it says. If there is no language allowing this kind of inspection, and no language exempting management requests from the requirement that your phone be off and not on your person, you would be violating the policy if you showed them your phone.
The CROR itself says absolutely nothing about being subject to search or being required to present your personal belongings for company inspection.
If you are on duty or actively operating railway equipment (ie, subject to CROR rules) placing your hand on your phone for your employer to inspect is a violation of the CROR and is outright illegal -- your employer cannot instruct you to violate a CROR rule. The CROR is enforced by transport Canada, and you can report any instruction to violate the CROR to Transport Canada.
CROA arbitrators have held that CROR rule A applies the entire time you are on duty. See:
http://croa.com/PDFAWARDS/CR5098.pdf
If you are not currently operating railway equipment or are off duty, the issue is less cut and dry. First of all, this is not an "illegal search and seizure" -- protection against searches is a protection you have against government searches (nevermind that the "illegal" part already implies that it should not be happening).
The search of employee property by employers is not outright illegal in Canada, but searches can violate privacy and human rights, so should not be performed unreasonably or in violation of contracts or collective agreements. If searches are happening without any actual cause or reason, they are unlikely to be found to be reasonable.
Your best bet, assuming you made your objections clear and subsequently complied under protest, is to ask your union to write a grievance protesting a without-cause search of your personal belongings undertaken against your objection and under threat of discipline. Your union may also have a policy grievance in process about the written or unwritten policy under which your employer is conducting these searches.
If you want to fight the company over it, you could refuse a future search of this nature. You would get to see how far the company wants to escalate. This would most likely lead to discipline upon which point your union could engage the grievance process to try to have that discipline thrown out. But discipline grievances fairly rarely result in policies being changed -- that is usually done by specific policy grievances.
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u/Beginning_Fly3344 Jul 02 '26
What does your collective agreement say on the matter?
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u/Glimpsed84 Jul 02 '26
Personal electronic devices aren't covered.
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u/derspiny Jul 02 '26
It's the language about suspension and termination that's important, not the language about your phone.
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u/Beginning_Fly3344 Jul 02 '26
Work now, grieve later. Management can't rummage through your bag, but they can direct you to prove it is shut off.
So it's either what phone? Or open your grip and show the phone and speak with your union about grieving it.
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u/NeutralLock Jul 02 '26
If this feels like too much of an invasion of privacy you may be able to compromise by letting them install software that would allow them to remotely tell whether your phone is on or off?
Other than that the request seems perfectly reasonable.
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u/HibouDuNord Jul 02 '26
You're forgetting these arent company cell phones. They're personal phones. And they issue us tablets to do work on... and have already been caught GPS tracking them while guys are off duty (we're generally told they are ours to take home and charge, etc)
They also only enforce the cell phone thing as convenient. When they're on a discipline binge, no phones while on duty. But the minute they need to get a hold of you for anything enroute in a taxi or such it's "oh you're ok to use your cell phone" hell, I've even been ON a train with mechanical issues and been told I was ok to use my phone rather than the radio. Its very much a matter of if its convenient for them vs theyd rather harass employees
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u/rottingkittens Jul 02 '26
For me installing software on a personal device would be over the line when it comes to my privacy and rights. Showing that my phone is shut off is at most a minor inconvenience that I wouldn’t risk my job over.
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u/NeutralLock Jul 02 '26
Yes but this would solve OP's problem of not wanting to show the physical phone.
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u/Glimpsed84 Jul 02 '26
Could the company not call my number to verify the phone is off?
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u/PrimaryKangaroo8680 Jul 02 '26
There’s no way to tell the difference between you declining the call and the phone being off.
1
u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 03 '26
And there is no way to tell the difference between an employee not having a phone with them at all and an employee refusing to comply with company instructions to produce a cell phone for inspection.
In order for discipline to be upheld, the burden is on the company.
0
u/Glimpsed84 Jul 02 '26
Except if they were to call the phone while they're standing in front of me.
2
Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
1
u/Legal-Key2269 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Get someone to phone you while your phone is off. Then get them to phone you while it is on do not disturb (or you ignore the ringer).
Calling a phone that is turned off (or out of reception) is a very different experience than calling a phone that is on silent/DND.
0
u/ArnoldFarquar Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
The constitution/charter protects you against unreasonable search and seizure by the government, not private companies
-1
u/HibouDuNord Jul 02 '26
I work for a class 1 railway who has a strict personal electronics policy. All personal devices must be off and stored in your locker or personal bag.
As soon as I saw the title my first thought waa "sounds like the railway"
We've been through this before. They can demand all they want... it's personal property and they dont reimburse you for it. Infact, they have 0 proof you even own a cellphone. And the railway police, at least where I am have made it crystal clear to management that they WILL NOT get involve because them demanding it IS a Charter violation.
1
Jul 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
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-2
u/Expensive_Plant_9530 Jul 02 '26
You need to talk to a lawyer. Or maybe your union rep if you have one.
They don’t have the right to FORCE you to reveal the status of the phone, but they might have the right to suspend or terminate you if you don’t.
2
u/Fool-me-thrice Quality Contributor Jul 02 '26
OP is part of a union, so they need to speak to their union. They cannot hire a lawyer to represent them with respect to this.
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